John Le Carré - The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

The house stood on a high bill. The ground fell steeply away from beneath his window, the crowns of pine trees visible above the crest. Beyond them, spectacular in their symmetry, unending hills, heavy with trees, stretched into the distance. Here and there a timber gully or firebreak formed a thin brown divide between the pines, seeming like Aaron's rod miraculously to hold apart massive seas of encroaching forest. There was no sign of man; not a house or church, not even the ruin of some previous habitation—only the road, the yellow dirt road, a crayon line across the basin of the valley. There was no sound. It seemed incredible that anything so vast could be so still. The day was cold but clear. It must have rained in the night; the ground was moist, and the whole landscape so sharply defined against the white sky that Leamas could distinguish even single trees on the farthest hills.

He dressed slowly, drinking the sour coffee meanwhile. He had nearly finished dressing and was about to start eating the bread when Fiedler came into the room.

"Good morning," he said cheerfully. "Don't let me keep you from your breakfast." He sat down on the bed. Leamas had to hand it to Fiedler; he had guts. Not that there was anything brave about coming to see him—the sentries, Leamas supposed, were still in the adjoining room. But there was an endurance, a defined purpose in his manner which Leamas could sense and admire.

"You have presented us with an intriguing problem," Fiedler observed. "I've told you all I know."

"Oh no." He smiled. "Oh no, you haven't. You have told us all you are conscious of knowing."

"Bloody clever," Leamas muttered, pushing his food aside and lighting a cigarette—his last.

"Let me ask you a question," Fiedler suggested with the exaggerated bonhomie of a man proposing a party game. "As an experienced intelligence officer, what would you do with the information you have given us?"

"What information?"

"My dear Leamas, you have only given us one piece of intelligence. You have told us about Riemeck: we knew about Riemeck. You have told us about the dispositions of your Berlin organization, about its personalities and its agents. That, if I may say so, is old hat. Accurate—yes. Good background, fascinating reading, here and there good collateral, here and there a little fish which we shall take out of the pool. But not— if I may be crude—not fifteen thousand pounds' worth of intelligence. Not," he smiled again, "at current rates."

"Listen," said Leamas, "I didn't propose this deal— you did. You, Kiever and Peters. I didn't come crawling to your sissy Mends, peddling old intelligence. You people made the running, Fiedler; you named the price and took the risk. Apart from that, I haven't had a bloody penny. So don't blame me if the operation's a flop." Make them come to you, Leamas thought.

"It isn't a flop," Fiedler replied, "it isn't finished. It can't be. You haven't told us what you know . I said you had given us one piece of intelligence. I'm talking about Rolling Stone. Let me ask you again—what would you do if I, if Peters or someone like us, had told you a similar story?"

Leamas shrugged. "I'd feel uneasy," he said. "It's happened before. You get an indication, several perhaps, that there's a spy in some department or at a certain level. So what? You can't arrest the whole government service. You can't lay traps for a whole department. You just sit tight and hope for more. You bear it in mind. In Rolling Stone you can't even tell what country he's working in."

"You are an operator, Leamas," Fiedler observed with a laugh, "not an evaluator. That is clear. Let me ask you some elementary questions."

Leamas said nothing.

"The file—the actual file on operation Rolling Stone. What color was it?"

"Gray with a red cross on it—that means limited subscription."

"Was anything attached to the outside?"

"Yes, the Caveat. That's the subscription label. With a legend saying that any unauthorized person not named on this label finding the file in his possession must at once return it unopened to Banking Section."

"Who was on the subscription list?"

"For Rolling Stone?"

"Yes."

"P.A. to Control, Control, Control's secretary; Banking Section, Miss Bream of Special Registry and Satellites Four. That's all, I think. And Special Dispatch, I suppose—I'm not sure about them."

"Satellites Four? What do they do?"

"Iron Curtain countries excluding the Soviet Union and China. The Zone."

"You mean the GDR?"

"I mean the Zone."

"Isn't it unusual for a whole section to be on a subscription list?"

"Yes, it probably is. I wouldn't know—I’ve never handled limited subscription stuff before. Except in Berlin, of course; it was all different there."

"Who was in Satellites Four at that time?"

"Oh, God. Guillam, Haverlake, de Jong, I think. De Jong was just back from Berlin."

"Were they all allowed to see this file?"

"I don't know, Fiedler," Leamas retorted irritably, "and if I were you..."

"Then isn't it odd that a whole section was on the subscription list while all the rest of the subscribers are individuals?"

"I tell you I don't know—how could I know? I was just a clerk in all this."

"Who carried the file from one subscriber to another?"

"Secretaries, I suppose—I can't remember. It's bloody months since..."

"Then why weren't the secretaries on the list? Control's secretary was." There was a moment's silence.

"No, you're right; I remember now," Leamas said, a note of surprise in his voice. "We passed it by hand."

"Who else in Banking dealt with that file?"

"No one. It was my pigeon when I joined the Section. One of the women had done it before, but when I came I took it over and they were taken off the list."

"Then you alone passed the file by hand to the next reader?"

"Yes...yes, I suppose I did."

"To whom did you pass it?"

"I...I can't remember."

" Think! " Fiedler had not raised his voice, but it contained a sudden urgency which took Leamas by surprise.

"To Control's P.A., I think, to show what action we had taken or recommended."

"Who brought the file?"

"What do you mean?" Leamas sounded off balance.

"Who brought you the file to read? Somebody on the list must have brought it to you."

Leamas' fingers touched his cheek for a moment in an involuntary nervous gesture.

"Yes, they must. It's difficult, you see, Fiedler; I was putting back a lot of drink in those days." His tone was oddly conciliatory. "You don't realize how hard it is to..."

"I ask you again. Think. Who brought you the file?"

Leamas sat down at the table and shook his head.

"I can't remember. It may come back to me. At the moment I just can't remember, really I can't. It's no good chasing it."

"It can't have been Control's girl, can it? You always handed the file back to Control P.A. You said so. So those on the list must all have seen it before Control."

"Yes, that's it, I suppose."

"Then there is Special Registry, Miss Bream."

"She was just the woman who ran the strong room for subscription list files. That's where the file was kept when it wasn't in action."

"Then," said Fiedler silkily, "it must have been Satellites Four who brought it, mustn't it?"

"Yes, I suppose it must," said Leamas helplessly, as if he were not quite up to Fiedler's brilliance.

"Which floor did Satellites Four work on?"

"The second."

"And Banking?"

"The fourth. Next to Special Registry."

"Do you remember who brought it up? Or do you remember, for instance, going downstairs ever to collect the file from them?"