The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

At the Berlin Wall, Alec Leamas, station head of British Intelligence’s West Berlin office, is anxiously waiting for one of his local sources, Karl Riemeck, to pass from the Eastern to the Western section. Suddenly a car approaches the checkpoint. It passes through, and Leamas gets in the car to meet a woman, Riemeck’s lover. The woman reveals that the entire network of British spies in East Berlin has been rolled up by the secret police. Riemeck barely managed to escape and plans to arrive at the checkpoint via bicycle. Leamas is frustrated because the woman is not a member of the network, but Riemeck confided all his secrets to her anyway. He thinks about how he teaches his sources to be deceitful, and so they deceive him as well. He had upbraided Riemeck for involving a lover in his espionage activities, but Riemeck brushed him off. Back at the checkpoint, Leamas sees Riemeck approaching on his bicycle. He appears to be making it through, but suddenly the spotlights come on and the East German guards open fire. Riemeck hits the ground, and Leamas hopes that he is dead, rather than wounded and thus liable to capture and interrogation.