The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

by John Le Carré

Ashe, Kiever, Peters; that was a progression in quality, in authority, which to Leamas was axiomatic of the hierarchy of an intelligence network. It was also, he suspected, a progression in ideology. Ashe, the mercenary, Kiever the fellow traveller, and now Peters, for whom the end and the means were identical.

“Everything after that. I had to; then the Circus told the Departments. “After that,” Leamas added venomously, “it was only a matter of time before it packed up. With the Departments at their backs, London got greedy. They began pressing us for more, wanted to give him more money. Finally we had to suggest to Karl that he recruited other sources and we took them on to form a network. It was bloody stupid, it put a strain on Karl, endangered him, undermined his confidence in us. It was the beginning of the end.”

“Don’t be bloody silly,” Leamas rejoined shortly; “of course I’d have known.” This was the point he would stick to through thick and thin; it made them feel they knew better, gave credence to the rest of his information. “They will want to deduce in spite of you,” Control had said. “We must give them the material and remain sceptical to their conclusions. Rely on their intelligence and conceit, on their suspicion of one another—that’s what we must do.”

He knew what it was then that Liz had given him; the thing that he would have to go back and find if ever he got home to England: it was the caring about little things—the faith in ordinary life; the simplicity that made you break up a bit of bread into a paper bag, walk down to the beach, and throw it to the gulls. It was this respect for triviality which he had never been allowed to possess; whether it was bread for the seagulls or love, whatever it was he would go back and find it; he would make Liz find it for him.

“I’ve got bad news for you,” he said, “they’re looking for you in England. I heard this morning. They’re watching the ports.” Leamas replied impassively: “On what charge?” “Nominally for failing to report to a police station within the statutory period after release from prison.” “And in fact?” “The word is going around that you’re wanted for an offence under the Official Secrets Act. Your photograph’s in all the London evening papers. The captions are very vague.” Leamas was standing very still. Control had done it. Control had started the hue and cry. There was no other explanation. If Ashe or Kiever had been pulled in, if they had talked—even then, the responsibility for the hue and cry was still Control’s. “A couple of weeks,” he’d said; “I expect they’ll take you off somewhere for the interrogation—it may even be abroad. A couple of weeks should see you through, though. After that, the thing should run itself. You’ll have to lie low over here while the chemistry works itself out; but you won’t mind that I’m sure. I’ve agreed to keep you on operational subsistence until Mundt is eliminated: that seemed the fairest way.”

And now this. This wasn’t part of the bargain; this was different. What the hell was he supposed to do? By pulling out now, by refusing to go along with Peters, he was wrecking the operation. It was just possible that Peters was lying, that this was the test—all the more reason that he should agree to go. But if he went, if he agreed to go east, to Poland, Czechoslovakia, or God knows where, there was no good reason why they should ever let him out—there was no good reason (since he was notionally a wanted man in the West) why he should want to be let out. Control had done it—he was sure. The terms had been too generous, he’d known that all along. They didn’t throw money about like that for nothing—not unless they thought they might lose you. Money like that was a douceur for discomfort and dangers Control would not openly admit to. Money like that was a warning; Leamas had not heeded the warning.

He drove seventy kilometres in half an hour, weaving between the traffic, taking risks to beat the clock, when a small car, a Fiat probably, nosed its way out into the fast lane forty yards ahead of him. Leamas stamped on the brake, turning his headlights full on and sounding his horn, and by the grace of God he missed it; missed it by a fraction of a second. As he passed the car he saw out of the corner of his eye four children in the back, waving and laughing, and the stupid, frightened face of their father at the wheel. He drove on, cursing, and suddenly it happened; suddenly his hands were shaking feverishly, his face was burning, his heart palpitating wildly. He managed to pull off the road into a lay-by, scrambled out of the car, and stood breathing heavily, staring at the hurtling stream of giant lorries. He had a vision of the little car caught among them, pounded and smashed, until there was nothing left, nothing but the frenetic whine of klaxons and the blue lights flashing; and the bodies of the children, torn, like the murdered refugees on the road across the dunes.

“Don’t give it to them all at once, make them work for it. Confuse them with detail, leave things out, go back on your tracks. Be testy, be cussed, be difficult. Drink like a fish; don’t give way on the ideology, they won’t trust that. They want to deal with a man they’ve bought; they want the clash of opposites, Alec, not some half-cock convert. Above all, they want to deduce. The ground’s prepared; we did it long ago, little things, difficult clues. You’re the last stage in the treasure hunt.”

“One thing I can promise you: it’s worth it. It’s worth it for our special interest, Alec. Keep alive and we’ve won a great victory.”

“I should have known,” said Leamas, and his voice had the odd, faulty note of a very angry man, “I should have guessed you’d never have the guts to do your own dirty work, Fiedler. It’s typical of your rotten little half-country and your squalid little Service that you get big uncle to do your pimping for you. You’re not a country at all, you’re not a government, you’re a fifth-rate dictatorship of political neurotics.” Jabbing his finger in Fiedler’s direction, he shouted:

“I know you, you sadistic bastard; it’s typical of you. You were in Canada in the war, weren’t you; a bloody good place to be then, wasn’t it? I’ll bet you stuck your fat head into Mummy’s apron any time an aeroplane flew over. What are you now? A creeping little acolyte to Mundt and twenty-two Russian divisions sitting on your mother’s doorstep. Well, I pity you, Fiedler, the day you wake up and find them gone. There’ll be a killing then, and not Mummy or big uncle will save you from getting what you deserve.”

“This is hardly the time to philosophise,” he said, “but you can’t really complain, you know. All our work—yours and mine—is rooted in the theory that the whole is more important than the individual. That is why a Communist sees his secret service as the natural extension of his arm, and that is why in your own country intelligence is shrouded in a kind of pudeur anglaise. The exploitation of individuals can only be justified by the collective need, can’t it? I find

it slightly ridiculous that you should be so indignant. We are not here to observe the ethical laws of English country life. After all,” he added silkily, “your own behaviour has not, from the purist’s point of view, been irreproachable.”

“I’m your big success, aren’t I?” Leamas sneered. Fiedler seemed to reflect for a moment, then he shrugged and said, “The operation was successful. Whether you were worth it is questionable. We shall see. But it was a good operation. It satisfied the only requirement of our profession: it worked.”

“Nevertheless you are right to be indignant about one thing. Who told your people we had picked you up? We didn’t. You may not believe me, but it happens to be true. We didn’t tell them. We didn’t even want

them to know. We had ideas then of getting you to work for us later—ideas which I now realise to be ridiculous. So who told them? You were lost, drifting around, you had no address, no ties, no friends. Then how the devil did they know you’d gone? Someone told them—scarcely Ashe or Kiever, since they are both now under arrest.”

Most of all he asked about their philosophy. To Leamas that was the most difficult question of all. “What do you mean, a philosophy?” he replied; “we’re not Marxists, we’re nothing. Just people.” “Are you Christians, then?” “Not many, I shouldn’t think. I don’t know many.” “What makes them do it, then?” Fiedler persisted; “they must have a philosophy.” “Why must they? Perhaps they don’t know; don’t even care. Not everyone has a philosophy,” Leamas answered, a little helplessly. “Then tell me what is your philosophy?” “Oh for Christ’s sake,” Leamas snapped, and they walked on in silence for a while. But Fiedler was not to be put off. “If they do not know what they want, how can they be so certain they are right?” “Who the hell said they were?” Leamas replied irritably. “But what is the justification then? What is it? For us it is easy, as I said to you last night. The Abteilung and organisations like it are the natural extension of the Party’s arm. They are in the vanguard of the fight for Peace and Progress. They are to the Party what the Party is to socialism: they are the vanguard.

Stalin said so”—he smiled drily, “it is not fashionable to quote Stalin—but he said once ‘half a million liquidated is a statistic, and one man killed in a traffic accident is a national tragedy.’ He was laughing, you see, at the bourgeois sensitivities of the mass. He was a great cynic. But what he meant is still true: a movement which protects itself against counter-revolution can hardly stop at the exploitation—or the elimination, Leamas—of a few individuals. It is all one, we have never pretended to be wholly just in the process of rationalistic society. Some Roman said it, didn’t he, in the Christian Bible—it is expedient that one man should die for the benefit of many.” “I expect so,” Leamas replied wearily. “Then what do you think? What is your philosophy?” “I just think the whole lot of you are bastards,” said Leamas savagely.

Fiedler nodded, “That is a viewpoint I understand. It is primitive, negative, and very stupid—but it is a viewpoint, it exists. Bu...

“I don’t know. How should I know?” “Have you never discussed philosophy with them?” “No. We’re not Germans.” He hesitated, then added vaguely: “I suppose they don’t like Communism.” “And that justifies, for instance, the ...

restaurant; that justifies your write-off rate of agents—all that?” Leamas sh...

“You see, for us it does,” Fiedler continued, “I myself would have put a bomb in a restaurant if it brought us further along the road. Afterwards I would draw the balance—so many women, so many children; and so far along the road. But Christians—and yours is a Christian society—Christians may not draw the balance.” “Why not? They’ve got to defend themselves, haven’t they?” “But they believe in the sanctity of human life. They believe every man has a soul which can be saved. They believe in sacrifice.” “I don’t know. I don’t much care,” Leamas added. “Stalin didn’t either, did he?” Fiedler smiled; “I like the English,” he...

“I am glad. That is your virtue,” he said, “that is your great virtue. It is the virtue of indifference. A little resentment here, a little pride there, but that is nothing: the distortions of a tape recorder. You are objective.

“Now let me be frank,” Fiedler replied. “There are, as you know, two stages in the interrogation of a defector. The first stage in your case is nearly complete: you have told us all we can reasonably record. You have not told us whether your Service favours pins or paper clips because we haven’t asked you, and because you did not consider the answer worth volunteering. There is a process on both sides of unconscious selection. Now it is always possible—and this is the worrying thing, Leamas—it is always entirely possible that in a month or two we shall unexpectedly and quite desperately need to know about the pins and paper clips. That is normally accounted for in the second stage—that part of the bargain which you refused to accept in Holland.”

“You mean you’re going to keep me on ice?” “The profession of defector,” Fiedler observed with a smile, “demands great patience. Very few are suitably qualified.” “How long?” Leamas insisted. Fiedler was silent. “Well?”

Fiedler spoke with sudden urgency. “I give you my word that as soon as I possibly can, I will tell you the answer to your question. Look—I could lie to you, couldn’t I? I could say one month or less, just to keep you sweet. But I am telling you I don’t know because that is the truth. You have given us some indications: until we have run them to earth I cannot listen to talk of letting you go. But afterwards if things...

Leamas was so taken aback that for a moment he was silent. “All right,” he said finally, “I’ll play, Fiedler, but if you are stringing me along, somehow I’ll break your neck.” “Th...

man who lives apart, not to others but alone, is exposed to obvious psychological dangers. In itself, the practice of deception is not particularly exacting; it is a matter of experience, of professional expertise, it is a facility most of us can acquire. But while a confidence trickster, a play-actor, or a gambler can return from his performance to the ranks of his admirers, the secret agent enjoys no such relief. For him, deception is first a matter of self-defence. He must protect himself not only fro...

of a razor, though he be erudite, it can befall him to mumble nothing but banalities; though he be an affectionate husband and father, he must under all circumstances withhold himself from those in whom he should naturally confide. Aware of the overwhelming temptations which assail a man permanently isolated in his deceit, Leamas resorted to the course which armed him best; even when he was alone, he compelled himself to live with the personality he had assumed. It is said that Balzac on his deathbed enquired anxiously after the health and prosperity of characters he had created. Similarly Leamas, without relinquishing the power of invention, identified himself with what he had invented. The qualities he exhibited to Fiedler, the restless uncertainty, the protective arrogance concealing shame, were not approximations but extensions of qualities he actually possessed; hence also the slight dragging of the feet, the aspect of personal neglect, the indifference to food, and an increasing reliance on alcohol and tobacco. When alone, he remained faithful to these habits. He would even exaggerate them a little, mumbli...

Control had spread for him. It was uncanny to observe the growing identity of interest between Fiedler and Control: it was as if they had agreed on the same plan, and Leamas had been despatched to fulfill it. Perhaps that was the answer. Perhaps Fiedler was the special interest Control was fighting so desperately to preserve. In matters of that kind he was wholly uninquisitive: he knew that no conceivable good could come of his deduction...

“I’m beginning to like you. But there’s one thing that puzzles me. It’s odd—it didn’t worry me before I met you.” “What’s that?” “Why you ever came. Why you defected.” Leamas was going to say something when Fiedler laughed. “I’m afraid that wasn’t very tactful, was it?” he said.

Mundt said nothing. Leamas became used to his silences as the interview progressed. Mundt had rather a pleasant voice, that was something Leamas hadn’t expected, but he seldom spoke. It was part of Mundt’s extraordinary self-confidence perhaps, that he did not speak unless he specifically wished to, that he was prepared to allow long silences to intervene rather than exchange pointless words. In this he differed from professional interrogators who set store by initiative, by the evocation of atmosphere and the exploitation of that psychological dependency of a prisoner upon his inquisitor. Mundt despised technique: he was a man of fact and action. Leamas preferred that.