The Spy Who Came in from the Cold s-3

by John le Carré

  She remembered that little man with the earnest, puckered face, standing at the doorway of her room and saying, "Did the Party know about you and Alec?" How silly she was. Well, this would take her mind off it.

  16

  Arrest

  Fiedler and Leamas drove back the rest of the way in silence. In the dusk the hills were black and cavernous, the pinpoint lights struggling against the gathering darkness like the lights of distant ships at sea.

  Fiedler parked the car in a shed at the side of the house and they walked together to the front door. They were about to enter the lodge when they heard a shout from the direction of the trees, followed by someone calling Fiedler's name. They turned, and Leamas distinguished in the twilight twenty yards away three men standing, apparently waiting for Fiedler.

  "What do you want?" Fiedler called.

  "We want to talk to you. We're from Berlin."

  Fiedler hesitated. "Where's that damn guard?" Fiedler asked Leamas. "There should be a guard on the front door."

  Leamas shrugged.

  "Why aren't the lights on in the hall?" he asked again; then, still unconvinced, he began walking slowly toward the men.

  Leamas waited a moment, then, hearing nothing, made his way through the unlit house to the annex behind it. This was a shoddy barrack hut attached to the back of the building and hidden from all sides by close plantations of young pine trees. The hut was divided into three adjoining bedrooms; there was no corridor. The center room had been given to Leamas, and the room nearest to the main building was occupied by two guards. Leamas never knew who occupied the third. He had once tried to open the connecting door between it and his own room, but it was locked. He had only discovered it was a bedroom by peering through a narrow gap in the lace curtains early one morning as he went for a walk. The two guards, who followed him everywhere at fifty yards' distance, had not rounded the corner of the hut, and he looked in at the window. The room contained a single bed, made, and a small writing desk with papers on it. He supposed that someone, with what passes for German thoroughness, watched him from that bedroom. But Leamas was too old a dog to allow himself to be bothered by surveillance. In Berlin it had been a fact of life—if you couldn't spot it, so much the worse: it only meant they were taking greater care, or you were losing your grip. Usually, because he was good at that kind of thing, because he was observant and had an accurate memory—because, in short, he was good at his job—he spotted them anyway. He knew the formations favored by a shadowing team, he knew the tricks, the weaknesses, the momentary lapses that could give them away. It meant nothing to Leamas that he was watched, but as he walked through the improvised doorway from the lodge to the hut and stood in the guards' bedroom, he had the distinct feeling that something was wrong.

  The lights in the annex were controlled from some central point. They were put on and off by an unseen hand. In the mornings he was often awakened by the sudden blaze of the single overhead light in his room. At night he would be hastened to bed by perfunctory darkness. It was only nine o'clock as he entered the annex, and the lights were already out. Usually they stayed on till eleven, but now they were out and the shutters had been lowered. He had left the- connecting door from the house open, so that the pale twilight from the hallway reached, but scarcely penetrated, the guards' bedroom, and by it he could just see the two empty beds. As he stood there peering into the room, surprised to find it empty, the door behind him closed. Perhaps by itself, but Leamas made no attempt to open it. It was pitch-dark. No sound accompanied the closing of the door, no click nor footstep. To Leamas, his instinct suddenly alert, it was as if the sound track had stopped. Then he smelled the cigar smoke. It must have been hanging in the air but he had not noticed it till now. Like a blind man, his senses of touch and smell were sharpened by the darkness.

  There were matches in his pocket but he did not use them. He took one pace sideways, pressed his back against the wall and remained motionless. To Leamas there could only be one explanation——they were waiting for him to pass from the guards' room to his own and therefore he determined to remain where he was. Then from the direction of the main building whence he had come he heard clearly the sound of a footstep. The door which had just closed was tested, the lock turned and made fast. Still Leamas did not move. Not yet. There was no pretense: he was a prisoner in the hut. Very slowly, Leamas now lowered himself into a crouch, putting his hand in the side pocket of his jacket as he did so. He was quite calm, almost relieved at the prospect of action, but memories were racing through his mind. "You've nearly always got a weapon: an ashtray, a couple of coins, a fountain pen— anything that will gouge or cut." It was the favorite dictum of the mild little Welsh sergeant at that house near Oxford in the war: "Never use both hands at once, not with a knife, a stick or a pistol; keep your left arm free, and hold it across the belly. If you can't find anything to hit with, keep the hands open and the thumbs stiff." Taking the box of matches in his right hand, he clasped it longways and deliberately crushed it, so that the small, jagged edges of boxwood protruded from between his fingers. This done, he edged his way along the wall until he came to a chair which be knew was in the corner of the room. Indifferent now to the noise he made, he shoved the chair into the center of the floor. Counting his footsteps as he moved back from the chair, he positioned himself in the angle of the two walls. As he did so, he heard the door of his own bedroom flung open. Vainly he tried to discern the figure that must be standing in the doorway, but there was no light from his own room either. The darkness was impenetrable. He dared not move forward to attack, for the chair was now in the middle of the room; it was his tactical advantage, for he knew where it was, and they did not. They must come for him, they must; he could not let them wait until their helper outside had reached the master switch and put on the lights.

  "Come on, you windy bastards," he hissed in German. "I'm here, in the corner. Come and get me, can't you?" Not a move, not a sound.

  "I'm here, can't you see me? What's the matter then? What's the matter, children, come on, can't you?"

  And then he heard one stepping forward, and another following; and then the oath of a man as he stumbled against the chair, and that was the sign that Leamas was waiting for. Tossing away the box of matches he slowly, cautiously crept forward, pace by pace, his left arm extended in the attitude of a man warding off twigs in a wood until, quite gently, he had touched an arm and felt the warm prickly cloth of a military uniform. Still with his left hand Leamas deliberately tapped the arm twice—two distinct taps—and heard a frightened voice whisper close to his ear in German:

  "Hans, is it you?"

  "Shut up, you fool," Leamas whispered in reply, and in that same moment reached out and grasped the man's hair, pulling his head forward and down, then in a terrible cutting blow drove the side of his right hand into the nape of the neck, pulled him up again by the arm, hit him in the throat with an upward thrust of his open fist, then released him to fall where the force of gravity took him. As the man's body hit the ground, the lights went on.

  In the doorway stood a young captain of the People's Police smoking a cigar, and behind him two men. One was in civilian clothes, quite young. He held a pistol in his hand. Leamas thought it was the Czech kind with a loading lever on the spine of the butt. They were all looking at the man on the floor. Somebody unlocked the outer door and Leamas turned to see who it was. As he turned, there was a shout—Leamas thought it was the captain—telling him to stand still. Slowly he turned back and faced the three men.

  His hands were still at his side as the blow came. It seemed to crush his skull. As he fell, drifting warmly into unconsciousness, he wondered whether he had been hit with a revolver, the old kind with a swivel on the butt where you fastened the lanyard.

  He was wakened by the lag singing and the warder yelling at him to shut up. He opened his eyes and like a brilliant light the pain burst upon his brain. He lay quite still, refusing to close them, watching the sharp, colored fragment
s racing across his vision. He tried to take stock of himself: his feet were icy cold and he was aware of the sour stench of prison denims. The singing had stopped and suddenly Leamas longed for it to start again, although he knew it never would. He tried to raise his hand and touch the blood that was caked on his cheek, but his hands were behind him, locked together. His feet too must be bound: the blood had left them, that was why they were cold. Painfully he looked about him, trying to lift his head an inch or two from the floor. To his surprise he saw his own knees in front of him. Instinctively he tried to stretch his legs and as he did so his whole body was seized with a pain so sudden and terrible that he screamed out a sobbing agonized cry of self-pity, like the last cry of a man upon the rack. He lay there panting, attempting to master the pain, then through the sheer perversity of his nature he tried again, quite slowly, to straighten his legs. At once the agony returned, but Leamas had found the cause: his hands and feet were chained together behind his back. As soon as he attempted to stretch his legs the chain tightened, forcing his shoulders down and his damaged head onto the stone floor. They must have beaten him up while he was unconscious, his whole body was still and bruised and his groin ached. He wondered if he'd killed the guard. He hoped so.

  Above him shone the light, large, clinical and fierce. No furniture, just whitewashed walls, quite close all around, and the gray steel door, a smart charcoal gray, the color you see on clever London houses. There was nothing else. Nothing at all. Nothing to think about, just the savage pain.

  He must have lain there hours before they came. It grew hot from the light; he was thirsty- but he refused to call out. At last the door opened and Mundt stood there. He knew it was Mundt from the eyes. Smiley had told him about them.

  17

  Mundt

  They untied him and let him try to stand. For a moment he almost succeeded, then, as the circulation returned to his hands and feet, and as the joints of his body were released from the contraction to which they had been subject, he fell. They let him lie there, watching him with the detachment of children looking at an insect. One of the guards pushed past Mundt and yelled at Leamas to get up. Leamas crawled to the wall and put the palms of his throbbing hands against the white brick. He was halfway up when the guard kicked him and he fell again. He tried once more and this time the guard let him stand with his back against the wall. He saw the guard move his weight onto his left leg and he knew he would kick him again. With all his remaining strength Leamas thrust himself forward, driving his lowered head into the guard's face. They fell together, Leamas on top. The guard got up and Leamas lay there waiting for the payoff. But Mundt said something to the guard and Leamas felt himself being picked up by the shoulders and feet and heard the door of his cell close as they carried him down the corridor. He was terribly thirsty.

  They took him to a small comfortable room, decently furnished with a desk and armchairs. Swedish blinds half covered the barred windows. Mundt sat at the desk and Leamas in an armchair, his eyes half closed. The guards stood at the door.

  "Give me a drink," said Leamas.

  "Whisky?"

  "Water."

  Mundt filled a carafe from a basin in the corner, and put it on the table beside him with a glass.

  "Bring him something to eat," he ordered, and one of the guards left the room, returning with a mug of soup and some sliced sausage. He drank and ate, and they watched him in silence.

  "Where's Fiedler?" Leamas asked finally.

  "Under arrest," Mundt replied curtly.

  "What for?"

  "Conspiring to sabotage the security of the people."

  Leamas nodded slowly. "So you won," he said. "When did you arrest him?"

  "Last night."

  Leamas waited a moment, trying to focus again on Mundt.

  "What about me?" he asked.

  "You're a material witness. You will of course stand trial yourself later."

  "So I'm part of a put-up job by London to frame Mundt, am I?"

  Mundt nodded, lit a cigarette and gave it to one of the sentries to pass to Leamas. "That's right," he said. The sentry came over, and with a gesture of grudging solicitude, put the cigarette between Leamas' lips.

  "A pretty elaborate operation," Leamas observed, and added stupidly, "Clever chaps these Chinese."

  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.

  Mundt's appearance was fully consistent with his temperament. He looked an athlete. His fair hair was cut short. It lay mat and neat. His young face had a hard, clean line, and a frightening directness; it was barren of humor or fantasy. He looked young but not youthful; older men would take him seriously. He was well built. His clothes fitted him because he was an easy man to fit. Leamas found no difficulty in recalling that Mundt was a killer. There was a coldness about him, a rigorous self-sufficiency which perfectly equipped him for the business of murder. Mundt was a very hard man.

  "The other charge on which you will stand trial, if necessary," Mundt added quietly, "is murder."

  "So the sentry died, did he?" Leamas replied.

  A wave of intense pain passed through his head.

  Mundt nodded. "That being so," he said, "your trial for espionage is somewhat academic. I propose that the case against Fiedler should be publicly heard. That is also the wish of the Präsidium."

  "And you want my confession?"

  "Yes."

  "In other words you haven't any proof."

  "We shall have proof. We shall have your confession." There was no menace in Mundt's voice. There was no style, no theatrical twist. "On the other hand, there could be mitigation in your case. You were blackmailed by British Intelligence; they accused you of stealing money and then coerced you into preparing a revanchist trap against myself. The court would have sympathy for such a plea."

  Leamas seemed to be taken off his guard.

  "How did you know they accused me of stealing money?" But Mundt made no reply.

  "Fiedler has been very stupid," Mundt observed. "As soon as I read the report of our friend Peters I knew why you had been sent, and I knew that Fiedler would fall into the trap. Fiedler hates me so much." Mundt nodded, as if to emphasize the truth of his observation. "Your people knew that of course. It was a very clever operation. Who prepared it, tell me. Was it Smiley? Did he do it?" Leamas said nothing.

  "I wanted to see Fiedler's report of his own interrogation of you, you see. I told him to send it to me. He procrastinated and I knew I was right. Then yesterday he circulated it among the Präsidium, and did not send me a copy. Someone in London has been very clever."

  Leamas said nothing.

  "When did you last see Smiley?" Mundt asked casually. Leamas hesitated, uncertain of himself. His head was aching terribly.

  "When did you last see him?" Mundt repeated.

  "I don't remember," Leamas said at last; "he wasn't really in the outfit any more. He'd drop in from time to time."

  "He is a great friend of Peter Guillam, is he not?"

  "I think so, yes."

  "Guillam, you thought, studied the economic situation in the GDR. Some odd little section in your Service; you weren't quite sure what it did."

  "Yes." Sound and sight were becoming confused in the mad throbbing of his brain. His eyes were hot and painful. He felt sick.

  "Well, when did you last see Smiley?"

  "I don't remember...I don't remember."

  Mundt shook his head.


  "You have a very good memory—for anything that incriminates me. We can all remember when we last saw somebody. Did you, for instance, see him after you returned from Berlin?"

  "Yes, I think so. I bumped into him...in the Circus once, in London." Leamas had closed his eyes and he was sweating. "I can't go on, Mundt...not much longer, Mundt...I'm sick," he said.

  "After Ashe had picked you up, after he had walked into the trap that had been set for him, you had lunch together, didn't you?"

  "Yes. Lunch together."

  "Lunch ended at about four o'clock. Where did you go then?"

  "I went down to the City, I think. I don't remember for sure...For Christ's sake, Mundt," he said holding his head with his hand, "I can't go on. My bloody head's.

  "And after that where did you go? Why did you shake off your followers, why were you so keen to shake them off?"