The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

In East Germany, Fiedler and Leamas are returning to the farmhouse when they see a group of three men from Berlin waiting for them. As Fiedler walks toward them, Leamas sneaks into the lodge. Before entering his own room, Leamas can tell that something is wrong, especially as the lights have gone off earlier than usual. In the darkness, he can smell cigar smoke and hear footsteps on the other side of the door. He prepares for the unseen enemy to enter, thinking of the wartime sergeant who taught him close combat. As he whispers taunts in German, someone steps in. Leamas slams his right hand into the man’s neck, dropping him to the floor (he will eventually die, or at least everyone tells Leamas as much). The lights go on, Leamas sees a group of police, and then someone knocks him out from behind. He wakes up in extraordinary pain, lying in a silent room for hours until Mundt comes in.

A guard kicks Leamas to get up, and he drives himself into the guard with all his remaining strength, before being carried to a room for further questioning. There, Mundt tells Leamas that Fiedler has been arrested and that Leamas will serve as a witness in his trial before going on trial himself. Mundt is an impressive presence, confident both in speech and silence, with a physique and expression befitting a ruthless killer. Mundt tells Leamas that his only hope is to confess that the Circus coerced him into the operation due to his embezzlement, leading Leamas to wonder how Mundt knew about those rumors. Mundt asks about the last time Leamas saw George Smiley, revealing he knows Leamas made contact at Smiley’s house after first meeting Ashe. Still in incredible pain, Leamas passes out before he can respond. He awakes on a hospital bed to see Fiedler right in front of him.

Fiedler, like Leamas, has been beaten and interrogated by Mundt and his men. Leamas and Fiedler take stock of their situation. Fiedler is disgusted that despite the weight of evidence against Mundt, the Praesidium still took his side. The tribunal will at least give Fiedler and Mundt a chance to present their side of the story, although Mundt has chosen representation. Fiedler is mainly upset that Mundt is not acting on behalf of the Party, but rather his own antisemitism and cruelty. Fiedler asks again about Leamas’s motivations, calling it his “motor,” and asks whether Leamas would have pursued the operation if it was a plot hatched by British Intelligence. When Leamas says that it depends, Fiedler is at last satisfied that he and Leamas are not so different. Leamas falls asleep and Fiedler is confident that the two of them can still take down Mundt.

In Leipzig, Liz enjoys the modest East German lifestyle. She improves on the little German she learned from her father with the help of local children. After attending Party meetings and workshops, Liz has the chance to host her own branch meeting, and to her crushing disappointment, only seven people arrive, which she regards as worse than no one coming at all. She also misses the feeling of being part of a kind of underground organization in England. As Liz prepares to leave the meeting, someone comes and asks for her, inviting her to join a special meeting of the Praesidium on the border with Poland. She gets in the car, noting its military features. 

The showdown between Fiedler and Mundt begins. Fiedler is the plaintiff with accusations of treason against Mundt, and he makes the first statement. He begins by saying that he had damning evidence against Mundt, and as soon as he revealed its existence, he was arrested and tortured into falsely confessing that it was a forgery. He reviews the details of Mundt’s career, noting Mundt’s earlier posts in Scandinavia, where he would later collect money in exchange for information to British Intelligence. Mundt is no stooge, Fiedler says; the weaknesses of his own character made him want to betray his country, and the people must demand justice. While Fiedler is speaking, Leamas supposes that one judge is on Fiedler’s side, another on Mundt’s, and that the third will decide their fates. Fiedler turns to Mundt’s time in Britain, explaining his miraculous escape from justice as the result of a quickly arranged bargain for Mundt to become a double agent. Once Mundt became head of counterintelligence, East Germany started losing agents, until the Abteilung suddenly came into the possession of a file purporting to describe everything that the British knew about East German Intelligence. To confirm Mundt’s guilt, Fiedler calls Leamas to the stand. Leamas repeats his insistence that Mundt could not have been a British agent, or else he would have known about it, but then Fiedler asks him about Rolling Stone, revealing that the bank withdrawals in Copenhagen and Helsinki match Mundt’s times there exactly. Fiedler also asks Leamas about Riemeck, specifically the time Control met him in Berlin. Leamas describes walking in on them talking after bringing back some more scotch, and how they fell silent. Dismissing Leamas, Fiedler tells the judges that Riemeck accessed his intelligence through Mundt, who directed him every step of the way. British Intelligence didn’t inform Leamas about Mundt as a security precaution. Mundt killed Riemeck when he started talking too much. Subsequently he killed Riemeck’s mistress, Elvira, who also knew too much. From his perch at the top of counterintelligence, Mundt could kill anyone he wanted, with London’s blessing, in order to preserve himself. For such a heinous crime, Fiedler concludes, death is the most merciful judgment possible.