Original subtitles

Lesson number one.

It's not the last half mile that's the most dangerous, but the half mile before

the last half mile.

The only danger at the checkpoint was oneself.

If they were going to pick you up in East Berlin, they'd have done it already

before you got anywhere near the wall.

Crossing from the east to west, but the wrong papers.

It was Bernard Sampson I was frightened of.

Because the only thing to be afraid of here is being afraid.

The guards can smell it.

It's what they're looking for.

Lesson number two, never be quite as tired as you really are.

Being tired is the only thing I can really remember.

Who are you?

Personnel. I'd like to know my star.

Star?

Morgan.

Director of establishment.

Sitting watching old movies?

It happens to be my job.

Turning the pages of someone's life, Morgan.

It's my job.

Your career profile, Thompson.

I would want to find we've been underestimating your potential to the

department.

It says in here, accumulation of stress.

How about loss of nerve?

The difficulty is to understand the meaning of fear, real fear.

What exactly is dangerous, do you think?

Well, crossing the road can be dangerous, Morgan, if you're not

And in Berlin.

Why would I have been frightened?

Berlin was home.

Do you live in London now, Samson?

Or do you belong in London?

I belonged in Berlin.

Not anymore.

That's been a while since I've been so untidy, I find.

Any part of your life in here you'd like me to have shredded?

Not that a file is a key to a man.

There's automation on every page.

Still, something somewhere seems to have gone wrong.

Speaking for myself,

I wouldn't even attempt it.

Whoops, sorry.

Oh, it's all right, Ben. We just finished.

Anything in the German newspapers today, Bernard?

Press summary by lunchtime breath, unless you want to recommend more staff.

Projections for the East German economy and how to program one of our computers

for it.

Did you have a problem?

Invitation to lunch? Coming to Summit in the canteen today?

Oh, you know I can't stand that place.

Toad and Hole Tuesdays.

Exactly.

Bond rumours announcement of increased long -term credit for East Jones.

That's what Brett's been waiting for.

He wanted to take that, and you with him, to Cabinet Office today.

Oh, Ned.

Oh, what about?

A dozen oysters at Scott's.

Two dozen?

Oyster. Cabin of others.

Oh.

Well, the bet was won before it was made. Unfair competition, Fiona.

You know, you're going to have to tell them at the office where you got this

thing from.

Otherwise, people are going to start thinking you need investigating.

Well, if they want to investigate Daddy, they're welcome to.

Still accept his little present, though, don't you?

Cheer me up for my birthday.

I wonder what he's going to give me for mine.

Last time it was a gift wrap bottle of brandy with the compliment slip from his

stockbroker still inside.

How long before your sister realises she's under observation?

She'll be terribly embarrassed.

And don't you dare bully her.

I mean, it's so discreet. Back in the middle of Mayfair.

Did she do it to challenge her husband?

Or did she do it to challenge God?

Or is it all Daddy's fault again?

Not that that...

wimp looked substantial enough to be a father substitute.

Wasn't he some sort of FCO runner for us in Berlin office?

Runner?

Darling, Charles Trent was a foreign office undersecretary.

Scraping the hammer barrel a bit, aren't we?

He's a wicker, Mr. Axis.

He's a wicker, Mr. Axis. I'll have a dozen oysters and adobo

salt. And some of that shabby.

I'll have cotton chips and a pint of... No, I'll just have a... Don't be so...

Get lost.

I think we're about to be seen. Come on.

Boo!

No, we thought we'd join you for a glass of your bubbly.

Excuse me.

We're not interrupting anything, are we? Of course not.

Giles, you remember Fiona?

Hello, Fiona.

Hello, Giles.

Bernard Sampson, isn't it? That's right.

You were spying.

How long have you been sitting over there?

Used to be my job, Ted.

Oxford.

Catching up on God.

I never knew you were at Oxford, Zayas. I used to go to the parties.

How are the children, darling?

He used to be sort of liaison for us in Berlin, didn't you?

FCO stringer.

Odd thoughts.

And secretaries, does?

And how he is foreign and commonwealth. Under siege.

We're not much liked in Downing Street.

Who is, except the Treasury and the White House.

I hear your lot don't actually exist anymore, officially.

Must make life difficult, explaining to the bank manager who actually pays your

pittance.

Stuck in London office now, eh?

Mr. Travelling.

I saw Dicky the other day. He's getting totally whimsical, isn't he? Just like

he was in Baleville.

Because he never had any money.

Always had to try too hard.

Almost as bad as not trying hard enough.

I believe your oysters are calling, Fiona.

Sorry, old man.

You should have learned by now that you can never beat them at their own game.

I still believe it's my duty to try.

How do I get across to your yellow submarine?

You can't.

Not without desk authorization.

Or mine.

You're unusually wide awake time

Berlin, divided into sectors under military occupation by Russia, America,

France and Britain.

August the 13th, 1961.

About two o 'clock in the morning, cab drivers suddenly started reporting that

they were being stopped and questioned every time they crossed into or out of

the Russian sector.

British intelligence decided to send in two younger operatives to investigate.

You?

They found the sector boundaries manned by military patrols and large army

trucks offloading rolls of barbed wire.

A couple of days later, they started to replace the wire with the wool.

You make it sound like you've never been there.

Right, next.

Pre -direct start to station.

The weakest membrane in the wall.

Sorry, Samson, no rooms needed.

Resume lesson next week. Sim room, sim time.

This field craft stuff's all a bit old hat, isn't it?

How can you bear to be stuck in this ghastly building, putting up with idiots

like that?

Ah, but the idiots, Julie and the theft behind their desks.

They've never been on the other side of that wire.

It's like the skewer through a shish kebab at the east -west axis.

The Russians acquired the state opera, the royal palaces, and the worst slums.

The West got the zoo, the nightclubs, and the houses of the rich in the

Grindelwald.

Oh, if only it were all that simple.

It had once been part of my job to guess what frightened a man.

Now I've had five years to peel away the scab of my own fear and pick

at the tender wound of failure and come to tolerate the company of idiots.

All life has been shredded from the last time I crossed the wall.

No one can understand real fear.

Who's not walked that last 20 yards when you're past the checkpoint, but not yet

through the wire into the West.

That's when you learn the real taste of adrenaline.

I've been waiting all the damn day for you, Bernie.

I don't do it for fun.

You know perfectly well, KGB are over the wire all the time.

So I watch your tail.

You want me how I am? You give me the biggest fright of my life?

Spoiling up? Yes.

Are you picking up for the office?

Sure. You get home.

How does it feel over there?

People are nervous.

You feel all right?

I feel five years older.

You've only been gone 72 hours.

You were in Berlin all the three days?

I never moved outside the city limits, did I, Grandma?

You have a nerve, Bernie.

One day, they'll lock you up.

One day, I said to him...

I'm sorry to have kept you waiting.

Diana always liked to make out he was just the office boy.

But he and I shared a lifetime of dangerous games.

And a friendship which had begun as children under a railway bridge halfway

between the Ku'damm and Kaiserslautern.

Long before the war was ever there.

The war made coming home dangerous in Berlin.

Changing character, changing costume, changing face.

The danger of beginning to relax too much.

Home then was Berlin, and my wife and the kids.

And the landlady had always treated me like the child she never had.

And the flat at the top of her lodging house.

Up to bed.

There's a good boy.

Come and see him in the top down, all right?

Here you go.

You smell of coal fires.

Hot water.

He must be joking.

He still might stick it up now you've come home.

Werner was a bit worried about you.

Yeah.

Oh, I'm afraid Dickie's invited himself for dinner.

I'm sorry, darling.

There was nothing I could do.

You cracked Carl's horse.

The computer cracked it.

The computers don't get brownie points.

You fed the ideas in.

A little bit.

The castle was very big. You crack that, you make me redundant.

The children are waiting for you upstairs.

I always made Dickie like a hole in the head.

I'd been back for five minutes and the thinking and chattering classes were

already beating apart to my door.

And all to pick my brains because one Russian military code from their radio

transmitter at Karlshorst has been deciphered by my wife.

You silly man.

The rose and blue one in Berlin.

Tricky, dicky, crier.

Go on, Tricky.

In certain respects, the most qualified British graduate in SIS intelligence.

First class honours in bullshit.

Oh.

Charles Trent was saying that Daphne's gone home.

Oh, she's house hunting, I think.

Oh. Amazing.

Was this a posting back to London, Dickie, or another bambino? Hello,

I'm Geschenk.

For her, Samson.

Oh.

This is all wonderfully kitsch.

Now, this is where Bernie used to live when he was a bambino, Dickie.

One is not allowed to criticise.

Have you been listening?

I haven't heard a thing for three days.

Why is that? Have you been over?

Why don't you pour yourself a drink?

Things are hopping up.

You picked the right time to crack cold sauce.

I don't suppose they're showing any of this in the other zone, Tom? I wouldn't

know.

Oh. Fiona.

Hollandaise with a touch of brandy. And some more fumé.

It's actually a rather wet scrambled egg with a bit of dried kippur on it.

How's Frankfurt these days?

Actually, Frankfurt's bloody boring.

You cowboys have all the fun.

Fun?

Bill, you're hung up the gums, isn't it?

Chance would be a fine thing.

Perhaps at the German desk back home.

Oh, you have the seniority, of course.

Why the German desk?

Brett Rensselaer dropped down dead?

Brett has his eye on higher things.

I heard someone say he was here in Berlin.

Something to do with Karlshorst?

No, Dickie.

You know he's wangled himself a whole new section.

All they're going to do is to spend their entire time analysing the stuff

run in from Brahms Network.

I mean, it doesn't make sense, does it?

Obvious politics.

It's all over my head.

Serious escalation of Poland's industrial unrest, the independent trade

movement Solidarity, yesterday demanded repress on the country's security

apparatus and threatened a general spike.

Oh, no, no. As long as you get us all back in the heart.

Stick the boys in the holes.

Tell me how do you read the situation in Poland?

If the Russians were going to roll their tanks, it wouldn't be risking

opinions in opposition opinions

summit in Moscow next week.

How the hell do you know that?

Well, that's part of the information I bring back from Brahms and other

You reported it.

I've only been back three hours, you know.

You go down, all right? Yeah, he's fine.

Liesel, darf ich vorstellen, Mr. Crier.

Angenehm.

How do you do, madam?

All right, Bernie, I'll see myself out.

So, now you can take a piss rather with your Liesel. Come on.

Would you pardon, Mr. Crier, ein Kollege?

Yes, colleague and late friend.

Another in the pharmaceuticals.

What do you think is going to happen?

Poland.

It seems to me that it's the Poles who are in trouble.

Auf dich, Bernie.

Auf uns.

You've been released.

I can smell it on you.

Don't worry about the Poles.

They will survive.

They always do.

Worry instead about your Mr. Rensselaer.

Do you have a permit?

No, no, no, no, no. It's Giles Trent. He's an old friend. FCO.

Oxford and Balliol?

Yeah, that's about it.

Bernard's married to one of the Kimber Hutchinson girls.

Really? Lovely dinner last night, Bernard.

Cordon bleu, young Fiona is.

Remember me too, huh?

Watch the proctors don't catch you, Trent.

We're out of bounds to foreign office love.

He only works across the courtyard, you know. You don't have to treat him like a

bloody alien.

Dickie?

What's going on?

You didn't tell me you'd come from London last night.

Ah. Well, you're being rather previous, Bernard.

Basically, it's Karlshorst and Poland.

We don't actually know how the Polish army would react if the Russians walk

You ought to run Yuri Rostov into Gdansk.

What the hell's going on, Frank?

Yuri Rostov.

Has everyone gone crazy?

This is a London directive, laddie.

Yuri Rostov to Gdansk.

And Bernard Sampson picked to run him in. Yuri Rostov is 170 years old, Frank.

am not taking him over the wire.

Yuri's already over the wire.

He went in on a French passport.

He's waiting for you there in Gdansk to make contact with his son.

We don't know anything about his son.

Stepan Rostov.

Been in Gdansk since the 15th of August.

What about his political views?

He's a Russian -trained communications specialist.

One of the few Polish officers privy to the Warsaw Pact communiques.

Yeah, all of which would be totally irrelevant if he weren't told to us.

We won't know if we don't try.

You mean there's no indication?

You're going to send me blind into Gdansk. To turn a Polish army officer,

the only link we've got with him is his 70 -year -old father.

This is a London directive, Bernard.

What

if

I refuse to go?

Someone less competent will take your place.

I'll be generally assumed you bottled out.

You think what you like.

This operation's up and running.

London orders we obey.

Yuri Rostov is waiting for you in Gdansk.

We'd better get a move on, Werner.

Did you remember leaving Thursday?

What's the matter?

They've run Yuri Rostov into Gdansk.

What's up, Siddharth?

He's sitting there waiting for me.

Yuri's an old man.

What the hell are they doing with him?

Dickie Cryer's got London office to fix the papers for me.

But you can't do it again so soon.

I'm going to need someone over there with me, Vernon.

Better get in touch with Rolf Mauser.

Rolf Mauser?

That's normal.

He's Brahms' network, Bernie.

Tell him to leave me a car in the usual place.

A high car.

With papers for Poland.

Tell him to get himself into Gdansk and give me a rendezvous ten miles out of

town.

Brett Renslow will crucify you.

Would you rather I went alone?

Brett used to say he was a Berliner.

A pen -eyed Berliner.

One day I'll tell the poor man that ich bin ein Berliner actually means I'm a

donut.

Brett Renssel.

Even then he was a pure mid -Atlantic man by way of Oxford and Harvard.

Brett had spent his life in swivel chairs, arguing with dictating machines

smiling for committees.

He always made me feel as though my fingernails were dirty.

Berlin's a bit close to the Indians for you, isn't it, Brett?

They normally send over raiding parties for big shots like you. You got back

last night?

Did I? I don't think anybody's supposed to know about that.

Make contacts with any of our Brahms people?

Oh, I saw lots of people.

Mouser, Ralph Mouser.

Everything's fine.

The Brahms network is functioning normally.

I'd rather you had nothing on your files back home.

Saying precisely who I did or did not see.

about the security.

He leaked like a sieve.

Do?

I meant, over the years, Brett, you don't exactly have a watertight record.

Dickie Cryer has a signed directive for you from the Director General.

He's gone over my head.

What do you mean?

Directive to do what?

Your work is with Brahms, and anybody in the Brahms network is off -limits. I

want that clearly understood.

Well, if that's your directive, Brett, then I suggest you come up to the

office and tell them you're sure.

Berlin Field Ops is Frank Harrington's territory, and Frank is your problem,

Bernard.

I'll not have anyone in the Brahms network used on some madcap scheme

by Dickie Cryer and his frantic efforts to grab my job.

Up for grabs, is it?

I don't see Dickie running a German desk.

You have me to speak a language.

That's usually considered a qualification in British intelligence.

What exactly is Dickie's madcap scheme?

Strictly speaking, the promotion into my present job should be yours.

And I won't pretend I don't have influence in the choice of my successor.

One moment, Peter.

On the other hand, you used someone from Brahms' network to throw the Dickie

Kries projects.

Busted from the field, Bernard.

So help me God, I will.

Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you.

Happy birthday, dear Liesl.

Happy birthday to you.

This is bizarre.

Liesl still sees us at ten years old.

First he teases, and I'm frightened.

Then I hate to be left behind.

Even on this one, he wants to come with me.

Like you both used to tell me.

My friend, as always, I wish you were coming with me.

I trusted you.

Good

night,

Fiona. Good night, Werner.

Just Bernie.

Get some sleep.

You are going to need it.

Fall is full of Western journalists.

You'll be lost in the crowd.

I'm frightened.

Because you're frightened.

Well, Walter, look who he is here.

You're late, as usual.

Whose bad idea was all of this?

Have you found Uri?

He's not the man you remember.

He's over!

Uri is an old man, Bernd.

He sits in his hotel and won't make a move until he sees you.

The new base, the people, police, they're fighting.

They're all over town.

The Russians are sitting just inside the frontier.

A couple of tanks ready to block the road.

And half an army sitting somewhere in the woods.

So half the Red Army sits on the Polish frontier, and London Central sends a

couple of old buffers like Yuri and me on the sort of crazy game we used to

30 years ago?

You think your people in London understand what happens in Central

The Cold War has changed.

It's time you told them, Bernd, before they get us all killed.

looked so stolid.

The trouble is he'd always tell me the truth exactly like it really is and then

go on to tell me everything else I didn't want to know or remember.

But he was a good man in a crisis.

It really amused Yuri we should meet again in the middle of a demonstration

Eastern Europe surrounded by militia.

Like the good soldier he once had been, he did as he was told, however stupid.

He thought it was funny, but it sure as hell unnerved me.

And, of course, Rolf was right about Yuri.

He looked like a man who wished he'd stayed at home.

Didn't we?

Welcome to the armpit of Europe.

You, uh, wouldn't have any duty free, would you?

Well, there's not a thorn in a drop of alcohol on the cove where they were

toppling her.

It's a formidality.

It's on the wagon.

See you later.

but it doesn't feel like one of your operations.

Yuri, have you contacted your son?

I was told to wait for you to come.

Um... What's he called, your son?

Stefan.

Stefan.

How can you usually telephone him?

His birthday?

His mother's birthday? New Year's Day? When?

They do not switch off the phones.

Your son is alone with a small detachment of the maintenance corps in a

barracks on the edge of the town.

Better you do it face to face.

I tell you, if we'd been squatting outside a NATO barracks for three hours,

Bulldogs would have thrown us in a paddy wagon by now.

They don't need security yet.

It's an overflow building waiting for the Russians.

Besides, they're used to solidarity, keeping an eye on it.

There.

Of course, he's become so... Judy, make it clear. You

need to talk.

tempted so cruelly by Dickie in London.

All that way, and what it came down to was an old man meeting his son.

Perhaps, he thought, for the last.

Stay down here and make sure there's no one with him.

Just to tell him the times are dangerous for you and for his country.

To help the situation.

The information we require is to help your country, not to damage your allies.

True movements.

Standing orders for certain given circumstances.

The West does not want to make mistakes that might harm your country.

Who are you?

But you have the stars for spying now.

You can see everything from your satellites.

we can see.

The poles are a little less obvious.

Nowadays, that's life.

Smash.

Name a time and a place for seeing you again. Tonight, tomorrow, wherever,

whenever you wish.

Your father and I will stay in this hotel room.

In the hope that you may call.

See you.

What will he do?

He is your son. What will he do?

Is he going to send the Ubex up here?

Hello there.

Now, what is your ragged rag?

Couldn't find you in the hotel register.

What agency are you, I suppose?

Responsible reporting and all that, eh?

So, what are you? AP, UP, Reuters?

No, I am freelance.

Accredited? No. Oh, living dangers they are.

I'm sure you will find lots of material to send home.

Madam, my humble newspaper, if newspaper it can be called, demands I only send

them one anti -communist story per weekday and holy sex for Sunday.

you should explain to your readers that we are some socialists here.

And some of us still communists.

Polish sex.

I'm afraid you will have to find for yourself.

Excuse me.

Yes.

Anne, you must get awfully tired of Western journalism.

The news you print also finds its way back to our own people over your radio.

Journalists have served a purpose for us.

As have some of your decadent Western songs.

Do you mind if I ask you, what do you think will happen if the Russian troops

come in?

Do you believe they will come?

I don't know.

If it did happen, both the church and Solidarity will tell people to go to

place of work and adopt path of resistance.

Yes, but will... Would they obey?

I mean, initially they'd be fighting their own people, wouldn't they?

That's the Russian way of doing it.

And what have you come to see?

The Polish army killing the Polish people?

Excuse me, follow me.

If

his

son decides to talk, we're going to have to tell him the pack of flies downed.

The whole world east and west is full of life.

Ewell is an old man.

He's frightened of everything.

He doesn't think his son is the man to play the informer.

Only if he believes it's for the good.

Well, he's gonna have to convince him.

And pretty damn quick before we all get picked up.

I'm not like you to be so nervous, Bernd.

The way you came in, the car and the train, it's dangerous.

They'll find the car.

Bernd?

Yes, yes.

Yes, I understand.

Of course.

Tomorrow at eight.

much would a son risk for his father.

The worst part of any operation is the hanging around.

Hour after hour in a hotel room, waiting.

Waiting for a rendezvous in a theater.

That's bad enough.

But our theater was 300 miles on the wrong side of the frontier.