That damned woman, thought Leamas, and that fool Karl, who’d lied about her. Lied by omission, as they all do, agents the world over. You teach them to cheat, to cover their tracks, and they cheat you as well. He’d only produced her once, after that dinner in the SchUrzstrasse last year. Karl had just had his big scoop and Control had wanted to meet him. Control always came in on success. They’d had dinner together– Leamas, Control and Karl. Karl loved that kind of thing. He turned up looking like a Sunday school boy, scrubbed and shining, doffing his hat and all respectful.
Control had shaken his hand for five minutes and said: “I want you to know how pleased we are, Karl, damn pleased.” Leamas had watched and thought, That’ll cost us another couple of hundred a year.
When they’d finished dinner Control pumped their hands again, nodded significantly and, implying that he had to go off and risk his life somewhere else, got back into his chauffeur-driven car. Then Karl had laughed, and Leamas had laughed with him, and they’d finished the champagne, still laughing about Control. Afterwards they’d gone to the Alter Fass; Karl had insisted on it and there Elvira was waiting for them, a forty-year-old blonde, tough as nails.
“This is my best kept secret, Alec,” Karl had said, and Leamas was furious. Afterwards they’d had a row.
“How much does she know? Who is she? How did you meet her?” Karl sulked and refused to say. After that things went badly. Leamas tried to alter the routine, change the meeting places and the catchwords, but Karl didn’t like it. He knew what lay behind it and he didn’t like it.
“If you don’t trust her it’s too late anyway,” he’d said, and Learnas took the hint and shut up. But he went carefully after that, told Karl much less, used more of the hocus-pocus of espionage technique. And there she was, out there in her car, knowing everything, the whole network, the safe house, everything; and Leamas swore, not for the first time, never to trust an agent again.
He went to the telephone and dialed the number of his fiat. Frau Martha answered.
“We’ve got guests at the Diirer Strasse,” said Leamas, “a man and a woman.”
“Married?” asked Martha.
“Near enough,” said Leamas, and she laughed that frightful laugh. As he put down the receiver one of the policemen turned to him.
“Herr Thomas! Quick!” Leamas stepped to the observation window.
“A man, Herr Thomas,” the younger policeman whispered, “with a bicycle.” Leamas picked up the binoculars.
It was Karl, the figure was unmistakable even at that distance, shrouded in an old Wehrmacht mackintosh, pushing his bicycle. He’s made it, thought Leamas, he must have made it, he’s through the document check, only currency and customs to go. Leamas watched Karl lean his bicycle against the railing, walk casually to the customs hut. Don’t overdo it, he thought. At last Karl came out, waved cheerfully to the man on the barrier, and the red and white pole swung slowly upwards. He was through, he was coming toward them, he had made it. Only the Vopo in the middle of the road, the line and safety.
At that moment Karl seemed to hear some sound, sense some danger; he glanced over his shoulder, began to pedal furiously, bending low over the handlebars. There was still the lonely sentry on the bridge, and he had turned and was watching Karl. Then, totally unexpected, the searchlights went on, white and brilliant, catching Karl and holding him in their beam like a rabbit in the headlights of a car. There came the seesaw wail of a siren, the sound of orders wildly shouted. In front of Leamas the two policemen dropped to their knees, peering through, the sandbagged slits, deftly flicking the rapid load on their automatic rifles.
The East German sentry fired, quite carefully, away from them, into his own sector. The first shot seemed to thrust Karl forward, the second to pull him back. Somehow he was still moving, still on the bicycle, passing the sentry, and the sentry was still shooting at him. Then he sagged, rolled to the ground, and they heard quite clearly the clatter of the bike as it fell. Leamas hoped to God he was dead.