watchesthewatchers | coming in from the cold

"Lost them how?"

Tony asks, swallowing, mouth gone dry.

"Their names were given up."

He explains.

"It secured my man a promotion. He became Chief of Intelligence. The man in charge of the entire place. Every single one of our men in the country was suddenly protected, promoted. But doubts were still circling, so when Leamas came back we set him to work a long sting. He faked a disgrace for us, alcoholism, a dramatic departure, under the promise that he'd be able to kill the man who rolled Berlin. My informant." Looking up at him, adding because he's in for a penny already, "Mundt."

"Why would he be out to kill Mundt? This rolling Berlin...does that mean the same thing here as there?"

"It means they're dead." He says, bluntly. "Shot in streets, shot at border crossings. Car accidents, bar fights. Leamas worked it out and came home when Karl died, and he knew Mundt was the one that ordered them all, so he was far too happy to kill him. You always want to, when someone you're handling dies, particularly in a bloody way. There was a bike girl, just a messenger, brains all over the pavement."

A little disjointed, so he swallows and rallies.

Tony's following well enough that he doesn't nitpick on the details. Let Peter work it out, let him talk. That's what matters right now.

"Where were you in all this?"

"Working Mundt. Keeping him at bay. He was trying to get as much out of us as possible."

Explaining, quietly.

"I had Control and Smiley step in to run Leamas. I ran Mundt, they orchestrated his disgrace, firing, nervous breakdown, and had him work a temp agency. We got him a job as an assistant at a library, where he met a young girl. A German immigrant. He fell in love with her. Honestly, we didn't need him to, it would have been enough that they'd worked together, but it certainly helped."

He makes it sound like love is a perk--a tool they can choose to affix to a mission. Which is amusing for Tony, who can barely control his passions, let alone think of them as tools.

"Helped who? I mean, why roll Berlin anyway?"

"I'll get to that."

He takes a deep breath, reminds himself that this is not self-evident to Tony.

"By giving Mundt our Berlin network, we kept him a credible operative. A lauded operative, with the continued faith of his government and greater power over Intelligence there. Otherwise, if we outstripped them too abruptly, it would be obvious what had happened. The key with a mole like that is to use them effectively while keeping their government thinking they're useful. Leamas didn't know Mundt was ours, didn't know we'd given Berlin to him. So, when we asked him to, he was happy to try to kill Mundt for us."

"Oh, I follow."

He nods, and kisses Peter's neck, just grateful that he's here and alive. He'd meant it to be a quick little peck, but somehow it becomes more intimate.

"Keep talking."

"People in Germany were suspicious. As I said, the way I'd cornered him- it was a big mistake on Mundt's part, there were ripples all through the system."

Explaining, leaning into him.

"So, Leamas. A year later, alcoholic, working in a library with a pretty German girl who he happens to love. He says goodbye to her and then is arrested the next day for punching a bank manager over a refusal for credit. He's released from jail a few months later, desperate and with a record and miserably bitter against our country, and Germany steps in. They offer him a great deal of money for information about us, and he takes it and is brought over for debriefing." Adding, because Tony is normal; "They think he's theirs, he thinks he's ours, trying to kill Mundt."

Tony is glad to have him responding at all, but he whispers softly.

"Jesus."

There's no way that could have ended well for Leamas. Or Mundt, clearly. His heart skips a little when he wonders what danger Peter is in.

"What does he do in the debriefing then?"

"He gives, reluctantly. He drinks like a fish, he snarls, he's suspicious. He plays it long."

He explains, stretching out.

"I've done this before, it isn't easy, planting misinformation. You let them fixate on something you've told them, you fill the space around it with details and snarls, you disagree vehemently with the conclusions they try to draw from what you've spoken. Control and I briefed Leamas in this, in the pace of each give. He talked to them about an operation to pay a high ranking German mole out of foreign banks, he talked to them about the utter failure of our men to prosecute Mundt, his disappearance the week I turned him. He talked about the ease with which Mundt had taken Berlin. He insisted until he was blue in the face that Mundt could not possibly be one of ours because Leamas would have known, running Berlin. I never would have done that to him."

Tony pulls him back and holds him.

He doesn't want Peter putting distance between them right now, not while he's talking about this horrible thing that has happened. That he helped cause.

"You have to make them feel victorious for everything they glean. They prize it all the higher if they win it. They won proof of Mundt's treachery from Leamas, and Mundt swooped in to arrest Leamas and the men debriefing him."

He laces their fingers together tight.

"But the seeds had been sewn. The interrogations were stopped, Mundt was arrested, a hasty tribunal was set up. Leamas told them everything he'd been briefed to, and it looked for a moment like Mundt was certainly a traitor."

"And Mundt being convicted as a traitor would have been worst for you?"

He finds a knot in Peter's lower back and rubs at it.

"Mmhm. So, we sent Mundt the girl. He explained how Leamas had provided for her financially after he'd vanished, despite his cover being that he'd been so broke that he had to come over for Germany. She explained how Leamas had said goodbye forever to her, the night before he was 'spontaneously arrested.' He had. He loved her too much- he'd ordered the Circus not to provide for her financially, of course, for just that reason, but I saw to it that we did. It was evidence enough that he admitted he'd come to Berlin intending to frame Mundt."

He explains, eyes shutting.

"And there we were. A trial in Berlin dissolving, a British spy admitting he'd gone through all this, caught in the act of framing Mundt for treason. Leamas was set to be executed, and all of his 'co-conspirators' in the framing."

"Did you get him out?"

Tony is in the business of war. He was born to it, turned a calloused ear to it, reveled in it. But Ricki's and Peter's world is infinitely colder than his ever was. He killed from afar; Peter knows the names and histories of the men he allows to die.

"We tried. We really did, we were supposed to. Both of them were being moved at night; she tripped, she screamed, she was shot. He stopped to go back for the body."

He admits, scrubbing a hand over his face.

"George watched it happen. He said he thought Leamas had known. That he'd turned back not for the corpse, but to face the guns rather than come home to us."

"Love does that to people. Some people."

He strokes Peter's hair. All of this is really starting to sink in, and he doesn't know how to process it yet. He remembers the things Ricki had once said, that Tony not trusting Peter would destroy them eventually. But looking at him now, at the doubts he has, Tony only knows he wants to keep him close.

"I'm so...so sorry."

"The worst part is that Mundt is awful."

Tears are welling up.

"This neo-Nazi relic. He looked at me after it was over and said 'well, only a Jew,' and smiled, and I just."

He has never seen Peter cry. Tony pulls him down (Peter is taller by rather a lot) and holds his head against Tony's shoulder.

"Is he giving you guys what you need?"

"More than."

He admits, just wrecked.

"We have saved so many lives with him. I know the every face and name of their service."

"The day he stops being useful...I will drop him from the stratosphere for you."

He kisses Peter's temple.

"You're saving lives, Peter."

He scrubs his hand over his eyes, and takes a steadying breath.

"Leamas was a damn good spy."

"You couldn't have known the girl would scream."

But he takes Peter to the sofa and lays them down with Peter's back against his chest.

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