Berlin Game

by Len Deighton

The time is the early 1980s. A highly placed agent in East Germany codenamed "Brahms Four" wants to come to the West. Brahms Four is one of Britain's most reliable, most valuable agents behind the Iron Curtain, and that he should be urgently demanding safe passage to the West sends a ripple of panic through the SIS. Bernard Samson, a former field agent, and now working behind a London desk, is tasked to undertake the crucial rescue. After all, it was Brahms Four who had once, nearly twenty years ago, saved his life.

But even before Samson sets out on his mission, he is confronted with undeniable evidence that there is a traitor among his colleagues working for the KGB. Clearly, it is someone close to the top, close to Samson himself. It could be Dicky Cruyer, his incompetent supervisor - whom Samson despises. It could be the American Bret Rensselaer, who has built his entire career around the work of Brahms Four — and who is spending an inordinate amount of time with Samson's wife, Fiona (also an intelligence officer). It could be Frank Harrington, the 'rezident' (head) of the Berlin field unit. In fact, it could be any member of the senior staff at London Central — even the Director-General himself.

Bernard travels to East Berlin to assist the escape of Brahms Four, and decides at the last moment to send Brahms Four out in his place. His suspicions of treachery prove well-founded when he is captured and subsequently confronted by his wife, who had defected and betrayed the operation.