The story starts out in Berlin at a checkpoint when Karl Riemeck, Leamas's last agent, is shot. Control pulls Leamas out and takes him back to London, where he is put on the shelf but given tasked with the duty to kill Mundt, who is responsible e for the death of Leamas's agents. Leamas then gets a job at a library in London, where he meets Liz Gold, who he eventually falls in love with. However, he gets sick and then he leaves her, telling her not to follow him. Leamas then falls into a more depressing part of his life and goes to prison for punching a sales clerk in the face. He is disliked by the other prisoners at jail, and when he gets out it seems that he will live a life of impoverishment until Bill Ashe, a former spy, encounters him and takes him under his wing. Meets Sam Kiever, who takes him to The Hague for interrogation by Peters. From there Leamas is taken to the East, where he is interrogated more intensively by Fielder, a member of the Abteilung. After Fiedler is done with him, he goes to Mundt himself, who locks him away. Leamas kills one of the guards and is taken to the communist court (the Tribunal).