"They know we are missing by now," Alec said, snapping the cassette player shut and tucking the tape securely into his pocket. "The schedule was tight. We should have reported in two hours ago."
"We move," Anya said simply, already pulling on her gloves with efficient movements. "We cross into Poland on foot. I know the path."
They abandoned the Lada and slipped into the thick, dark embrace of the Berezina Forest. The snow began to fall, soft at first, then heavier—a perfect, silent blanket to cover their tracks. The air was frigid, the cold biting through their coats.
The crossing was a blurred nightmare of cold, fear, and near-silence. Every snapping twig sounded like a gunshot, every distant dog bark a warning signal. They were being hunted by both sides now—traitors to the KGB, rogue agents to MI6. They had no flag to fly, no country to claim allegiance to.
They made it across the border near dawn, exhausted and half-frozen. A small, anonymous village offered a momentary refuge. It was here that Anya, utilizing skills Alec never asked about, acquired forged Polish papers and arranged passage on a freight train bound for East Berlin.
The train ride was agonizing. They huddled in a freezing carriage filled with coal dust. It was here, in the suffocating darkness, that their shared vulnerability forged a fragile, necessary trust.
"The scientist's name is Aris Thorne," Alec whispered, the name tasting like ash. "Brilliant, compartmentalized. He worked on the Trident program. If George gets him to London, we've handed them our entire nuclear deterrent on a silver platter."
"George," Anya said the name as a question, stripped of its title.
"Sir George," Alec corrected, the honorific now a curse. "My mentor. I sat at his dinner table. My life, my career, everything I thought I knew was built on his betrayal." The weight of that realization threatened to crush him. The sheer scale of the lie was staggering.
"We use the exchange to expose them," Anya decided. "The bridge is tomorrow at noon. We have to be there."
They arrived in East Berlin under the pall of the Wall itself—a concrete scar across the heart of the city. The atmosphere was thick with tension, spies moving in the open like chess pieces repositioned for an endgame.
Alec reached out to his American contact, a man named Miller who worked out of the CIA liaison office. The response was delayed, then cryptic.
“Info received. Proceed with caution. Orders are to observe. Do not interfere with scheduled events.”
"They're washing their hands of it," Alec realized, showing the telex message to Anya in a dimly lit Berlin café. "The Americans don't want to rock the boat. The 'peaceful coexistence' is more important than the truth."
"Then we are truly alone," Anya said, her expression grim but resolute. She leaned across the small, sticky table. "We have the tape. We have the motive. We just need the audience."
"The audience is the world," Alec said, a dangerous glint in his eye. "We’re going to blow the exchange sky high. We just need a way to ensure the truth makes it out when we don't."
The stage was set. The Glienicke Bridge, the infamous "Bridge of Spies," loomed in the foggy morning light, two worlds touching over frigid water ready for next act of betrayal.
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