It is September 1961, a few weeks after the building of the Berlin Wall on 13 August. A man of medium build, with slicked-back dark blond hair and a bit of a paunch, gets off the West Berlin subway at Friedrichstrasse, the location of the main border crossing to East Berlin. The cheap fluorescent lights give his face a greenish pallor as he navigates the maze-like underground passages and walks up to the cubicles of the East German border guards. Attracting the attention of one of the officers, he asks to be arrested.

Agent Gorbachev has crossed the border many times over the three years that he has been passing secret documents to East Germany. But he has never done it quite like this. The newly constructed Wall has made it more difficult to get into East Berlin. Gorbachev is worried because he has not heard a word from his East German case officer since the Wall went up, and he needs money.

Around midnight, Major Erich Pape, the case officer, finally arrives at the train station. He reassures Gorbachev that the reason for the silence was to protect him. Gorbachev suggests another meeting to pass on more material he has collected. Pape reluctantly agrees, but warns that further meetings will have to wait until the situation stabilizes. Later, in his notes on their midnight rendezvous beneath the streets of Berlin, Pape writes that Gorbachev was slightly drunk: He had needed a few drinks to gain the courage to make the journey.