(AMERICAN WOMAN) This is a great cause, ladies and gentlemen. A truly great cause.
It is with great honour and great humility that I, as your lady chairperson,
welcome you all to this most important event in our calendar.
Welcome, and God bless you
for your support on this deeply wonderful occasion.
Forgive me,
but I truly thank you from the bottom of my heart
for your wonderful generosity in coming here tonight.
There are people who say we live in a cruel and wicked world, ladies and gentlemen.
I don't say that.
I know that isn't true when I am privileged to say thank you
for what you good, kind people are gonna do here tonight.
Adoption, ladies and gentlemen,
is a truly beautiful act.
To take into your home one of those lost, lonely and needy of God's creatures
is something truly wonderful.
And now, ladies and gentlemen,
will you welcome those little ones
whose presence here tonight
is what brought you
to the Palm Springs Humane Society's Annual Dog Adoption Dinner!
(APPLAUSE)
(BAND PLAYS "HOW MUCH IS THAT DOGGIE IN THE WINDOW?")
We shall never fly so high again, Sir Magnus.
I think we may retire also.
(MAGNUS) The whole blueprint for the nose-cone of the stealth bomber.
Very latest edition.
Congratulate me, Axel!
(AXEL) You're a truly great man.
(MAGNUS WITH AMERICAN ACCENT) We're a truly wonderful team (!)
We should retire.
Not that again!
(MAGNUS SIGHS)
We're a success. Top of the bill. We can't miss.
Oh, my heavens, Axel - the fun we're having!
You love coming to this country.
It IS Disneyland.
Where else would you ever find outdoor air conditioning?
Was any country ever easier to spy on?
I have a Cosmic Pass.
I'm cleared for everything and everywhere.
What's theirs is mine.
And what's mine is yours.
We must not be too greedy, like thieving children who steal
even when they know the police are round the corner.
That is not for us.
Isn't it?
I'd say it's been like that for the last 20 years.
Are you getting tired, Axel?
Look.
Here's a proposition for you.
I'll sell you to the CIA,
which will buy my freedom.
Then I'll set the record straight and negotiate an amnesty for you.
Then off we'll go to that farmhouse you and I admired in Pennsylvania,
me and Mary and little Tom.
The resettled family at work and at prayer.
And you, the sage old friend,
rocking on the garden swing, drinking vodka
and shelling peas for lunch.
How will that be?
My life is in your hands, Sir Magnus.
(TYPING AND BEEPING)
(BEEPING)
I'll nail you, Pym.
I'll nail you, boy.
(SPORTS STADIUM TANNOY)
(CROWD CHEERS)
(AXEL) Certain aristos in Washington and London
are getting worried about our Czecho networks.
They have begun to discern certain unfortunate patterns.
What patterns?
There are no patterns.
They have noticed
that the Czecho networks provide better intelligence when you are running them -
that is to say when WE are running them -
and almost nothing when we are not.
That is a pattern. It bothers them.
I don't see why it should. All networks go moribund now and then. It's normal.
- It bothers Washington very much. - I just don't see it.
Jack Brotherhood runs those networks now. Everybody knows he can do it as well as I can.
The head agents are genuine - that's our safeguard. They report whatever they can get.
OK, the supply drops off when we're not there to feed in the phony material.
- It's normal. It happens. - Only when we are not there.
That is Washington's perception.
We have been careless, Sir Magnus.
Give the networks better material. Signal Prague.
- Tell your aristos we need a scoop. - You know Prague.
The man who is absent is the man they conspire against.
I have no power to persuade them.
We'll just have to ride it out.
Wait.
See how far they get.
Wexler is setting up an investigation team.
Harry Wexler (!)
(MAGNUS) Harry E Wexler, who sits at the right hand of God.
Who played a star part in the Bay of Pigs show, otherwise known as the "Ziegfeld Follies".
Who fathered some of the finest intelligence cock-ups of the Vietnam War.
Who has destabilised more bankrupt economies in Central America than are dreamed of,
and supped with the greatest in the land, from the heads of the Mafia downwards.
And who is circumcised...
from the neck up.
Mick Carver, head of the London Station.
A spoilt Boston millionaire, considered brilliant on no evidence at all that I'm aware of.
Frank Artelli from the Bronx.
Whizz-kid mathematician who should be listened to...
but no one will.
And Grant Lederer III.
The pushy little lawboy from South Bend, Indiana.
An ambitious jerk who happens to be my best buddy in America - self-appointed.
He'd get between the sheets with me if I'd let him.
Little Grant is a Cassius looking for a Caesar.
If he doesn't find a back to stab soon, the agency will give his dagger to someone else.
OK. Grant, will you lead us in
with a kind of preamble to your projective hypothesis?
Sure, Harry.
Just to open up with, who is this guy, Magnus Pym?
Well, credentials couldn't be better.
Prague, Berlin, Stockholm,
Prague again, Vienna,
and now Washington - four years.
What's his job exactly?
What does he do?
Well, he's their top fieldman.
Pym travels the country.
Pym's never still.
He knows everybody.
Industrialists, science professors, soldiers.
Naval attachés.
Pym hears a lot of talk.
He sees a lot of documents. A lot of machinery.
Weaponry. Blueprints.
He gets to know what works. What fails.
What's new. What's coming up.
Pym gets to know an awful lot of what's supposed to be secret in this country.
Very secret.
What does he do with all this stuff?
Well, let's assume he makes sure London gets a side of some of it, anyway.
Anybody else?
'Fraid so.
I think Prague gets a side of everything.
(YELLING)
(THEY LAUGH)
You know, Mary, I think our two kids are in love.
Which two, Bee?
(LAUGHS) Those two fags can't keep their hands off each other.
First time they met, jackpot.
"Holy cow, Bee!" Grant says, like he's ten years old.
"That Magnus. Some person."
If I remember, Magnus said, "If that's Grant Lederer III, what were the first two like?"
Make what you like of that.
(CHILDREN LAUGH)
I've been reading a great deal recently about the creativity of the criminal mind.
It got pretty close to home, boy, I'll tell ya.
Tell me, Grant.
Quote...
"What is the difference in morality between the totally anarchic criminality of the artist
"which is endemic in all fine creative minds,
"and the artistry of the criminal?" Unquote.
- What do you say to that one? - (LAUGHS) Can't do it.
Too many long words.
Hell, Magnus, that's us!
The guy's looking at us. Sure as hell he is.
You and me, we're licensed crooks.
We place our larcenous natures at the service of the state.
Sure as hell we do.
A truly terrible admission, Grant.
I'll tell you something else about us.
We're both barking psychopaths, you know that?
I'll think about it.
Because we LIKE what we do.
Our racket's into rape and assassination and every crime there is, and we like it.
(LAUGHS)
It's a crying shame, that's what it is, as my father would say.
Cheers, Rick.
Ever thought about defecting?
Got an offer, Grant?
(GRANT LAUGHS)
I mean the nature of defecting - what it's about.
I'll tell you.
It's self-renewal.
A rebirth.
- You reckon, huh? - Know why so many defectors redefect?
It's because they're in and out of the womb all the time.
Have you noticed that about defectors -
the one common factor in all that crazy band?
They're immature.
They are LITERALLY motherfuckers.
(LAUGHS) Of course they are!
You're a genius, old son.
I'm right, Magnus. Sure as hell I am.
(CHILDREN LAUGH)
Hey, you two sweethearts! How ya doin'?
(CHILDREN SQUEAL AND LAUGH)
Stop this now!
This is exactly what I hate most about the way the Firm is going these days -
this pandering to American methods.
They come baying for Pym's blood and what have they got?
Some nasty little fanciful suspicions
based on nothing more than a few computerised coincidences!
Go one more yard with this and everyone who tells the truth will become a bare-faced liar
and everyone who does a decent job will work for the other side.
Carry on like this
and you'll sink our service better than the Russians ever could, or is that what you want?
Jack, our American cousins have put a lot of time into this.
They ARE serious.
They're not just stirring the dirty water with a stick to see what jumps out.
I believe like you that they're wrong about Pym, but we'll have to listen to them.
Face them and hear them out, then send them on their way when their case falls apart.
We're not going over there. Harry Wexler can bring his team here.
I want you at the meeting, Jack.
I want you in there punching for me, just like your usual self.
Will you do that?
(JACK) How many times has this happened to me?
- (DOG GROANS) - Around a dozen since the end of the war.
Night telegrams,
flash, for Brotherhood's eyes only.
The phone.
"Where is he, Jack? He's your man, Jack."
Now revealed as a Soviet intelligence agent, or Polish or Czech or East German.
A long wait with the codebook.
Who the hell is it?
Who?
Until up comes a name you've never heard of.
And when the expurgated case history finally lands on your desk,
what have you got?
A vague memory of some over-educated little nancy boy
in the cipher room in Warsaw
who thought he was playing the world's game
when all he really wanted was to shaft his employers.
But this is different.
Pym? For Christ's sake!
Stupid bastards!
Stupid!
(DOG WHINES)
(WHINES)
- Get up. - (DOG WHINES)
- Seek. - (DOG WHINES)
Can I do anything?
Jack...
What?
About Magnus.
What about him?
Oh...
It's nothing really.
(DOG WHINES)
(KATE) It's just that...
He'll be all right, you know. Your reputation.
As you say, it's just silly.
(DOG WHINES)
Shall I go with you?
No.
I said no!
(AMERICAN COMMENTATOR) Watch him go into that tuck!
As soon as he's out of a turn, he's back into it.
- How many kids are coming tomorrow? - Eight.
Sounds heavy.
It's called reciprocity. Or even Christmas.
(PHONE RINGS)
(MAGNUS) Hello?
Where are you?
Now?
No, stay there.
Half an hour.
See you. Bye.
(SIGHS)
Sorry.
I'll try not to be back late.
It's called Christmas.
(DOOR CLOSES)
Happy Christmas, old son!
Happy Christmas to you, too, Father.
I thought you were back in London.
Got a few coppers for your old man, have you?
How about a nice mixed grill somewhere decent?
God is the twelfth man of the cricket team, son.
It's God who tells us to keep our left elbow up through life. No one else.
So you always said.
- Steak all right? - He's umpire, judge and jury all rolled into one.
Don't you forget it.
There's no conning God. There never was.
I'm not conning God, Father.
All I'm trying to do is celebrate Christmas with my family.
Turkey?
Yes.
English bread sauce?
I expect so.
That grandson of mine all right, is he? Got the Pym forehead, has he?
The one I gave you that everybody talks about.
He's got a very good brow.
I hear first-rate reports of Mary. They say that fine property in Dorset is worth a bob or two.
I've already told you. It's in trust.
It's thanks to me you've taken your place among the highest in the land.
Why don't those fellows give you a knighthood?
Got a skeleton in your cupboard?
Maybe I ought to have a word with those personnel boys of yours.
How much do you need, Father?
There is a limit. You know that.
But I'll help, as I always have.
Denver.
Seattle.
Chicago. Boston.
San Francisco.
Who are you now?
Colonel Hanbury?
Sir William Forsythe?
A man ought to be allowed to see his own daughter-in-law.
And his only grandson.
My own boy's son.
After all, I gave you your education.
I did it all for you.
Everything was for you.
Please stop it, Rick. Just tell me how much.
I'm ill, son.
Heart, mostly.
Doctor keeps the worst of it from me.
I have to stick to plain food.
Champagne only.
No Californian.
(LAUGHS)
Do you love your old man?
Yes.
Well, then.
(RICKAND WOMEN) # Toodle-ooma-looma, toodle-ooma-looma, toodle-i-ay
# Any umbrellas, any umbrellas to mend today?
# Bring your parasol, it may be small, it may be big
# He'll repair them all with what you call a thingamajig #
(SINGING ENDS)
# Pitter-pitter-patter
# Pitter-pitter-patter... #
(SHUDDERING SIGH)
# It looks like rain
# Pitter-pitter-patter
# Don't mind the rain
- # Bring your parasols, they may be... # - Magnus?
Are you drunk?
Not much.
You're upset.
What was it tonight?
You ARE upset. What was it?
(SIGHS)
Nothing, Mabs, really.
Just an old Joe.
A very old Joe.
Who tracked me down,
feeling sentimental.
Wanting me to hold his hand.
(SIGHS)
He used to be quite a monster, that man.
Big bad wolf in the game in his time.
Bit of a ghost now.
Bit of the past come back to haunt me.
A rattling of bones in the night.
(HARRY WEXLER) Gentlemen...
Our position -
that is to say, the agency position overall on this thing -
at this important meeting and at this moment in time
is that we have an accumulation of indicators from a wide range of sources on the one hand...
...and new data on the other
which we consider pretty much conclusive
in respect of our unease.
It looks to us, therefore, like... the logistics here
require that we go back over the course a little distance,
and when we've done that,
to slot the new stuff in where we can all take a good look at it
in the light of what has latterly gone before.
If you want to do it differently, Bo, we'll try to accommodate you.
You must do exactly whatever makes you feel most comfortable.
Gentlemen, our unease concerns the period of the past four years
when the indicators aforementioned
persuaded us to make a special study of particular movements,
both signal-wise and personnel-wise,
relating to Czechoslovak intelligence and the United States of America...
...from the date when Magnus Richard Pym was appointed to your Washington Station.
Grant, tell 'em what you fed into the computer.
Names and records of all Western intelligence officers past or present in Washington
with access to the Czech target, whether central or peripheral consumers.
Names of all Czech couriers, officials, legal and illegal travellers passing in and out of the US,
plus separately entered personal descriptions to counteract false passports.
Dates and ostensible purposes of such journeys, frequency and duration of stay.
- Now... - Later, Grant.
Of course, gentlemen,
into that input we incorporated our general awareness of Czech methodology
with regard to the servicing of and communication with their agents in the field.
Ah, you mean tradecraft, Harry, do you?
Well, yes, sir. I guess that's what I do mean.
Frank, will you take it up, please?
As the indicators continued to multiply,
my section made a reappraisal of clandestine radio transmissions
beamed from the roof of the Czech Embassy in Washington.
Our people reconsidered skip distances, frequency variations and reception zones.
They matched all intercepts of that period against the movements of suspects.
Hold on, Artelli.
The point you're going to make is that every time Pym left the precincts of Washington,
whether to go on leave or to visit another town,
a particular series of coded transmissions from the Czechs was discontinued.
- Yes? - That's right.
The assumption being that if Pym was out of range of their Washington transmitter,
the Czechs wouldn't bother to talk to him?
Yes, sir.
Well, turn it round for a moment, will you?
If you were framing a man...
...isn't that precisely what you would do, too?
Not today. Ten years ago, maybe.
Why not?
I wouldn't be that dumb.
The communication techniques we observed were out of fashion.
You get a feel... a smell.
A smell of age.
A sense of long habituation, one human being to another.
Years of it, maybe.
My God. How many times do we have to put this to you?
For years there have been Czech transmissions stirring the shit pot
in any part of the globe where Pym sets foot.
Of course they coincide with his movements.
That's how you play the radio game when you're framing a man.
You persist and you repeat,
and you wait...
...until the other fellow's nerve cracks.
The Czechs aren't fools.
Sometimes I think we are.
Thank you, Frank.
Grant, will you take it up with the Pretz-Hampel-Zaworski situation?
(GRANT) So this is what we have.
Hans Albrecht Pretz. Czechoslovak journalist.
Alexander Hampel.
Identified as long-standing Czech intelligence officer.
Jerzy Zaworski. Born Karlsbad 1926. West German journalist of Czech origin.
They are all the same man.
This man, in one name or another,
has been placed in Salzburg, Linz, Athens
and every American city visited by Pym on the same dates.
It's beautiful. I'd like to find the Czech intelligence officer that thought this one up
and give him my private Oscar immediately.
Damn it all, Harry. It's the same old game.
It's guilt by coincidence.
Computerised coincidence.
Has anybody actually seen Pym chinwagging with this three-in-one myth-maker of yours?
Well, you must see our unease, Harry.
All this is no different from the radio stuff.
If we were looking to frame a man, we'd play the same game on them.
Get 'em to shoot themselves in the foot. Dead easy.
It's a set-up.
Sticks out a mile.
It's awfully tenuous, actually.
By the by, you haven't been following him over here, have you?
That would be going it a bit.
Bo, we need a piece of this.
If this is a Czech deception operation, it's the most ingenious case I've ever heard of.
Pym is a most ingenious officer.
Bo, you've got to pull Pym in and interrogate the living shit out of him.
He's fooling with our secrets as well as yours. We have some heavy questions to put to him
and some fine people trained to do it.
Harry, you have my word that if and when the time is ripe,
you and your people shall have as much of him as you want.
Maybe the moment is right now.
Maybe we should be there when he starts to sing. Hit him while he's soft.
And maybe you should trust sufficiently in our judgment to bide your time.
Well, gentlemen, we seem to have covered the ground.
Sir, not entirely, sir.
There's one more thing.
It's the psychology involved here.
Pym's father.
Sir, I know about that father. I have a father who is not, in certain ways, dissimilar.
Mine's a small-time iffy lawyer, and honesty is not his strong suit, no, sir.
But that father of Pym's is a real red-toothed crook.
A con artist.
Do you know that in New York, Richard T Pym faked a whole empire of bogus companies?
Borrowed money from the most unlikely people. Really some important people.
There's a serious strain of controlled instability here. We have a paper on this.
I mean, Jesus! Do you know Magnus made a pass at my own wife?
I don't grudge him that - she's an attractive woman - but the guy is everywhere.
Psycho-wise, he's all over the place.
That English cool of his is just veneer.
Yes, well, I always assume that businessmen are crooks - don't you, Harry?
I'm sure we all do.
Harry, why don't you and I get our heads together for an hour?
If there is to be a hostile interrogation,
I'm sure we should agree some guidelines in advance.
Nigel, why don't you come along to see fair play?
You won't all leave together, will you?
It scares the local peasants.
You'll be around later, Jack, won't you?
If I need a chat.
Jack, well put.
Well played.
We absolutely stymied them.
(SIGHS)
(GRANT) Magnus has told me a lot about you, Jack.
I guess he broke the rules, but that's how we've been.
We've really shared.
It's a great liaison. That's the crazy thing.
We really ARE the special relationship. And I believe in that.
I believe in the Atlantic Pact - the whole damn bit.
What do you want?
You remember that burglary you and Magnus did together in Warsaw?
I don't think I do, I'm afraid.
Come on, Jack. He told me.
How you lowered him through a skylight
and you had fake Polish cops on the doorstep
in case the guy came home unexpectedly?
He said you were like a father to him.
Jack...
Sir?
I can think of no greater honour than taking you out to dinner tonight. I'd be a happy man, sir.
Jack?
Mr Brotherhood?
Can I drop you somewhere?
(MAGNUS) Mabs!
- Mabs! - (MARY) What do you want?
- Come upstairs and have a drink. - Can't. I'm busy.
Don't be a difficult cow, darling.
Be nice to me.
I told you. I'm busy.
Come upstairs and be a proper wife.
Wait on me, that sort of thing.
(SHE SIGHS) Just let me finish this.
Busy, busy! It's playtime.
- Why are you so drunk? - Playtime.
An awful lot of Scotch these days, Magnus.
It's this trip to London, isn't it?
What's so special about it?
Nothing. Routine.
I don't think so.
You don't have to tell me anything you don't think I should know, but if there's trouble,
just say yes.
Nobody's going to knock my teeth out.
Just a few bloody impertinent questions, that's all.
No, Mabs. No trouble at all.
Let us just say that my organisational, administrational diligence
is to come under question.
No trouble at all.
Will Jack be there, in your corner?
(LAUGHS)
To Jack.
Yes, of course he will.
He's a bit of a sham these days, you know.
They should have retired him by now.
(SIGHS)
(BO) You'll be getting an official letter of apology in due course, Magnus, naturally.
Meanwhile, I'd like to thank you for being so patient with us all. What a silly business.
No hard feelings, I hope?
I'll think of it as a sort of review board. Quite useful in a way.
Now, as to the future. We want you to go back to your old stamping ground.
The Vienna Station. Take over your networks again.
They need you. Right, Jack?
Dead right.
- How do you feel about that, Magnus? - Fine. Whatever you want.
No doubt the Americans will stay on my tail, endlessly running me through their computers.
Let them play with their toys. So what?
(BO) Well...
Good luck, Magnus.
And thanks.
- Enjoy Vienna. - Thank you.
Do you want me, Bo, or can I take Magnus for a drink?
Of course, Jack. Of course.
Enough rope...
And we'll see.
- Traveller's do you? - Lead the way, Jack. Just get me started.
I'm going to get lost for a few days.
Quite right, old lad.
I'd do the same.
...pounds and 50 pence.
(MAGNUS) I love you, I love you.
You've never loved a woman in your life, Magnus.
We're enemy, all of us.
Oh (!)
You think I'm a con.
Maybe...
(LAUGHS)
Maybe the biggest con I know.
What do you think, Kate? Am I finished?
Is that what you think? There's no saving me?
You can have me any time, you know that.
Right from the start you knew it.
One more con will see me right. That's me, isn't it, Kate?
You're tired and you're bitter.
It was rougher than you want to admit, wasn't it?
But it's over. You're clear.
Oh, I'll win through, all right. They love me.
I've given my life to them.
But I'll always need you, Kate.
You're my lifeline.
Wait for me. I'm going to cut the cable and be free. I'll dump Mary.
We'll live abroad - France, Morocco - who cares?
I want action, Kate. We'll just go - free.
What happened to Norway and Canada?
We'll do it.
We will.
I'll write the book.
Tell it straight. Word for word. The truth.
My over-promised self set free.
(RICK) Got a few coppers for your old man, have you?
I did it all for you, son.
Everything was for you.
I did it all for you, son.
Never lie, son.
No Pym was ever a liar.
Ideals are like the stars.
We cannot reach them, but, oh, how we profit from their presence!
(APPLAUSE)
(CHEERING)
(CONDUCTOR) As far as we go, sir.
(RICK) It's Stanley Matthews dribbling down the touchline!
He beats one man, he beats two men,
he beats three men!
Son, with you beside me and God sitting up there
and the Bentley waiting to take us home,
I'm the most all right fellow in the world.
(LAUGHS)
(WOMAN) All right, all right!
Heavens, what a fuss!
There's a fuse gone. I was on the top step.
I'm really rather good at fuses.
Canterbury's my name.
Like the city.
I don't usually take casuals. That's why I keep the notice up.
You never know these days. All sorts of people.
Very sensible, Miss Dubber. If everyone was as careful... There. Try it now.
Ah! Thank you very much, Mr Canterbury. I'm very grateful.
Now, where do these steps go?
Through the parlour into the old larder out the back.
Through here.
You are cosy here.
Well, you have to look after number one in this world, Mr Canterbury!
- This way. - Right you are.
Thank you.
That'll need a new screw one of these days.
Set me on, Miss Dubber! (LAUGHS)
I'm looking for sanctuary from the corridors of Whitehall.
Somewhere to spend a few days whenever I can slip away.
I think I've found just the place.
(MISS DUBBER) You get the best view of the beach from here.
Open that window in the summer, you can even hear the band concerts.
Winston Churchill used to speak on that radio in the old days.
I'd like to think, Miss Dubber, that this room will always be mine.
I can come and go as I please, Whitehall permitting.
I'll know there'll always be a bed for me, my own key,
no one else but you allowed in to disturb things,
because they're perfect as they are.
I'll always pay six months in advance. Cash, of course. Tell the tax man what you like.
Oh, Mr Canterbury. And you from Whitehall!
(LAUGHS) Well, you've got to look after number one, Miss D!
(RICKAND MAGNUS) # Underneath the arches
# We dream our dreams away
# Underneath the arches
# On cobblestones we lay
# Daylight comes creeping
# Heralding the dawn
# Pavement is my pillow
# No matter where we stray
# Underneath the arches
# We dream our dreams away #