The Assets (2014–…): Season 1, Episode 1 - My Name Is Aldrich Ames - full transcript
As the Cold War enters its final act, the CIA is sent scrambling when a rendezvous with a prized asset goes horribly awry. CIA officer Sandy Grimes begins her investigation into the source of the problem and quickly discovers that this lost asset is just the tip of the iceberg. Little does she know that this is just the beginning of a decade-long mole hunt, and the mole is one of her cohorts - Aldrich Ames.
____
____
[Door closes]
____
- ____
- A table for lunch.
- By yourself?
- No.
I'm meeting someone.
- Would you like anything to drink sir?
- No.
Actually yes.
Martini vodka straight up.
Yes sir.
[Door opens]
[Swallows]
Waiter.
[Swallows]
[Groans]
Check! Please.
I was supposed to meet one of
your attach?s 45 minutes ago.
My name is Aldrich Ames.
I work for the CIA.
I think he'll want to meet with me...
after he reads this.
____
Hartman: 21 before 9:00
right now. For most of us,
pancakes are something we eat at breakfast,
but when you call them crepes,
then add a few other things to the crepe...
Sandy: You're kidding me, right?
Nobody wears that to your school.
Everybody wears this to school.
- The boys, too?
- [Giggles]
Tell mom this is normal.
Sandy, I've been instructed to inform you
that the obscene clothing
your daughter is wearing
- is, in fact, normal.
- [Scoffs]
Dad!
I appreciate the fighting
spirit. Honest, I do.
Now go change.
[Scoffs]
Thanks for having my back.
It's us against them.
You okay?
Hey, you better hurry. You'll miss the bus.
Yeah, I got to run. Mm.
Bye.
____
Jennings: One thing
that's become very clear
about the Soviet position
in the last several months
is their outright antagonism
to the President's Star War proposal.
The Soviet threat was there this morning
on the front page of the
communist-party newspaper...
"unless there is an end
to the Star Wars project,"
said Pravda,
"there will be a new and
deadly spiral of the arms race."
Our bureau chief in Moscow, Walter Rodgers,
has a report on the overall Soviet attitude
- ____
- to negotiations.
Rodgers: The thaw in
Soviet-American relations
- has been enthusiastically
welcomed by the Soviet people.
- [Elevator bell dings]
For more than a year,
they've been told the United States
was on the brink of
launching a nuclear war.
With the superpowers now
launching disarmament talks,
the Russian people are
eager for them to succeed.
Grimes.
Staffer, Wally's office, five minutes.
Last-second heebie-jeebies.
Who panicked?
Ames.
He's got his head up his ass.
[Chuckles] You are a model of compassion.
I call them as I see them.
Which is why you have so many friends.
Oh, but you still love me, though, right?
Hey. 6:00 P.M. in Moscow.
Do you know where your case officer is?
Getting drunk with the KGB.
Oh, staffer in five minutes.
Austin's office, I know. Thanks, Louisa.
Good morning, Lorraine.
Nightly cable traffic.
Okay, two routine, one night action,
three immediate, all restricted cases.
Also, there's a staffer.
Aldrich: It's a mistake.
He doesn't want to take
the cash across the border.
Dead-dropping money inside
the Soviet Union's too risky.
The asset picks up the package
and anyone could see him with it.
But having him travel with
the money is just as bad.
There are KGB agents at
every border crossing.
Sandy, 20,000 rubles is not easy to conceal
in a dead-drop location.
If they find cash on him, they'll kill him.
Cash could be a sign of
criminal activity, not espionage.
And anyway, this is a perfect
opportunity to show him
that we are capable of
communicating with him
inside the Soviet union.
The asset code named GT Weigh
is a highly placed KGB officer.
He was a primary asset for us in the '70s.
He gave us invaluable intel
on overseas operations.
When he resurfaced 10 weeks ago,
we promised him more money,
and we need to make good on that promise.
But more than that, we
need to prove to him...
to ourselves...
that we can run a viable
operation inside KGB territory
right under their noses.
Okay. Why prove it with
such a valuable asset?
If this is a test case,
let's use a small fry.
This isn't a test case, Rick!
It's how we do business. It's what we do.
Art.
Don't look at me, Wally.
It's why they pay you the big bucks.
Drop the money.
Tell Moscow to move forward.
And keep me updated.
Sandy: Restricted access.
Immediate action traffic, Moscow station.
Proceed with GT Weigh funds
dead drop as discussed.
Update asap.
____
"Proceed with GT Weigh.
"Funds drop.
As discussed."
Here we go, chief.
Just hope they know what they're doing.
I hope we all know what we're doing.
You move with foot
traffic and you blend in,
- especially around bars.
- Understood.
Double back on every other street corner,
- two hours' worth at the very least.
- Got it.
And look for casuals... men in parked cars,
pedestrians who change
direction ahead or behind you.
You drop only when you
are positive you are black.
Absolutely positive.
Jack, I've done this before.
You be safe.
[Wings fluttering]
[Horn honks]
Traffic from Moscow station?
[Light knock on door]
Sorry about earlier.
I just... you know, I...
I didn't agree.
You're entitled to your opinion, Rick,
even if it's wrong.
[Chuckles]
Go for a smoke?
Trying to quit.
Good for you.
I wish.
Well...
Let me know how it goes, huh?
[Woman speaking Russian over P.A system]
Arthur: Grimes.
Nothing yet.
- Keep me informed.
- Yeah, first to know.
All right.
[Shouting in Russian]
[Dog barking]
You're breaking my arm!
[Barking continues]
[Door closes]
Get me up to speed.
We were proceeding with
the dead drop for GT Weigh.
KGB officer Leonid Poleshchuk.
Encrypted names only.
Oh, for crying out
loud, he's a human being.
Arthur. Follow protocol.
For GT Weigh in our operational
location in Petrovsky park.
Our case officer started
the operation at...
1420, gmt.
I was told he had two hours to
evade detection and go black.
- And then?
- He never reported back to his station chief.
Who was first contact to us?
The case officer's wife reported
that he hadn't returned home.
What time was that?
1830, gmt.
So he took two hours to go black,
filled the drop, was arrested,
and his wife took an extra two
hours grace time and called us.
Arthur: We need to face
facts here, people...
they rolled up our case officer.
They probably know why he was there.
Which means...
GT Weigh's been compromised.
Told you. This was a really bad idea.
Rick, not the moment for blame.
Whether our asset has been compromised
is a guess on our part.
Seems like an educated guess, Wallace.
Let's just focus on what we know for sure.
Where's our case officer now?
We believe he's being
held in Lubyanka prison.
Notify the state department.
Wake up the U.S. ambassador.
____
Get your hands off me! I
am an American diplomat!
I work... I work at the U.S. embassy!
I am an American diplomat! Ohh!
I work at the U.S. embassy.
[Russian accent] 20,000 rubles.
That's a lot of money.
I'm an American diplomat
working at the U.S. embassy.
I hereby request that you
call the U.S. ambassador
and alert him to this illegal detention.
Yes.
Let's talk of legality.
You are American citizen
leaving 20,000 rubles
in piece of broken concrete...
in downtown Moscow.
By any reading of Soviet law,
that speaks to impending criminal activity.
You care to explain?
I'm an American diplomat,
working for the U.S. embassy.
Perhaps it was for a woman.
Have you fallen in love
with one of our Russian beauties?
Hmm? A mistress? Hmm?
She wants you to take care of her.
That would be...
plausible cover story.
What do you think?
Or shall we just be honest
with each other? Huh?!
You are no more American diplomat
than I am comrade worker in Lada factory!
We are both spies!
And I caught you spying!
[Chair clatters]
[Chair thuds lightly]
[Sighs]
You know...
all you really have to do
to make this all better,
to be released to your family,
is confirm that the man
we arrested was your asset.
Hey. Spit it out, Grimes.
Our case officer's sitting
in a prison cell right now.
God only knows how the
KGB is interrogating him.
I'll call the state department,
they'll scream and yell,
and we'll get him out of there.
But that's not what you're
really worried about, is it?
[Door closes]
The asset... Poleshchuk.
I spent a month with him in Panama.
Wild man, drank like a fish.
But I grew to like him.
He told me this story,
said he wanted to bribe a potential recruit
with a bottle of whiskey,
but his KGB boss wouldn't pay for it.
That stuck in his craw so bad,
the next day, he volunteered for the CIA.
[Chuckles]
He's probably the only spy we ever got
for a single bottle of booze.
Well... I could be wrong.
We can't be sure he's been compromised.
Poleshchuk has a wife and children.
- He knew what he was getting into.
- Did he?
Are you so sure?
They'll haul him in front of a phony judge,
they'll stage a mock trial,
pronounce him guilty,
sentence him, and then...
They'll drag him out into a courtyard
and put a bullet in the back of his head.
Sandy...
It's not your fault.
I pushed to have him dead-drop
the money inside the USSR.
If I hadn't, maybe he'd be free now,
home with his family.
- It was the right thing to do.
- But it blew up on us!
And we have no idea why yet.
Grimes, you stay on task.
You keep your nose to the grindstone,
but mostly you keep everything
in your life separate...
work, family, assets.
You have got to compartmentalize.
I don't know if I can do that.
I don't know if I'm that person.
Well...
If you can't, this job will tear you apart.
[Door opens, closes]
Poleshchuk: There is only one
place to have a private conversation
- in entire KGB building.
- ____
And do you know where that is?
Broadcasting the name
of your employer in a bar
might not be the smartest move.
Maybe we should take this
conversation someplace else.
You and I, we could be the best spy team.
[Laughs]
Just the two of us...
Paris or maybe Tahiti.
I don't think so.
Oh.
I would be haunted forever...
if I didn't at least try.
[Glasses clink]
____
He's part of my diplomatic staff
and, by international law, has immunity.
Interpreter: You have
violated the laws and integrity
of the Union of Soviet Socialist...
We have absolute respect
for the territorial
integrity of the Soviet Union.
We make every attempt to
abide by your sovereign laws.
You are lying.
We know you run spies in my country.
This is a terrible insult
to the Soviet Union.
We would not employ a spy within
the sovereign borders of...
20,000 rubles was obviously...
- That is not the issue here.
- ... A bribe...
To get our citizens to
betray their country.
If I have to get the White
House involved, I will.
[Click]
I believe he hung up, sir.
____
You are being released from detention.
The charges against you still stand.
From this moment,
you are persona non grata in Soviet Union.
You have two hours to
collect your belongings
and leave the country.
A letter to this effect has
been sent to your embassy.
He's here, isn't he?
In the building.
In another cell.
Russians have saying about Lubyanka prison.
They call it the tallest
building in Moscow.
You know why?
Because, from the basement,
you can see all the way to Siberia.
[Laughs]
Our case officer has been
released from Lubyanka.
He has two hours to leave the country.
They're putting him on a plane right now.
[Applause]
All right. Thank you.
One crisis averted.
I'll write to all station chiefs
who handled GT Weigh in the past.
Let them know there's a possibility
- he's been compromised.
- Good.
And, Sandy...
ask them to double check their operations.
Employees with access,
communications, tradecraft...
compromise could have come from anywhere...
a tiny mistake from any of them.
You tell them to look hard.
Louisa: Uh, hey.
Austin said you had an
immediate-action cable
to go to Como?
Uh, yeah.
You knew him.
I'm sorry.
We don't know that he's been lost.
You're right. My mistake.
[Grunting]
[Grunts]
[Grunts]
[Gun cocks]
____
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____
I did everything you told me to do.
I took two hours going black.
I was alone well before I got to the park.
Is there any chance you missed your tail?
I don't think so.
No, the tradecraft was good.
Did anything strike you as different,
out of the ordinary when
you left the embassy?
They follow me out of that
embassy every single day.
Every day, it's always the same.
It was the same last night.
The KGB... they're relentless.
What about at the park, before the arrest?
Was there anything,
you know, strange or...?
I saw someone.
I thought it might have been the asset.
He waved, but then...
it all happened so fast.
Wallace: Let's take a 10-minute break.
One more thing.
My interrogator at Lubyanka
kept asking me to confirm
the name of the asset
I was dropping for, but...
I think he already knew.
Sandy: If the man in
the park was the asset,
why would he come to the dead drop?
The whole point of a dead drop
is you aren't in the same place
as your case officer, ever.
Maybe he was afraid he was under suspicion.
- He waved to warn our case officer off the drop.
- Sandy.
If that's the case,
the KGB wouldn't be
sure GT Weigh was a spy.
They'll need more proof.
Sandy, Sandy...
This came in half an hour ago...
from a low-level in-place
source at Lubyanka.
Poleshchuk was executed yesterday.
[Paper rustles]
We're gonna need a report
to take to the seventh floor
first thing tomorrow morning.
[Breathing heavily]
Jennings: President Reagan said today
that the great measure of
success at the Geneva summit
was his one-on-one conversations alone
with Mikhail Gorbachev.
The Soviets tried in a couple of ways
to stop the American program
for a missile defense in space.
[Newscast chatter]
Mom, where have you been?
I need to talk to you about Saturday night,
because Benji Parrell wants to
take me to this party, and...
Not now! [Sighs]
[Sighs]
That was bad.
I'll go apologize.
Talk?
You know I can't.
She's never around.
And when she is, she's so obnoxious.
I can't stand to be around her.
Yeah.
[Sneakers squeaking and coach chattering]
- You ready?
- I think so.
Keep it short and to the point.
Art. Sandy...
Thanks for coming.
You know the director.
It's good to see you again, sir.
Sir, as you probably know,
our dead drop to GT Weigh
was intercepted two days ago in Moscow.
Our case officer was arrested,
and we had reason to believe
our asset had been compromised.
Last night, we learned with certainty
that GT Weigh had been
executed in Lubyanka prison.
We're now beginning the process
of investigating the nature...
Let me stop you there, Sandy.
I brought you here under
slightly false pretenses.
While I do want the D.C.I.
to hear the details of the operation,
more importantly,
I wanted to fill you
all in on something else.
The compromise of GT Weigh is
just the tip of the iceberg.
The situation is far worse
than you can possibly imagine.
We've lost more assets
in the last three months
than at practically any
other time in our history.
[Manhole cover clatters]
GT Taw was an extremely successful tap
we'd been running on a
KGB phone line underground
in central Moscow.
It was a highly restricted case.
Very few people knew about it.
The line was difficult to access,
but the intel we gained
on it was invaluable...
operational detail, officer names,
locations, KGB strategic intelligence.
Three months ago,
while an officer was retrieving
tapes from a tapped line,
an alarm sounded.
We had set up the alarm
to warn case officers
in case the tap had become compromised,
which it had.
That was just the beginning.
Last month, a longtime
asset for us in Munich
was recalled by the KGB to Moscow.
They told him his grown
son had a health issue
which needed his immediate
attention back home.
When the asset called family
friends in the Soviet Union
and established that the
story about his son was false,
we recommended he be
exfiltrated immediately.
The KGB came after him, hard.
We got lucky,
and the asset escaped unharmed.
He's currently in a safe
house inside the U.S.
But GT Weigh, obviously, is not.
Either the KGB has gotten
extremely lucky of late
or we have a serious problem on our hands.
Whatever it is, we are getting hammered,
destroying our eyes and
ears inside the Soviet Union.
Not to mention killing people.
[Bag rustles]
This needs to stay in the
building as long as possible.
The President doesn't know.
The press certainly cannot know.
We need to figure this out fast.
Your team in S.E. Division
needs to get their heads back in the game
before we go completely blind
and lose the damn Cold War.
[Footsteps approaching]
Whatever it is, you will beat it.
You're the smartest, the toughest,
the most heroic woman I've ever met.
And is that okay?
I mean, do you want a
wife who can be that tough,
who compartmentalizes her life?
Family here, work there?
Who keeps secrets from the
one person she loves most?
We all keep secrets, Sandy.
Imagine how much we'd worry
if we knew every single
thing about Kelly's life...
[Chuckles]
If we knew every word she said.
Sometimes a secret keeps the hurt away.
You know, I married you...
because it was clear to me
you were out to save the world.
Whatever it took, you
would make that happen,
and that I would be
proud of you when you did.
Everyone in this family
knows why you do what you do.
But do you know why you do it?
Because you are a warrior.
Protecting your country.
You do it for us.
To keep us safe.
[Exhales]
I have to go back to the office.
[Chuckles]
I won't be waiting up.
[Sighs]
Morning, guys.
[Beeping]
The man in the park who waved.
You been here all night?
He wasn't trying to warn our
case officer off the drop.
He was making sure our
case officer saw him,
noticed him.
You didn't get any sleep, did you?
The asset was here when he waved.
The case officer said
that the KGB came from
around this building.
Well, look at the geography of the park.
The asset would have seen them.
He would've known the
KGB officers were there,
hiding, waiting, which means...
He wasn't the asset.
He was a plant, a double.
Which means...
The whole thing was a setup.
The KGB wanted to make sure
that it got reported back to us
that the asset was followed
and arrested in the park...
to make it look like they just figured out
that Poleshchuk was a spy.
Maybe that they had suspicions,
had him under surveillance,
but they knew,
and they must have known for a while.
I'd put even money
that Poleshchuk had been sitting in a jail
for a month when they executed him.
The whole operation in the
park is meant to confuse us.
Pure theater.
And they'd only put on a play if...
If they were covering up
something more important...
a lot more important.
KGB's hiding the true problem.
They have an in to the agency, Art.
They've cracked us.
[Sighs]
Go home, get some sleep. That's an order.
Oh, and, Grimes...
See you tomorrow.
[Footsteps approach]
Hey.
Want to grab an early smoke?
No. I quit... for good.
You're leaving?
Yeah. Been here a while.
Tell me... solve GT Weigh?
Not yet.
But we'll get there.
See you, Rick.
[Softly] See ya.
Gary: Wow.
Nobody leaves this house
without a nutritious breakfast.
What do they say in the commercials?
The most important meal of the day.
Now, that's a school outfit.
These are pajamas, mom.
Yeah, well, they're appropriate pajamas.
I like them. Gary?
Love them. Boys will, too.
[Chuckles]
Help yourself if you want any more.
A feast.
[Laughs] Maple syrup.
Yay.
They got an in to our setup.
We just got to peel back
the layers and find it.
Your concept?
No, a group came up with it.
Well...
Grimes, mostly.
All right.
Let's get to work, then.
Stop the bleeding.
God only knows what
they'll throw at us next.
[Bell tolling]
[Russian accent] Yes, my
name is Vitaly Yurchenko.
I am phoning you from the telephone box
in front of the embassy.
I am senior counterintelligence
Colonel in the KGB...
and I wish to defect.
____
[Door closes]
____
- ____
- A table for lunch.
- By yourself?
- No.
I'm meeting someone.
- Would you like anything to drink sir?
- No.
Actually yes.
Martini vodka straight up.
Yes sir.
[Door opens]
[Swallows]
Waiter.
[Swallows]
[Groans]
Check! Please.
I was supposed to meet one of
your attach?s 45 minutes ago.
My name is Aldrich Ames.
I work for the CIA.
I think he'll want to meet with me...
after he reads this.
____
Hartman: 21 before 9:00
right now. For most of us,
pancakes are something we eat at breakfast,
but when you call them crepes,
then add a few other things to the crepe...
Sandy: You're kidding me, right?
Nobody wears that to your school.
Everybody wears this to school.
- The boys, too?
- [Giggles]
Tell mom this is normal.
Sandy, I've been instructed to inform you
that the obscene clothing
your daughter is wearing
- is, in fact, normal.
- [Scoffs]
Dad!
I appreciate the fighting
spirit. Honest, I do.
Now go change.
[Scoffs]
Thanks for having my back.
It's us against them.
You okay?
Hey, you better hurry. You'll miss the bus.
Yeah, I got to run. Mm.
Bye.
____
Jennings: One thing
that's become very clear
about the Soviet position
in the last several months
is their outright antagonism
to the President's Star War proposal.
The Soviet threat was there this morning
on the front page of the
communist-party newspaper...
"unless there is an end
to the Star Wars project,"
said Pravda,
"there will be a new and
deadly spiral of the arms race."
Our bureau chief in Moscow, Walter Rodgers,
has a report on the overall Soviet attitude
- ____
- to negotiations.
Rodgers: The thaw in
Soviet-American relations
- has been enthusiastically
welcomed by the Soviet people.
- [Elevator bell dings]
For more than a year,
they've been told the United States
was on the brink of
launching a nuclear war.
With the superpowers now
launching disarmament talks,
the Russian people are
eager for them to succeed.
Grimes.
Staffer, Wally's office, five minutes.
Last-second heebie-jeebies.
Who panicked?
Ames.
He's got his head up his ass.
[Chuckles] You are a model of compassion.
I call them as I see them.
Which is why you have so many friends.
Oh, but you still love me, though, right?
Hey. 6:00 P.M. in Moscow.
Do you know where your case officer is?
Getting drunk with the KGB.
Oh, staffer in five minutes.
Austin's office, I know. Thanks, Louisa.
Good morning, Lorraine.
Nightly cable traffic.
Okay, two routine, one night action,
three immediate, all restricted cases.
Also, there's a staffer.
Aldrich: It's a mistake.
He doesn't want to take
the cash across the border.
Dead-dropping money inside
the Soviet Union's too risky.
The asset picks up the package
and anyone could see him with it.
But having him travel with
the money is just as bad.
There are KGB agents at
every border crossing.
Sandy, 20,000 rubles is not easy to conceal
in a dead-drop location.
If they find cash on him, they'll kill him.
Cash could be a sign of
criminal activity, not espionage.
And anyway, this is a perfect
opportunity to show him
that we are capable of
communicating with him
inside the Soviet union.
The asset code named GT Weigh
is a highly placed KGB officer.
He was a primary asset for us in the '70s.
He gave us invaluable intel
on overseas operations.
When he resurfaced 10 weeks ago,
we promised him more money,
and we need to make good on that promise.
But more than that, we
need to prove to him...
to ourselves...
that we can run a viable
operation inside KGB territory
right under their noses.
Okay. Why prove it with
such a valuable asset?
If this is a test case,
let's use a small fry.
This isn't a test case, Rick!
It's how we do business. It's what we do.
Art.
Don't look at me, Wally.
It's why they pay you the big bucks.
Drop the money.
Tell Moscow to move forward.
And keep me updated.
Sandy: Restricted access.
Immediate action traffic, Moscow station.
Proceed with GT Weigh funds
dead drop as discussed.
Update asap.
____
"Proceed with GT Weigh.
"Funds drop.
As discussed."
Here we go, chief.
Just hope they know what they're doing.
I hope we all know what we're doing.
You move with foot
traffic and you blend in,
- especially around bars.
- Understood.
Double back on every other street corner,
- two hours' worth at the very least.
- Got it.
And look for casuals... men in parked cars,
pedestrians who change
direction ahead or behind you.
You drop only when you
are positive you are black.
Absolutely positive.
Jack, I've done this before.
You be safe.
[Wings fluttering]
[Horn honks]
Traffic from Moscow station?
[Light knock on door]
Sorry about earlier.
I just... you know, I...
I didn't agree.
You're entitled to your opinion, Rick,
even if it's wrong.
[Chuckles]
Go for a smoke?
Trying to quit.
Good for you.
I wish.
Well...
Let me know how it goes, huh?
[Woman speaking Russian over P.A system]
Arthur: Grimes.
Nothing yet.
- Keep me informed.
- Yeah, first to know.
All right.
[Shouting in Russian]
[Dog barking]
You're breaking my arm!
[Barking continues]
[Door closes]
Get me up to speed.
We were proceeding with
the dead drop for GT Weigh.
KGB officer Leonid Poleshchuk.
Encrypted names only.
Oh, for crying out
loud, he's a human being.
Arthur. Follow protocol.
For GT Weigh in our operational
location in Petrovsky park.
Our case officer started
the operation at...
1420, gmt.
I was told he had two hours to
evade detection and go black.
- And then?
- He never reported back to his station chief.
Who was first contact to us?
The case officer's wife reported
that he hadn't returned home.
What time was that?
1830, gmt.
So he took two hours to go black,
filled the drop, was arrested,
and his wife took an extra two
hours grace time and called us.
Arthur: We need to face
facts here, people...
they rolled up our case officer.
They probably know why he was there.
Which means...
GT Weigh's been compromised.
Told you. This was a really bad idea.
Rick, not the moment for blame.
Whether our asset has been compromised
is a guess on our part.
Seems like an educated guess, Wallace.
Let's just focus on what we know for sure.
Where's our case officer now?
We believe he's being
held in Lubyanka prison.
Notify the state department.
Wake up the U.S. ambassador.
____
Get your hands off me! I
am an American diplomat!
I work... I work at the U.S. embassy!
I am an American diplomat! Ohh!
I work at the U.S. embassy.
[Russian accent] 20,000 rubles.
That's a lot of money.
I'm an American diplomat
working at the U.S. embassy.
I hereby request that you
call the U.S. ambassador
and alert him to this illegal detention.
Yes.
Let's talk of legality.
You are American citizen
leaving 20,000 rubles
in piece of broken concrete...
in downtown Moscow.
By any reading of Soviet law,
that speaks to impending criminal activity.
You care to explain?
I'm an American diplomat,
working for the U.S. embassy.
Perhaps it was for a woman.
Have you fallen in love
with one of our Russian beauties?
Hmm? A mistress? Hmm?
She wants you to take care of her.
That would be...
plausible cover story.
What do you think?
Or shall we just be honest
with each other? Huh?!
You are no more American diplomat
than I am comrade worker in Lada factory!
We are both spies!
And I caught you spying!
[Chair clatters]
[Chair thuds lightly]
[Sighs]
You know...
all you really have to do
to make this all better,
to be released to your family,
is confirm that the man
we arrested was your asset.
Hey. Spit it out, Grimes.
Our case officer's sitting
in a prison cell right now.
God only knows how the
KGB is interrogating him.
I'll call the state department,
they'll scream and yell,
and we'll get him out of there.
But that's not what you're
really worried about, is it?
[Door closes]
The asset... Poleshchuk.
I spent a month with him in Panama.
Wild man, drank like a fish.
But I grew to like him.
He told me this story,
said he wanted to bribe a potential recruit
with a bottle of whiskey,
but his KGB boss wouldn't pay for it.
That stuck in his craw so bad,
the next day, he volunteered for the CIA.
[Chuckles]
He's probably the only spy we ever got
for a single bottle of booze.
Well... I could be wrong.
We can't be sure he's been compromised.
Poleshchuk has a wife and children.
- He knew what he was getting into.
- Did he?
Are you so sure?
They'll haul him in front of a phony judge,
they'll stage a mock trial,
pronounce him guilty,
sentence him, and then...
They'll drag him out into a courtyard
and put a bullet in the back of his head.
Sandy...
It's not your fault.
I pushed to have him dead-drop
the money inside the USSR.
If I hadn't, maybe he'd be free now,
home with his family.
- It was the right thing to do.
- But it blew up on us!
And we have no idea why yet.
Grimes, you stay on task.
You keep your nose to the grindstone,
but mostly you keep everything
in your life separate...
work, family, assets.
You have got to compartmentalize.
I don't know if I can do that.
I don't know if I'm that person.
Well...
If you can't, this job will tear you apart.
[Door opens, closes]
Poleshchuk: There is only one
place to have a private conversation
- in entire KGB building.
- ____
And do you know where that is?
Broadcasting the name
of your employer in a bar
might not be the smartest move.
Maybe we should take this
conversation someplace else.
You and I, we could be the best spy team.
[Laughs]
Just the two of us...
Paris or maybe Tahiti.
I don't think so.
Oh.
I would be haunted forever...
if I didn't at least try.
[Glasses clink]
____
He's part of my diplomatic staff
and, by international law, has immunity.
Interpreter: You have
violated the laws and integrity
of the Union of Soviet Socialist...
We have absolute respect
for the territorial
integrity of the Soviet Union.
We make every attempt to
abide by your sovereign laws.
You are lying.
We know you run spies in my country.
This is a terrible insult
to the Soviet Union.
We would not employ a spy within
the sovereign borders of...
20,000 rubles was obviously...
- That is not the issue here.
- ... A bribe...
To get our citizens to
betray their country.
If I have to get the White
House involved, I will.
[Click]
I believe he hung up, sir.
____
You are being released from detention.
The charges against you still stand.
From this moment,
you are persona non grata in Soviet Union.
You have two hours to
collect your belongings
and leave the country.
A letter to this effect has
been sent to your embassy.
He's here, isn't he?
In the building.
In another cell.
Russians have saying about Lubyanka prison.
They call it the tallest
building in Moscow.
You know why?
Because, from the basement,
you can see all the way to Siberia.
[Laughs]
Our case officer has been
released from Lubyanka.
He has two hours to leave the country.
They're putting him on a plane right now.
[Applause]
All right. Thank you.
One crisis averted.
I'll write to all station chiefs
who handled GT Weigh in the past.
Let them know there's a possibility
- he's been compromised.
- Good.
And, Sandy...
ask them to double check their operations.
Employees with access,
communications, tradecraft...
compromise could have come from anywhere...
a tiny mistake from any of them.
You tell them to look hard.
Louisa: Uh, hey.
Austin said you had an
immediate-action cable
to go to Como?
Uh, yeah.
You knew him.
I'm sorry.
We don't know that he's been lost.
You're right. My mistake.
[Grunting]
[Grunts]
[Grunts]
[Gun cocks]
____
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____
I did everything you told me to do.
I took two hours going black.
I was alone well before I got to the park.
Is there any chance you missed your tail?
I don't think so.
No, the tradecraft was good.
Did anything strike you as different,
out of the ordinary when
you left the embassy?
They follow me out of that
embassy every single day.
Every day, it's always the same.
It was the same last night.
The KGB... they're relentless.
What about at the park, before the arrest?
Was there anything,
you know, strange or...?
I saw someone.
I thought it might have been the asset.
He waved, but then...
it all happened so fast.
Wallace: Let's take a 10-minute break.
One more thing.
My interrogator at Lubyanka
kept asking me to confirm
the name of the asset
I was dropping for, but...
I think he already knew.
Sandy: If the man in
the park was the asset,
why would he come to the dead drop?
The whole point of a dead drop
is you aren't in the same place
as your case officer, ever.
Maybe he was afraid he was under suspicion.
- He waved to warn our case officer off the drop.
- Sandy.
If that's the case,
the KGB wouldn't be
sure GT Weigh was a spy.
They'll need more proof.
Sandy, Sandy...
This came in half an hour ago...
from a low-level in-place
source at Lubyanka.
Poleshchuk was executed yesterday.
[Paper rustles]
We're gonna need a report
to take to the seventh floor
first thing tomorrow morning.
[Breathing heavily]
Jennings: President Reagan said today
that the great measure of
success at the Geneva summit
was his one-on-one conversations alone
with Mikhail Gorbachev.
The Soviets tried in a couple of ways
to stop the American program
for a missile defense in space.
[Newscast chatter]
Mom, where have you been?
I need to talk to you about Saturday night,
because Benji Parrell wants to
take me to this party, and...
Not now! [Sighs]
[Sighs]
That was bad.
I'll go apologize.
Talk?
You know I can't.
She's never around.
And when she is, she's so obnoxious.
I can't stand to be around her.
Yeah.
[Sneakers squeaking and coach chattering]
- You ready?
- I think so.
Keep it short and to the point.
Art. Sandy...
Thanks for coming.
You know the director.
It's good to see you again, sir.
Sir, as you probably know,
our dead drop to GT Weigh
was intercepted two days ago in Moscow.
Our case officer was arrested,
and we had reason to believe
our asset had been compromised.
Last night, we learned with certainty
that GT Weigh had been
executed in Lubyanka prison.
We're now beginning the process
of investigating the nature...
Let me stop you there, Sandy.
I brought you here under
slightly false pretenses.
While I do want the D.C.I.
to hear the details of the operation,
more importantly,
I wanted to fill you
all in on something else.
The compromise of GT Weigh is
just the tip of the iceberg.
The situation is far worse
than you can possibly imagine.
We've lost more assets
in the last three months
than at practically any
other time in our history.
[Manhole cover clatters]
GT Taw was an extremely successful tap
we'd been running on a
KGB phone line underground
in central Moscow.
It was a highly restricted case.
Very few people knew about it.
The line was difficult to access,
but the intel we gained
on it was invaluable...
operational detail, officer names,
locations, KGB strategic intelligence.
Three months ago,
while an officer was retrieving
tapes from a tapped line,
an alarm sounded.
We had set up the alarm
to warn case officers
in case the tap had become compromised,
which it had.
That was just the beginning.
Last month, a longtime
asset for us in Munich
was recalled by the KGB to Moscow.
They told him his grown
son had a health issue
which needed his immediate
attention back home.
When the asset called family
friends in the Soviet Union
and established that the
story about his son was false,
we recommended he be
exfiltrated immediately.
The KGB came after him, hard.
We got lucky,
and the asset escaped unharmed.
He's currently in a safe
house inside the U.S.
But GT Weigh, obviously, is not.
Either the KGB has gotten
extremely lucky of late
or we have a serious problem on our hands.
Whatever it is, we are getting hammered,
destroying our eyes and
ears inside the Soviet Union.
Not to mention killing people.
[Bag rustles]
This needs to stay in the
building as long as possible.
The President doesn't know.
The press certainly cannot know.
We need to figure this out fast.
Your team in S.E. Division
needs to get their heads back in the game
before we go completely blind
and lose the damn Cold War.
[Footsteps approaching]
Whatever it is, you will beat it.
You're the smartest, the toughest,
the most heroic woman I've ever met.
And is that okay?
I mean, do you want a
wife who can be that tough,
who compartmentalizes her life?
Family here, work there?
Who keeps secrets from the
one person she loves most?
We all keep secrets, Sandy.
Imagine how much we'd worry
if we knew every single
thing about Kelly's life...
[Chuckles]
If we knew every word she said.
Sometimes a secret keeps the hurt away.
You know, I married you...
because it was clear to me
you were out to save the world.
Whatever it took, you
would make that happen,
and that I would be
proud of you when you did.
Everyone in this family
knows why you do what you do.
But do you know why you do it?
Because you are a warrior.
Protecting your country.
You do it for us.
To keep us safe.
[Exhales]
I have to go back to the office.
[Chuckles]
I won't be waiting up.
[Sighs]
Morning, guys.
[Beeping]
The man in the park who waved.
You been here all night?
He wasn't trying to warn our
case officer off the drop.
He was making sure our
case officer saw him,
noticed him.
You didn't get any sleep, did you?
The asset was here when he waved.
The case officer said
that the KGB came from
around this building.
Well, look at the geography of the park.
The asset would have seen them.
He would've known the
KGB officers were there,
hiding, waiting, which means...
He wasn't the asset.
He was a plant, a double.
Which means...
The whole thing was a setup.
The KGB wanted to make sure
that it got reported back to us
that the asset was followed
and arrested in the park...
to make it look like they just figured out
that Poleshchuk was a spy.
Maybe that they had suspicions,
had him under surveillance,
but they knew,
and they must have known for a while.
I'd put even money
that Poleshchuk had been sitting in a jail
for a month when they executed him.
The whole operation in the
park is meant to confuse us.
Pure theater.
And they'd only put on a play if...
If they were covering up
something more important...
a lot more important.
KGB's hiding the true problem.
They have an in to the agency, Art.
They've cracked us.
[Sighs]
Go home, get some sleep. That's an order.
Oh, and, Grimes...
See you tomorrow.
[Footsteps approach]
Hey.
Want to grab an early smoke?
No. I quit... for good.
You're leaving?
Yeah. Been here a while.
Tell me... solve GT Weigh?
Not yet.
But we'll get there.
See you, Rick.
[Softly] See ya.
Gary: Wow.
Nobody leaves this house
without a nutritious breakfast.
What do they say in the commercials?
The most important meal of the day.
Now, that's a school outfit.
These are pajamas, mom.
Yeah, well, they're appropriate pajamas.
I like them. Gary?
Love them. Boys will, too.
[Chuckles]
Help yourself if you want any more.
A feast.
[Laughs] Maple syrup.
Yay.
They got an in to our setup.
We just got to peel back
the layers and find it.
Your concept?
No, a group came up with it.
Well...
Grimes, mostly.
All right.
Let's get to work, then.
Stop the bleeding.
God only knows what
they'll throw at us next.
[Bell tolling]
[Russian accent] Yes, my
name is Vitaly Yurchenko.
I am phoning you from the telephone box
in front of the embassy.
I am senior counterintelligence
Colonel in the KGB...
and I wish to defect.