The Looking Glass War

An MI6 agent is found dead while carrying a roll of film containing flyover photos of Kalkstadt, and the film itself goes missing. MI6 concludes the agent was killed by the Stasi to cover up a possible new rocket system based on the V-2. The incident triggers a high-stakes inquiry into the reality of the rocket and MI6’s informants.

A new lead arrives when a source offers a second set of photographs that supposedly prove the rocket's existence. After MI6 pays, the source reveals the photographs are in Kalkstadt, held by his father. The reveal confirms the vulnerability and unreliability of the informant network.

MI6 officers Avery, Haldane, and LeClerc devise a plan to retrieve the photographs and verify the rocket by sending a lone operative across the East German border. The mission rests on plausibility and the hope of a clean deniable operation. They prepare the operational details and select a candidate for the mission.

Polish defector Leiser is vetted for the risky role and offered UK citizenship if he agrees to work for MI6. He accepts in order to be with his child and to start anew. The decision sets the stage for a dangerous, high-stakes assignment.

Leiser undergoes training in self-defence, survival, and radio signaling for coded messages. He briefly reunites with his girlfriend, who reveals their child was aborted, deeply shaking him. After this personal blow, he regains resolve through a night of bonding with Avery.

Leiser crosses the border into East Germany under cover of night, while the West German cabin-based team monitors his radio transmissions. He cuts his hand on the barbed wire and kills a young East German border guard who sees him. The breach immediately becomes a major news story.

The escaped operative is picked up by a lorry driver but kills him when demanded for sexual favors. He keeps driving until exhaustion, and a local girl and her young friend board and help him continue toward Kalkstadt. The uneasy journey heightens the risk of exposure.

At a military checkpoint, the girl covers for Leiser, but soldiers still check his papers. The Stasi notice inconsistencies and identify him as the border intruder, yet they are ordered to let him go to gauge his true intentions. The moment adds tension to the mission's fragile legitimacy.

Near Kalkstadt, the girl submerges the lorry in a lake; Leiser leaves her and the younger companion behind. He presses toward Kalkstadt with feverish hands from infection and mounting fatigue. The moment marks a personal separation from his allies and increasing peril.

Arriving in Kalkstadt, Leiser discovers the photographs never existed and that the MI6 source was a con artist. Despondent and feverish, he contemplates leaving, only to be detained by the Stasi with roads closed. The episode cements the mission as a diplomatic disaster.

Leiser reconnects with the girl at her apartment, and she expresses a desire to leave East Germany with him. That night, the MI6 operation is ordered shut down due to the incident; elsewhere, a crucial East German rocket is seen being transported through Kalkstadt. The tension between intent and reality thickens.

Leiser transmits the rocket sighting over the radio, prompting Stasi triangulation of his location. They gun him and the girl down, ending the perilous trek. In the West, Avery is outraged by LeClerc's revelation that Leiser was expendable and that MI6 was used; the supposed rocket 'reveal' is revealed as a bluff intended to provoke the West.

After the mission's collapse, the roll of film found by a group of children is opened and destroyed as they play. The film's destruction erases any potential documentary record of Kalkstadt and the failed operation, underscoring the operation's ultimate futility and deceit.