 Pankratin, the deputy head of the military planning staff in Moscow, has been working for Western secret services for some time. He hints to the British agent Sam McCready that he wants to play some high-explosive, secret papers on future Soviet military strategy into his hands. The transfer is to take place in East Germany. After having finished this last and most important task, Pankratin plans to settle down in the West in a comfortable house the British Secret Service is to give him as a reward for his services. Since Sam McCready is on the KGB s black list and would endanger his life if he tried to meet Pankratin personally in East Germany, he decides to send his old friend, the agent Bruno Morenz. McCready doesn t have the faintest idea that Bruno has just shot his girlfriend and her lover in the heat of passion after learning that she had been unfaithful to him for years, that she had only been taking advantage of him and that she hadn t had the slightest intention of spending her life with him. He also doesn t suspect that Bruno is very unstable and on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Nevertheless, Bruno succeeds in entering East Germany in a car with a built-in secret drawer that is secured against X-rays. He also succeeds in meeting Pankratin at a service station where he finally receives the secret papers after two previous attempts had failed. In the meantime, however, the bodies of Bruno s girlfriend and her lover have been found in Bonn. Bruno, who is heading for the border to meet McCready, hears on the car radio that this deed has been discovered. While he is still considering what this could mean for him, he causes an accident and suddenly finds himself surrounded by policemen. He panics, comes to blows with the police and flees. His car is ransacked. Accidentally, the police discover the secret drawer and immediately inform the KGB, which had suspected for quite some time that secret messages were being conveyed to the West via East Germany. From this point on, Soviet agents are after Bruno. The West German Counter-Intelligence Service informs McCready of Bruno s murders. He rightly guesses that Bruno must have lost his head and is now wandering about helplessly in East Germany, with Eastern agents on his heels. McCready decides to come to Bruno s rescue, although it is more than dangerous for him to enter East Germany. Before setting off he visits Bruno s sister, who tells him that Bruno might have sought refuge with a former teacher in Magdeburg. In the meantime, however, the Eastern agents haven t been idle - they have also found out the address of the old teacher. They call on her but the old lady only tells them that she hasn t seen Bruno for 35 years. Having overcome many risky situations, McCready finally reaches the old lady safe and sound. He succeeds in convincing her that he wants to help Bruno and she reveals his hiding place. McCready finds the hopelessly distracted Bruno in a barn and desperately seeks to reassure him, to make him come to his senses, but in vain. Bruno is a nervous wreck, unable to walk even one single step without help. McCready realises that he doesn t stand a chance in getting him across the border. Nonetheless, he promises Bruno to take him home as he offers him a drink to help calm his nerves. McCready hands his friend a vial and Bruno knows immediately that his end has come. Showing no emotion, he slowly drinks the poison. Tears run down McCready s cheeks as he holds his dying friend in his arms. In his heart, however, he knows that he has done the right thing. He has saved Bruno from being questioned and tortured by the KGB. Meanwhile KGB agents have discovered Bruno s hiding-place. McCready gets away in the nick of time. Surreptitiously, with the Eastern agents always on his heels, he succeeds in getting the papers safely across the border. A little later McCready learns that the KGB has exposed Pankratin and sent him to Siberia. Only then does a high-ranking CIA agent admit that the Americans had informed the KGB about Pankratin s two-sided game, since he hadn t supplied them with useful information for some time. In a clean deal based on mutual benefit, they had delivered Pankratin into the hands of the KGB in exchange for the secret information McCready had smuggled to the West. At the same time they also saved the money for the house which the poor, ignorant Pankratin had claimed for his services.