Frederick Forsyth: The Fourth Protocol

“I believe, sir, that the operation was blown. It seems to me unavoidable to conclude that someone on the other side deliberately blew it away.”

“What an extraordinary suggestion. Let me recommend the strawberry flan. Had some last week. Different batch, of course. Yes? Two, my dear, if you please. Yes, a little fresh cream.”

“May I ask a question?” said Preston when the plates had been cleared.

Sir Nigel smiled. “I’m sure you will, anyway.”

“Why did the Russian have to die?”

“As I understand it, he was crawling toward a nuclear bomb with every apparent intention of detonating it.”

“I was there,” said Preston as the strawberry flan arrived. They waited until the cream had been poured.

“The man was wounded in the knee, stomach, and shoulder. Captain Lyndhurst could have stopped him with a kick. There was no need to blow his head off.”

“I’m sure the good captain wished to make absolutely sure,” suggested the Master.

“With the Russian alive, Sir Nigel, we would have had the Soviet Union bang to rights, caught in the act. Without him, we have nothing that cannot be convincingly denied. In other words, the whole thing now has to be suppressed forever.”

“How true,” the spymaster replied, masticating thoughtfully on a mouthful of shortcake pastry and strawberries.

“Captain Lyndhurst happens to be the son of Lord Frinton.”

“Indeed. Frinton? Does one know him?”

“Apparently. You were at school together.”

“Really? There were so many. Hard to recall.”

“And I believe Julian Lyndhurst is your godson.”

“My dear John, you do check up on things, don’t you, now?”

Sir Nigel had finished his dessert. He steepled his hands, placed his chin on his knuckles, and regarded the MI5 investigator steadily. The courtesy remained; the good humor was draining away. “Anything else?”

Preston nodded gravely. “An hour before the assault on the house began, Captain Lyndhurst took a call in the hallway of the house across the road. I checked with my colleague who first took the phone. The caller was ringing from a public box.”

“No doubt one of his colleagues.”

“No, sir. They were using radios. And no one outside that operation knew we were inside the house. No one, that is, but a very few in London.”

“May I ask what you are suggesting?”

“Just one more detail, Sir Nigel. Before he died, that Russian whispered one word. He seemed very determined to get that single word out before he went. I had my ear close to his mouth at the time. What he said was: ‘Philby.’ ”

“ ‘Philby’? Good heavens. I wonder what he could have meant by that.”

“I think I know. I think he thought Harold Philby had betrayed him, and I believe he was right.”

“I see. And may I be privileged to know of your deductions?”

The Chiefs voice was soft, but his tone was devoid of all his earlier bonhomie.

Preston took a deep breath. “I deduce that Philby the traitor was a party to this operation, possibly from the outset. If he was, he would have been in a no-lose situation.

Like others, I have heard it whispered that he wants to return home, here to England, to spend his last days.

“If the plan had worked, he could probably have earned his release from his Soviet masters and his entry from a new Hard Left government in London. Perhaps a year from now. Or he could tell London the general outline of the plan, then betray it.”

“And which of these two remarkable choices do you suspect he made?”

“The second one, Sir Nigel.”

“To what end, pray?”

“To buy his ticket home. From this end. A trade.”

“And you think I would be a party to that trade?”

“I don’t know what to think, Sir Nigel. I don’t know what else to think. There has been talk ... about his old colleagues, the magic circle, the solidarity of the establishment of which he was once a member ... that sort of thing.”

Preston studied his plate, with its half-eaten strawberries. Sir Nigel gazed at the ceiling for a long time before letting out a profound sigh. “You’re a remarkable man, John. Tell me, what are you doing a week from today?”

“Nothing, I believe.”

“Then please meet me at the door of Sentinel House at eight in the morning of June twenty-sixth. Bring your passport. And now, if you’ll forgive me, I suggest we forgo coffee in the library. ...”

The man at the upper window of the safe house in the Geneva back street stood and watched the departure of his visitor. The head and shoulders of the guest appeared below him; the man walked down the short path to the front gate and stepped into the street, where his car waited. The car’s driver stepped out, came around the vehicle, and opened the door for the senior man. Then he walked back to the driver’s door.

Before he climbed back into the car, Preston raised his gaze to the figure behind the glass in the upper window. When he was behind the steering wheel he asked, “That’s him? That’s really him? The man from Moscow?”

“Yes, that’s him. And now, the airport, if you please,” replied Sir Nigel from the rear seat. They drove away.

“Well, John, I promised you an explanation,” said Sir Nigel a few moments later. “Ask your questions.”

Preston could see the face of the Chief in his rearview mirror. The older man was gazing out at the passing countryside.

“The operation?”

“You were quite right. It was mounted personally by the General Secretary, with the advice and assistance of Philby. It seems it was called Plan Aurora. It was betrayed, but not by Philby.”

“Why was it blown away?”

Sir Nigel thought for several minutes. “From quite an early stage I believed that you could be right. Both in your tentative conclusions of last December in what is now called the Preston report and in your deductions after the intercept in Glasgow. Even though Harcourt-Smith declined to believe in either. I was not certain the two were linked, but I was not prepared to discount it. The more I looked at it, the more I became convinced that Plan Aurora was not a true KGB operation. It had not the hallmarks, the painstaking care. It looked like a hasty operation mounted by a man or a group who distrusted the KGB. Yet there was little hope of your finding the agent in time.”

“I was floundering in the dark, Sir Nigel. And I knew it. There were no patterns of Soviet couriers showing up on any of our immigration controls. Without Winkler I’d never have got to Ipswich in time.”

They drove for several minutes in silence. Preston waited for the Master to resume in his own time.

“So, I sent a message to Moscow,” said Sir Nigel eventually.

“From yourself?”

“Good Lord, no. That would never have done. Much too obvious. Through another source, one I hoped would be believed. It was not a very truthful message, I’m afraid.

Sometimes one must tell untruths in our business. But it went through a channel I hoped would be believed.”

“And it was?”

“Thankfully, yes. When Winkler arrived I was sure the message had been received, understood, and, above all, believed as true.”

“Winkler was the reply?” asked Preston.

“Yes. Poor man. He believed he was on a routine mission to check on the Stephanides brothers and their transmitter. By the by, he was found drowned in Prague two weeks ago. Knew too much, I suppose.”

“And the Russian in Ipswich?”

“His name, I have just learned, was Petrofsky. A first-class professional, and a patriot.”

“But he, too, had to die?”

“John, it was a terrible decision. But unavoidable. The arrival of Winkler was an offer, a proposal for a trade-off. No formal agreement, of course. Just a tacit understanding. The man Petrofsky could not be taken alive and interrogated. I had to go along with the unwritten and unspoken trade with the man in the window back there at the safe house.”