Frederick Forsyth - The Fourth Protocol

“If we had got Petrofsky alive, we’d have had the Soviet Union over a barrel.”

“Yes, John, indeed we would. We could have subjected them to a huge international humiliation. And to what end? The USSR could not have taken it lying down. They’d have had to reply somewhere else in the world. What would you have wished? A return to the worst aspects of the Cold War?”

“It seems a pity to lose an opportunity to screw them, sir.”

“John, they’re big and armed and dangerous. The USSR is going to be there tomorrow and next week and next year. Somehow we have to share this planet with them. Better they be ruled by pragmatic and realistic men than hotheads and zealots.”

“And that merits a trade with men like the one in the window, Sir Nigel?”

“Sometimes it has to be done. I’m a professional, so is he. There are journalists and writers who would have it that we in our profession live in a dream world. In reality it’s the reverse. It is the politicians who dream their dreams—sometimes dangerous dreams, like the General Secretary’s dream of changing the face of Europe as his personal monument.

“A top intelligence officer has to be harder-headed than the toughest businessman. One has to trim to the reality, John. When the dreams take command, one ends up with the Bay of Pigs. The first break in the Cuban missiles impasse was suggested by the KGB

rezident in New York. It was Khrushchev, not the professionals, who had gone over the top.”

“So what happens next, sir?”

The old spymaster sighed. “We leave it to them. There will be some changes made.

They will make them in their own inimitable way. The man back there in the house will set them in train. His career will be advanced, those of others broken.”

“And Philby?” asked Preston.

“What about Philby?”

“Is he trying to come home?”

Sir Nigel shrugged impatiently. “For years past,” he said. “And, yes, he’s in touch from time to time, covertly, with my people in our embassy over there. We breed pigeons. ...”

“Pigeons?”

“Very old-fashioned, I know. And simple. But still surprisingly efficient. That’s how he communicates. But not about Plan Aurora. And even if he had, so far as I am concerned—”

“So far as you are concerned—?”

“He can rot in hell,” said Sir Nigel softly.

They drove for a while in silence.

“What about you, John? Will you stay with Five now?”

“I don’t think so, sir. I’ve had a good run. The DG retires on September first, but he’ll take final leave next month. I don’t fancy my chances under his successor.”

“Can’t take you into Six. You know that. We don’t take late entrants. Thought of returning to Civvy Street?”

“Not the best time for a man of forty-six with no known skills to get a job nowadays,” said Preston.

“I have some friends,” mused the Master. “They’re in asset protection. They might be able to use a good man. I could have a word.”

“Asset protection?”

“Oil wells, mines, deposits, racehorses ... Things people want kept safe from theft or destruction. Even themselves. It would pay well. Enable you to take full care of that son of yours.”

“It seems I’m not the only one who checks up on things,” Preston said, grinning.

The older man was staring out of the window, as if at something far away and long ago. “Had a son myself once,” he said quietly. “Just the one. Fine lad. Killed in the Falklands. Know how you feel.”

Surprised, Preston glanced at the man in the mirror. It had never occurred to him that this urbane and wily spymaster had once played horse-and-rider with a small boy on a sitting-room carpet.

“I’m sorry. Perhaps I’ll take you up on that.”

They arrived at the airport, turned in the rented car, and flew back to London, as anonymous as they had come.

The man in the window of the safe house watched the Britisher’s car move away. His own driver would not be there for an hour. He turned back to the room and sat down at the desk to study again the folder he had been brought and which he still held in his hands. He was pleased; it had been a good meeting, and the documents he held would secure his future.

As a professional, Lieutenant General Yevgeni Karpov was sorry about Plan Aurora. It had been good—subtle, low-profile, and effective. But as a professional he also knew that once an operation was well and truly burned there was nothing for it but to cancel and repudiate the whole thing before it was too late. To delay would have been utterly disastrous.

He recalled clearly the batch of documents that his bagman had brought from Jan Marais in London, the product of his agent Hampstead. Six had been the usual stuff, top-rate intelligence material such as only a man of the eminence of George Berenson could have acquired. The seventh had caused him to sit transfixed.

It was a personal memorandum from Berenson to Marais, for transmission to Pretoria.

In it the Defense Ministry official had told how, as Deputy Chief of Defense Procurement, with special responsibility for nuclear devices, he had been present at a very restricted briefing by the Director-General of MI5, Sir Bernard Hemmings.

The counterintelligence chief had told the small group that his agency had uncovered the existence and most of the details of a Soviet conspiracy to import in kit form, assemble, and detonate a small atomic device inside Britain. The sting was in the tail: MI5 was closing fast upon the Russian illegal in command of the operation in Britain, and was confident of catching him with all the necessary evidence on him.

Entirely because of its source, General Karpov had believed the report completely.

There was an immediate temptation to let the British go ahead; but second thoughts showed this to be disastrous. If the British succeeded alone and unaided, there would be no obligation to suppress the horrendous scandal. To create that obligation, he needed to send a message, and to a man who would understand what had to be done, someone he could deal with across the great divide.

Then there was the question of his personal self-advancement. ... It was after a long, lonely walk in the spring-green forests of Peredelkino that he had decided to take the most dangerous gamble of his life. He had decided to pay a discreet visit to the private office of Nubar Gevorkovitch Vartanyan.

He had chosen his man with care. The Politburo member from Armenia was believed to be the man who headed the covert faction inside the Politburo that privately thought it was time for a change at the top.

Vartanyan had listened to him without saying a word, secure that he was far too highly placed for his office to be bugged. He just stared at the KGB general with his black lizard’s eyes as he listened. When Karpov had finished, he had asked, “You are certain your information is correct, Comrade General?”

“I have the full narrative from Professor Krilov on tape,” said Karpov. “The machine was in my briefcase at the time.”

“And the information from London?”

“Its source is impeccable. I have run the man personally for nearly three years.”

The Armenian power broker stared at him for a long time, as if reflecting on many things, not least how this information could be used to advantage.

“If what you say is true, there has been recklessness and adventurism at the highest level in our country. If such could be proved—of course, one would need the proof—there might have to be changes at the top. Good day to you.”

Karpov had understood. When the man on the pinnacle in Soviet Russia fell, all his own men fell with him. If there were changes at the top, there would be a vacant slot as Chairman of the KGB, a slot that Karpov felt would suit him admirably. But to cobble together his alliance of Party forces, Vartanyan would need proof, more proof, solid, irrefutable, documentary proof, that the act of recklessness had almost brought disaster.