The Fourth Protocol

DON’T MISS THESE

GRIPPING BOOKS

BY FREDERICK FORSYTH

THE DAY OF THE JACKAL

THE ODESSA FILE

THE DOGS OF WAR

THE DEVIL’S ALTERNATIVE

NO COMEBACKS

THE FOURTH PROTOCOL

THE NEGOTIATOR

THE DECEIVER

THE FIST OF GOD

THE FOURTH PROTOCOL

“Pure suspense.”

—Saturday Review

“Frederick Forsyth has hit the jackpot again. ... The Fourth Protocol is striking ... hard to put down. ... His grasp of the organization of various intelligence agencies is unimpeachable.”

—The Wall Street Journal

“The Fourth Protocol begins slowly and gently with a common jewel robbery and quickly evolves into an espionage thriller involving Great Britain, South Africa and the Soviet Union. ... As in all good spy novels there are plenty of threads that remain loose until the last 50 pages. ... Fast paced.”

—Bestsellers

“The Fourth Protocol is as good as anything he has done. ... Forsyth’s appeal in this kind of book goes well beyond his clockwork plots—and in The Fourth Protocol he is at the top of his form.”

—Houston Chronicle

“Will keep espionage fans turning the pages. ... The plotting is clever, and there is plenty of action, and a neat twist at the end.”

—New Woman

“Suspenseful plotting, direct and efficient writing, and detailing of everything from a safe-cracking to the smuggling of nuclear bomb components. ... The most fascinating spy novel since The Little Drummer Girl.”

—The Christian Science Monitor

“For sheer professionalism I give you the knowledge, invention and narrative skill of Frederick Forsyth who, ever since his The Day of the Jackal, has proved himself a master of the genre. ... In this large-scale novel of international intrigue he outdoes himself both as storyteller and in extrapolating fiction from the facts of world affairs. ... You will find it hard to stop reading once you have begun. ... His most ambitious and intricately constructed book to date. ... Forsyth has no peer.”

—John Barkham Reviews

“An exciting tale of espionage, filled with the sorts of twists spy-story aficionados love.”

—Associated Press

“Forsyth has meticulously constructed another intricate yet exciting spy novel. ... It succeeds magnificently ... as a scrupulously detailed study of spy ‘tradecraft’ and as a testament to the virtues of a well-constructed plot.”

—Booklist

“Forsyth is rather like watching a ballet. Each component—the prose, the pacing, the story, the characters—is beautiful to watch, the whole superbly executed, setting the blood running much as music does.”

—Cosmopolitan

“Pure Forsyth: a meticulous, detailed unraveling of a dastardly plot to send the world, or at least most of Europe, into ferment. ... Nary a reader, Forsyth veteran or otherwise, will be disappointed.”

—Chicago Sun-Times

“Frederick Forsyth is a giant among the creators of fictional international intrigue. ...

Truly fascinating ... rousing.”

—Kansas City Star

“Frederick Forsyth, who once labored for the Reuters news service, burst on the thriller scene in pretty dramatic fashion a while back with his first novel The Day of the Jackal.

... Comes now The Fourth Protocol, which I’m sure Mr. Forsyth’s fans will gobble up.”

—The New York Times Book Review

“Vitally suspenseful. ... Forsyth not only knows how to craft a successful suspense novel—he also has a well-developed sense of the political realities of confrontation between East and West.”

—Seattle Times

“Damnably good reading.”

—St. Petersburg Times

“The plots and counterplots of The Fourth Protocol race toward each other with shrewd complexity, unfolding with the brisk, mesmerizing suspense and clockwork timing that have become Forsyth’s trademarks. ... Forsyth’s proven again he is the unsurpassed master of the countdown thriller.”

—The Charlotte Observer

For Shane Richard, aged five,

without whose loving attentions this book would have been written in half the time.

PART ONE

Chapter 1

The man in gray decided to take the Glen Suite of diamonds at midnight. Provided they were still in the apartment safe and the occupants away. This he needed to know. So he watched and he waited. At half past seven he was rewarded.