The Fourth Protocol

Krilov stopped dialing. “What do you mean, missing?” he asked. The first edge of hesitation had entered his hitherto completely assured bearing.

“Please sit down and hear me out,” said Karpov. The academic did so. In another room of the apartment, a door opened. A blare of Western jazz could be heard, which muted when the door closed.

“I mean missing,” continued Karpov, “gone from his apartment, driver dismissed, wife no idea where he is or when, if at all, he’ll be back.”

It was a gamble, and a damnably high one. But an air of worry entered the professor’s gaze. Then he reasserted himself. “There can be no question of my discussing affairs of state with you, Comrade General. I think I must ask you to leave.”

“It’s not quite that easy,” said Karpov. “Tell me, Professor, you have a son, Leonid, do you not?”

The sudden switch of topic genuinely dumbfounded the professor. “Yes,” he conceded.

“I do. So what?”

“Let me explain,” suggested Karpov.

On the other side of Europe, John Preston and his son were driving out of the Windsor Safari Park at the close of a warm spring day. “I’ve just got one call to make before we go home,” said Preston. “It’s not far and it shouldn’t take long. Have you ever been to Aldermaston.”

The boy’s eyes opened wide. “The bomb factory?” he asked.

“It’s not quite a bomb factory, “ Preston corrected, “it’s a research establishment.”

“Gosh, no. Are we going there? Will they let us in?”

“Well, they’ll let me in. You’ll have to wait in the car. But it won’t take long.” He turned north to cut into the M4 motorway.

“Your son returned nine weeks ago from a visit to Canada, where he acted as one of the interpreters for a trade delegation,” Karpov began quietly.

Krilov nodded. “So?”

“While he was there, my own KR people noted that an attractive young person was spending a good deal of time—too much time, it was judged—trying to get into conversation with the members of our delegation, notably the younger members—secretaries, interpreters, and so forth. The person concerned was photographed and finally identified as an entrapment agent—American, not Canadian, and almost certainly employed by the CIA. As a result, that young agent was put under surveillance and was observed to set up a rendezvous with your son, Leonid, in a hotel room. Not to put too fine a point on it, the pair had a brief but torrid affair.”

Professor Krilov’s face was mottled with rage. He seemed to have trouble enunciating his words. “How dare you. How dare you have the impertinence to come here and seek to subject me, a member of the Academy of Sciences and the Supreme Soviet, to crude blackmail. The Party will hear of this. You know the rule: only the Party can discipline the Party. You may be a general of the KGB, but you have overstepped your authority by a hundred miles, General Karpov.”

Yevgeni Karpov sat as if humbled, staring at the table, as the professor went on.

“So, my son screwed a foreign girl while in Canada. That the girl turned out to be an American was certainly something of which he was completely unaware. He was indiscreet, perhaps, but no more. Was he recruited by this CIA girl?”

“No,” admitted Karpov.

“Did he betray any state secrets?”

“No.”

“Then you have nothing, Comrade General, but a brief youthful indiscretion. He’ll be rebuked. But the rebuke for your counterintelligence people will be the greater. They should have warned him. As to the bedroom business, we are not so unworldly in the Soviet Union as you seem to think. Strong young men have been screwing girls since time began. ...”

Karpov had opened his attaché case and produced a large photograph, one of a sheaf that lay inside the case, and placed it on the table. Professor Krilov stared at it, and his words died. The flush went out of his cheeks, draining away until his elderly face appeared gray in the lamplight. He shook his head several times.

“I am sorry,” said Karpov very gently, “truly sorry. The surveillance was on the American boy, not on your son. It was not intended that it should come to this.”

“I don’t believe it,” croaked the professor.

“I have sons of my own,” murmured Karpov. “I believe I can understand, or try to understand, how you feel.”

The academic sucked in his breath, rose, muttered, “Excuse me,” and left the room.

Karpov sighed and replaced the photograph in his case. From down the corridor he heard the blare of jazz as a door opened, the sudden ending of the music, and voices, two voices, raised in anger. One was the roar of the father, the other a higher-pitched voice, as of a young man. The altercation ended with the sound of a slap. Seconds later, Professor Krilov reentered the room. He seated himself, eyes dull, shoulders sloping. “What are you going to do?” he whispered.