The Fourth Protocol

Karpov sighed. “My duty is very clear. As you said, only the Party may discipline the Party. I should by rights hand over the report and the photographs to the Central Committee. You know the law. You know what they do to ‘golden boys.’ It’s five years without remission, and ‘severe regime.’ I’m afraid that word gets around in the camps.

After that, the young man becomes—how shall I put it?—anybody’s property. A lad from a sheltered background would be hard put to survive that sort of thing.”

“But—” prompted the professor.

“But I can decide that there is a chance the CIA will seek to pursue the matter. I have that right. I can decide the Americans could become impatient and send their agent into the Soviet Union to resume contact with Leonid. I have the right to decide that the entrapment of your son could possibly be turned into an operation to trap a CIA agent.

While waiting, I would be able to keep the file in my safe, and the waiting could take a very long time. I have that authority; in operational matters, yes, I have that authority.”

“And the price?”

“I think you know that.”

“What do you want to know about Plan Aurora?”

“Just start from the beginning.”

Preston swung into the main gate at Aldermaston, found a slot in the visitors’ parking area, and got out of the car.

“Sorry, Tommy, no farther for you. Just wait for me here. I hope I won’t be long.”

He crossed in the dusk to the swinging doors and presented himself to the two men at the desk. They examined his ID card and rang Dr. Wynne-Evans, who sanctioned the visit to his office. It was three floors up. Preston was shown in and gestured to a seat facing Wynne-Evans’s desk.

The scientist regarded him over his glasses. “May I ask where you got this little exhibit?” he inquired, pointing to the heavy, leadlike disk of metal, which now sat in a sealed glass jar.

“It was taken from someone in Glasgow during the small hours of Thursday morning.

What about the other two disks?”

“Oh, they’re just ordinary aluminum, boyo. Nothing strange about them. Just used to keep this one safe and sound. This is the one that interests me.”

“Do you know what it is?” asked Preston.

Dr. Wynne-Evans seemed startled by the naiveté of the question. “Of course I know what it is,” he said. “It’s my job to know. It’s a disk of pure polonium.”

Preston frowned. He had never heard of such a metal.

“Well, it all started in early January with a memorandum submitted by Philby to the General Secretary, in which Philby maintained there existed within the British Labour Party a Hard Left wing that had grown so strong it was in a position to take over complete control of the Party machine more or less when it wished. That corresponds to my own view.”

“And mine,” murmured Karpov.

“Philby went further. He claimed that within the Hard Left wing there was a group, an inner kernel, of dedicated Marxist-Leninists who had framed an intention to do just that—not in the period before Britain’s next general election, but afterward, in the very wake of a Labour electoral victory. In short, to await the victory at the polls of Mr. Neil Kinnock and then to topple him from the Party leadership. His replacement would be Britain’s first Marxist-Leninist premier, who would institute a series of policies wholly in line with Soviet foreign and defense interests, most notably in the area of unilateral nuclear disarmament and the expulsion of all American forces.”

“Feasible,” remarked Karpov, nodding. “So a committee of four of you were called together to advise on how this electoral victory could best be achieved?”

Krilov looked up, surprised. “Yes. There were Philby, General Marchenko, myself, and Dr. Rogov.”

“The chess grand master?”

“And physicist,” added Krilov. “What we came up with was Plan Aurora, which would have been an act of massive destabilization of the British electorate by pushing millions toward a mood of determined unilateralism.”

“You say ... would have?”

“Yes. The plan was principally Rogov’s idea. He supported it strongly. Marchenko went along, with reservations. Philby—well, no one could tell what Philby was really thinking. Just kept nodding and smiling, waiting to see which way the wind blew.”

“That’s Philby,” agreed Karpov. “And then you presented it?”

“Yes. On March twelfth. I opposed the plan. The General Secretary agreed with me. He denounced it roundly, ordered all notes and files destroyed, and made all four of us swear never to mention the matter again under any circumstances.”

“Tell me, why did you oppose it?”

“It seemed to me reckless and dangerous. Apart from anything, it was in complete contravention of the Fourth Protocol. If that protocol is ever breached, God knows where the world will end up.”

“The Fourth Protocol?”

“Yes. To the international Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. You remember that, of course.”

“One has to remember so much,” said Karpov gently. “Please remind me.”

“I’ve never heard of polonium,” said Preston.