The Fourth Protocol

At eleven, Winkler emerged from the boardinghouse. He walked to Edgware Road again, hailed a cab, and set off toward Park Lane. At Hyde Park Corner, the cab, tailed by two cars containing the watcher team, went down Piccadilly. Winkler dismissed it in Piccadilly, close to the Circus end, and tried another few basic maneuvers to throw off a tail he had not even spotted.

“Here we go again,” Len Stewart muttered into his lapel. He had read Burkinshaw’s log and expected something similar. Suddenly Winkler shot down an arcade at a near-run, emerged at the other end, scuttled down the sidewalk, and turned to watch the entrance to the arcade from which he had just emerged. No one came out. No one needed to. There was already a watcher at the southern end of the arcade, anyway.

The watchers know London better than any policeman or cabdriver. They know how many exits every major building has, where the arcades and underpasses go, where the narrow passageways are located and where they lead to. Wherever a Joe tries to scuttle, there will always be one man there ahead of him, one coming slowly behind, and two flankers. The “box” never shatters, and it is a very clever Joe who can spot it.

Satisfied he had no tail, Winkler entered the British Rail Travel Center on Lower Regent Street. There he inquired as to the times of trains to Sheffield. The scarved Scottish football fan standing a few feet away and trying to get back to Motherwell was one of the watchers. Winkler paid cash for a second-class round-trip ticket to Sheffield, noted that the last train of the night left St. Paneras Station at nine-twenty-five, thanked the clerk, and left. He had lunch at a café nearby, returned to Sussex Gardens, and stayed there all afternoon.

Preston received the news about the train ticket to Sheffield at just after one o’clock.

He caught Sir Nigel Irvine just as C was about to leave for lunch at his club.

“It may be a blind, but it looks as if he’s going out of town,” Preston reported. “He may be heading for his rendezvous. It could be on the train or in Sheffield. Maybe he’s delayed so long because he was early. The point is, sir, if he leaves London we will need a field controller to go with the watcher team. I want to be that controller.”

“Yes, see what you mean. Not easy. Still, I’ll see what I can do.”

Sir Nigel sighed. Bang goes lunch, he thought. He summoned his aide. “Cancel my lunch at White’s. Get my car ready. And take a cable. In that order.”

While the aide tackled the first two tasks, C called Sir Bernard Hemmings at his home number near Farnham, in Surrey. “Sorry to trouble you, Bernard. Something’s cropped up that I’d like your advice on. ... No, better face-to-face. Would you mind if I came down? Lovely day, after all. ... Yes, right, about three, then.”

“The cable?” asked his aide, entering the office.

“Yes.”

“To whom?”

“Myself.”

“Certainly. From?”

“Head of station, Vienna.”

“Shall I alert him, sir?”

“No need to bother him. Just arrange with the cipher room for me to receive his cable in three minutes.”

“Of course. And the text?”

Sir Nigel dictated it. Sending himself an urgent message to justify what he wanted to do anyway was an old trick that he had picked up from his onetime mentor, the late Sir Maurice Oldfield. When the cipher room sent it back up in the form in which it would have been received from Vienna, the old mandarin put it in his pocket and went down to his car.

He found Sir Bernard in his garden, enjoying the warm May sunshine, a blanket around his knees.

“Meant to come in today,” said the Director-General of Five with well-feigned joviality. “Be in tomorrow, no doubt.”

“Of course, of course.”

“Now, how can I help?”

“Ticklish,” said Sir Nigel. “Someone has just flown into London from Vienna.

Apparent Austrian businessman. But he’s a phony. We got a make on him last night.

Czech agent, one of the StB boys. Low-level. We think he’s a courier.”

Sir Bernard nodded. “Yes, I keep in touch, even from here. Heard all about it. My chaps are on top of him, aren’t they?”

“Very much so. The thing is, it looks as if he may be leaving London tonight. For the north. Five will need a field controller to go with the watcher team.”

“Of course. We’ll have one. Brian can handle it.”

“Yes. It’s your operation, of course. Still ... You remember the Berenson affair? We never did discover two things. Does Marais communicate through the rezidentura here in London, or does he use couriers sent in from outside? And was Berenson the only man in the ring run by Marais, or were there others?”

“I recall. We were going to put those questions on ice until we could get a few answers out of Marais.”

“That’s right. Then today I got this message from my head of station in Vienna.”

He proffered the cable. Sir Bernard read it and his eyebrows rose. “Linked? Could they be?”