The Fourth Protocol

The only thing he did not know was which morning it would be. The signal to go operational would, he knew, come on the Radio Moscow English-language-service news at ten o’clock of the preceding evening. It would be in the form of a deliberate word-fluff by the broadcaster in the first news item. But since Vassiliev could not tell them, Petrofsky still had to inform Moscow that all was in readiness. This meant a last message by radio. After that, the Stephanides brothers would be expendable. In the dusk of a warm June evening he left Cherryhayes Close and drove sedately north toward Thetford and his motorcycle. At nine o’clock, having changed clothes and vehicles, he began to ride northwest into the British Midlands.

The boredom of an ordinary evening for the watchers in the second-floor-front bedroom of the Royston house was broken at just after ten when Len Stewart came on the air from the police station.

“John, one of my lads was eating in the kebab place just now. The phone rang twice, then the caller hung up. It rang again twice, and he hung up again. Then he did it a third time. The listeners confirm it.”

“Did the Greeks try to answer it?”

“They didn’t reach it in time the first occasion it rang.

After that, they didn’t try for it. Just went on serving. … Hold on. ... John, are you there?”

“Yes, of course.”

“My people outside report one of the brothers is leaving. Through the back. He’s going for his car.”

“Two cars and four men to follow,” ordered Preston. “Remaining two to stay with the restaurant. The runner may be leaving town.”

But he was not. Andreas Stephanides drove back to Compton Street, parked the car, and let himself in. Lights went on behind the curtains. Nothing else happened. At eleven-twenty, earlier than usual, Spiridon closed the restaurant and walked home, arriving at a quarter to twelve.

Preston’s tiger came just before the hour of midnight. The street was very quiet.

Almost all the lights were out. Preston had scattered his four cars and their crews far and wide, and nobody saw him come. The first they knew, there was a mutter from one of Stewart’s men.

“There’s a man at the top end of Compton Street, junction of Cross Street.”

“Doing?” asked Preston.

“Nothing. Standing motionless in the shadows.”

“Wait.”

It was pitch-dark in the Roystons’ upstairs bedroom. The curtains were back, the men standing away from the window. Mungo crouched behind the camera, which was wearing its infrared lens. Preston held his small radio close to one ear. Stewart’s team of six and Burkinshaw’s two drivers with their cars were out there somewhere, all linked by radio.

A door opened down the street as someone put a cat out. It closed again.

“He’s moving,” the radio muttered. “Down toward you. Slowly.”

“Got him,” hissed Ginger, who was at one of the side windows. “Medium height and build. Dark, long raincoat.”

“Mungo, can you get him under that streetlight, just before the Greeks’ house?” asked Burkinshaw.

Mungo turned the lens a fraction. “I’m focused on the pool of light,” he said.

“He’s got ten yards to go,” said Ginger.

Without a sound the figure in the raincoat entered the glow cast by the streetlamp.

Mungo’s camera threw off five fast exposures. The man passed out of the light and arrived at the gate to the Stephanides house. He went up the short path and tapped, instead of ringing, at the door. It opened at once. There was no light in the hall. The dark raincoat passed inside. The door closed.

In the Roystons’ bedroom the tension broke.

“Mungo, get that film out of there and over to the police lab. I want it developed and passed straight to Scotland Yard. Immediate transmission to Charles and Sentinel. I’ll tell them to be ready to try to get a make.”

Something was bothering Preston. Something about the way the man had walked. It was a warm night—why a raincoat? To keep dry? The sun had shone all day. To cover something? Pale clothing, distinctive clothing?

“Mungo, what was he wearing? You saw him in close-up.”

Mungo was halfway out the door. “A raincoat,” he said. “Dark. Long.”

“Under that.”

Ginger whistled. “Boots. I remember them now. Ten inches of jackboot.”

“Shit, he’s on a motorcycle,” said Preston. He spoke into the radio. “Everyone out on the streets. On foot only. No car engines. Every street in the district except Compton.

We’re looking for a motorcycle with a warm engine block.”

The problem is, he thought, I don’t know how long he’s going to be in there. Five minutes? Ten? Sixty? He radioed Len Stewart.

“Len, John here. If we get that motorcycle, I want a bleeper in it somewhere.

Meanwhile, call up Superintendent King. He’ll have to mount the operation. When Chummy leaves, we’ll be after him. Harry’s team and me. I want you and your boys to stay on the Greeks. When we are all one hour clear, the police can take the house and the Greeks.”

Len Stewart, inside the police station, assented and started to phone Superintendent King at home.