The Fourth Protocol

To their left a flush of pink dusted the eastern horizon, and the silhouettes of the passing trees became clearer. Joe went from headlights to sidelights.

Far to the south, the lights were also dimmed on the columns of buses that growled on choked roads through the Suffolk market town of Bury St. Edmunds. There were two hundred of them, converging from a variety of different directions across the country, packed to the windows with peace marchers. Other demonstrators came in cars, on motorcycles and bicycles, and on foot. The slow cavalcade, hung with its banners and placards, moved out of the town and up the A143 to come to rest at Ixworth junction. The buses could go no farther down the narrow lanes. They stopped on the verge of the main road close to the junction and discharged their yawning cargoes into the brightening dawn of the Suffolk countryside. The marshals then began to urge and cajole the throng into some semblance of a column while the Suffolk police sat astride their motorcycles and watched.

In London, the lights were still burning. Sir Bernard Hemmings had been driven from his home, having been alerted, as he had requested, when the watcher teams in Chesterfield began to follow their man. He was in the basement radio room at Cork Street, with Brian Harcourt-Smith beside him.

Across the city, Sir Nigel Irvine, also roused at his own request, was in his office at Sentinel House. Beneath him, in the basement, Blodwyn had sat for half the night and stared at the face of a man beneath a streetlamp in a small Derbyshire town. She had been driven from her Camden Town home in the small hours, and had agreed to come only at the personal request of Sir Nigel himself. He had greeted her with flowers; for him she would walk over broken glass, but for no one else.

“He’s never been here before,” Blodwyn had said as soon as she set eyes on the photograph, “and yet ...”

After an hour it was to the Middle East that she turned her attention, and at four in the morning she had him. It was a contribution from the Israeli Mossad; it was six years old, a bit blurred, and only the one picture. Even the Mossad had not been sure; the accompanying text made plain it was just a suspicion.

One of their men had taken the photograph on the streets of Damascus. The subject had called himself Timothy Donnelly then, and represented himself as a salesman for Waterford crystal. On a hunch the Mossad had snapped him and checked with their people in Dublin. Timothy Donnelly existed, but he was not in Damascus. By the time this was learned, the man in the picture had vanished. He had never surfaced again.

“That’s him,” Blodwyn said. “The ears prove it. He should have worn a hat.’

Sir Nigel called the basement radio room at Cork Street. “We think we have a make, Bernard,” he said. “We can run you off a print and send it over.”

They almost lost him six miles south of King’s Lynn. The pursuit cars were heading south to Downham Market when the blip began to drift, imperceptibly at first, then more definitely, toward the east. Preston consulted his road map.

“He turned off back there onto the A134,” he said. “Heading for Thetford. Take a left here.”

They got on the tail again at Stradsett, and then it was a straight run through the thickening forests of beech, oak, and pine to Thetford. They had reached the top of Gallows Hill and could see the ancient market town spread out ahead of them in the dim light of dawn when Joe slewed to a halt.

“He’s stopped again.”

Another check for a tail? He had always done that in open countryside before.

“Where is he?”

Joe studied the range indicator and pointed ahead. “Right in the heart of the town, John.”

Preston conned the map. Apart from the road they were on, there were five others leading out of Thetford in the configuration of a star. The daylight was growing. It was five o’clock. Preston yawned. “We’ll give him ten.”

The blip never moved for ten minutes, or another five. Preston sent his second car around the ring road. From four points the second car triangulated with the first; the blip was right in the center of Thetford. Preston picked up the hand mike.

“Okay, I think we have his base. We’re moving in.”

The two cars closed on the center of town. They converged on Magdalen Street, and at five-twenty-five found the hollow square of garages. Joe maneuvered the nose of the car until it pointed unswervingly at one of the doors. The tension among the men began to mount.

“He’s in there,” said Joe. Preston climbed out. He was joined by Barney and Ginger from the other car.

“Ginger, can you lose that door handle?”

For answer Ginger took a crowbar from the toolkit in one of the cars, slipped it over the garage door handle and jerked it sharply. There was a crack inside the lock. He looked at Preston, who nodded. Ginger swept the up-and-over garage door open and stood hastily back.