The Fourth Protocol

The roar of the Wingmaster, as it tore the hinges off the door, catapulted them all out of their chairs. The moment he had fired, the gunman stepped sideways and back to give room to his mate. One swing of the sledgehammer and the lock, bolt, and chain on the other side flew in all directions. Then he, too, stepped sideways and back. Both men dropped their weapons and flicked their HKs forward and out.

Steve and the corporal had already gone through the gap. The corporal took three bounds to get up the stairs, with the sledgehammer man following on his heels. Steve ran past the ringing telephone, reached the sitting-room door, turned to face it, and was lifted off his feet. The three slugs that ripped across the hallway hit him with an audible whap and blew him against the stairs. The Wingmaster man simply leaned across the still-closed door and fired two two-round bursts. Then he kicked the door open and went in on the roll, coming to his feet at the crouch, well inside the room.

When the shotgun fired, Captain Lyndhurst opened the front door across the street and watched; Preston was behind him. Through the lighted hallway the captain saw his deputy team commander approach the sitting-room door, only to be thrown aside like a rag doll. Lyndhurst started to walk forward; Preston followed.

As the trooper who had fired the two bursts came to his feet and surveyed the inert figure on the carpet, Captain Lyndhurst appeared in the doorway. He took in the scene at a glance, despite the drifting plume of cordite smoke. “Go and help Steve in the hall,” he said crisply. The trooper did not argue. The man on the floor began to move. Lyndhurst drew his Browning from beneath his jacket.

The trooper had been good. Petrofsky had taken one slug in the left knee, one in the lower stomach, and one in the right shoulder. His pistol had been flung across the room.

Despite the distortion caused by the door’s woodwork, the trooper had connected with three out of four slugs. Petrofsky was in hideous pain, but he was alive. He began to crawl. Twelve feet away he could see the gray steel, the flat box on its side, the two buttons, one yellow and one red. Captain Lyndhurst took careful aim and fired once.

John Preston ran past him so fast he jostled the officer’s hip. He went down on his knees beside the body on the floor. The Russian was lying on his side, half the back of his head blown away, his mouth still working as if he were a fish on a slab. Preston bent his head to the dying face. Lyndhurst still had his gun at the aim, but the MI5 man was between him and the Russian. He stepped to one side to get a clearer shot, then lowered the Browning. Preston was rising. There was no need for a second shot.

“We’d better get the wallahs from Aldermaston to have a look at that,” said Lyndhurst, gesturing at the steel cabinet in the corner.

“I wanted him alive,” said Preston.

“Sorry, old boy. Couldn’t be done,” said the captain.

At that moment both men jumped at the sound of a loud click and a voice speaking to them from the sideboard. They saw that the sound had come from a large radio set, which had switched itself on with a timer device. The voice said:

“Good evening. This is Radio Moscow, the English-language service, and here is the ten o’clock news. In Terry ... I’m sorry, I’ll say that again. In Teheran today, the government stated—”

Captain Lyndhurst stepped over and switched the machine off The man on the floor stared at the carpet with sightless eyes, immune to the coded message meant for him alone.

Chapter 23

The lunch invitation was for one o’clock on Friday, June 19, at Brooks’s Club in St.

James’s. Preston entered the portals at that hour, but even before he could announce himself to the club porter in the booth to his right, Sir Nigel was striding down the marbled hall to meet him. “My dear John, how kind of you to come.”

They adjourned to the bar for a pre-lunch drink, and the conversation was informal.

Preston was able to tell the Chief that he had just returned from Hereford, where he had visited Steve Bilbow in the hospital. The staff sergeant had had a lucky escape. Only when the flattened slugs from the Russian’s gun were removed from his body armor did one of the doctors notice a sticky smear and have it analyzed. The cyanide compound had failed to enter the bloodstream; the SAS man had been saved by the trauma pads.

Otherwise he was heavily bruised, slightly dented, but in good shape.

“Excellent,” said Sir Nigel with genuine enthusiasm, “one does so hate to lose a good man.”

For the rest, most of the bar was discussing the election result and many of those present had been up half the night waiting for the final results in the close-fought contest to come in from the provinces.