The Fourth Protocol

The Chief of Six was consumed with apology. “My dear Brian, there is no doubt in my mind about that,” he said. “It is just that ... well ... sometimes one can get an impression from interrogating a suspect that ill conveys itself to paper. I don’t know what the committee thinks, but we are going to have to make a decision as to what happens next. I just thought it might be helpful to listen to the one man who has talked to Peters.”

There was a succession of nods around the table. Hemmings dispatched an evidently irritated Harcourt-Smith to the telephone to summon Preston. While the mandarins waited, coffee was served.

Preston was shown in thirty minutes later. The senior men examined him with some curiosity. He was given a chair at the center of the table, opposite his own Director-General and DDG.

Sir Anthony Plumb explained the committee’s dilemma and asked, “Just what happened between you?”

Preston thought for a moment. “In the car, on the way down to the country, he broke down. Up till then he had maintained a form of composure, although under great strain. I took him down alone, driving myself. He started to cry, and to talk.”

“Yes?” prompted Sir Anthony. “What did he say?”

“He admitted his taste for transvestite fetishism, but seemed stunned by the accusation of treason. He denied it hotly, and continued to do so until I left him with the ‘minders.’ ”

“Well, he would,” said Brian Harcourt-Smith. “He could still be our man.”

“Yes, indeed, he could,” agreed Preston.

“But your impression, your gut feeling?” murmured Sir Nigel Irvine.

Preston took a deep breath. “Gentlemen, I don’t think he is.”

“May we ask why?” said Sir Anthony.

“As Sir Nigel implies, it’s just a gut feeling,” said Preston. “I’ve seen two men whose world had shattered about them and who believed they had not much left to live for.

When men in that mood talk, they tend to spill the lot. A rare man of great composure, like Philby or Blunt, can hold out. But these were ideological traitors, convinced Marxists. If Sir Richard Peters was blackmailed into treachery, I think he would either have admitted it when the house of cards came tumbling down, or at least shown no surprise at the accusation of treason. He did show complete surprise; he could have been acting, but I think he was beyond it by then. Either that, or he ought to have an Oscar.”

It was a long speech from such a junior man in the presence of the Paragon Committee, and there was silence for a while. Harcourt-Smith was looking daggers at Preston. Sir Nigel was studying Preston with interest. In view of his office, he knew about the Londonderry incident that had blown Preston’s cover as an Army undercover man. He also noted Harcourt-Smith’s gaze and wondered why the DDG at Five seemed to dislike Preston. His own opinion of the man was favorable.

“What do you think, Nigel?” asked Anthony Plumb.

Irvine nodded. “I, too, have seen the mood of utter collapse that overtakes a traitor when he is exposed. Vassall, Prime—both weak and inadequate men, and they both spilled the lot when the house came tumbling down. So, if not Peters, that seems to leave George Berenson.”

“It’s been a month,” complained Sir Patrick Strickland. “We really have got to nail the culprit one way or the other.”

“The culprit could still be a personal assistant or secretary on the staff of either of these two men,” pointed out Sir Perry Jones. “Isn’t that so, Mr. Preston?”

“Quite true, sir,” said Preston.

“Then we are going to have to clear George Berenson or prove he’s our man,” said Sir Patrick in some exasperation. “Even if he’s cleared, that leaves us Peters. And if he won’t cough, we’re back to square one.”

“May I make a suggestion?” asked Preston quietly.

There was some surprise. He had not been asked here to make suggestions. But Sir Anthony Plumb was a courteous man. “Please do,” he said.

“The ten documents returned by the anonymous sender all fell within a pattern,” said Preston.

The men around the table nodded.

“Seven of them,” Preston continued, “contained material affecting Britain’s and NATO’s naval dispositions in the Atlantic, North or South. That seems to be an area of NATO planning of particular interest to our man or his controllers. Would it be possible to cause to pass across Mr. Berenson’s desk a document of such irresistible tastiness that, if he is the guilty party, he would be sorely tempted to abstract a copy and make a move to pass it on?”

A number of heads around the table nodded thoughtfully.

“Smoke him out, you mean?” mused Sir Bernard Hemmings. “What do you think, Nigel?”

“You know, I think I like it. It might just work. Could it be done, Perry?”