The Fourth Protocol

The team worked through the night and were later able to report that Berenson had been cooperation itself. What they thought of him privately did not form part of their report, since it was unprintable.

Another group of experts, working deep inside the ministry, began to prepare the next batch of classified documents that Berenson would pass to Jan Marais and his controllers somewhere inside the First Chief Directorate at Yasyenevo.

John Preston moved into his new office as head of C5(C) on Wednesday, bringing his personal files with him. Fortunately he was moving up only one floor, to the third at Gordon. As he sat at his desk his eye caught sight of the calendar on the wall. It was April 1, April Fools’ Day. How very appropriate, he thought bitterly.

The only ray on his horizon was the knowledge that in a week his son, Tommy, would be home for the spring vacation. They would have a full week together before Julia, back from skiing with her boyfriend at Verbier, would claim him for the rest of the holiday.

For a whole week his small South Kensington flat would reverberate to the sound of twelve-year-old enthusiasms, to tales of prowess on the rugby field, jokes played on the French master, and the need for further supplies of jam and cake for illegal consumption after lights-out in the dormitory. Preston smiled at the prospect and resolved to take at least four days off. He had planned a few good father-and-son expeditions and hoped they would meet with Tommy’s approval. He was interrupted by Jeff Bright, his deputy head of section.

Bright, Preston knew, would have had his job except that his youth simply did not make it possible. Bright was another of Harcourt-Smith’s protégés, happy and flattered to be invited regularly for a quiet drink by the Deputy Director-General and to report everything that went on in the section. He would go far under the forthcoming director-generalship of Harcourt-Smith.

“I thought you might like to see the list of ports and airports we have to keep an eye on, John,” said Bright.

Preston studied the information put before him. Were there really that number of airports with flights originating or terminating outside the British Isles? And the list of ports able to receive commercial cargo vessels arriving from foreign ports went on for pages. He sighed and started to read.

The following day, Petrofsky found what he was looking for. Operating on a policy of making different purchases in different towns in the Suffolk/Essex area, he had gone to Stowmarket. The motorcycle was a BMW shaft-drive K100, not new but in excellent condition, a big, powerful machine, three years old but with only 22,000 miles on the clock. The same shop also stocked the accessories—black leather trousers and jacket, gauntlets, zip-sided jackboots, and crash helmet with dark, slide-down visor. He bought a complete outfit.

A twenty-percent deposit secured him the motorcycle, but not to take away. He asked for saddlebags to be fitted outside the rear wheel, with a lockable fiberglass box on top of them, and was told he could collect the machine with its fittings in two days.

From a phone booth he called the insurance broker in Colchester and gave him the registration number of the BMW. The broker was confident he could have temporary thirty-day insurance coverage by the next day. He would mail the policy to the Great White Horse hotel in Ipswich.

From Stowmarket, Petrofsky motored north to Thetford, just over the county border in Norfolk. There was nothing particular about Thetford; it just lay approximately in the line he needed. He found what he wanted just after lunch. On Magdalen Street, between No.

13A and the Salvation Army hall, is a recessed rectangular yard containing thirty garages.

One had a TO LET notice stuck on its door.

He traced the owner, who lived locally, and rented the garage for three months, paying in cash, and was given the key. The garage was small and musty, but would serve his purpose admirably. The owner had been happy to take tax-free cash and had asked for no form of identification. Petrofsky had therefore given him a fictitious name and address.

He stored his motorcycle leathers, helmet, and boots in the garage, and during what remained of the afternoon bought two ten-gallon plastic drums from two different shops, filled them with gasoline at two different stations, and locked them in the garage as well.

At sundown he motored back to Ipswich and told the hotel receptionist that he would be checking out the following morning.

Preston realized he was becoming bored to the point of distraction. He had been in the job only two days, and they had been spent reading files.

He sat over lunch in the canteen and thought seriously of taking early retirement. That presented two problems. First, it would not be easy for a man in his mid-forties to get good employment, the more so since his arcane qualifications were hardly the type that the big corporations would find of irresistible interest.