The Fourth Protocol (44 page)

Up the street he saw lights come on in a darkened house. The door opened, there was a brief conversation on the doorstep, and
Winkler
went inside. Preston sighed and settled behind his bush for a night-long vigil. He could not read the number of the house
Winkler
had entered, nor could he watch the rear of the place as well, but he could see the towering wall of the football stadium behind the house, so perhaps there was no feasible exit on that side.

At two in the morning, he heard the faint noise of his communicator as Burkinshaw came back into range. He identified himself and gave his position. At half past two he heard the soft pad of footsteps and hissed to give his location. Burkinshaw joined him in the shrubbery.

“You all right, John?”

“Yes. He’s housed up there, second beyond the tree, with a light behind the curtain.”

“Got it. John, there was a reception party at Sheffield. Two Special Branch and three uniformed. Drummed up by London. Did you want an arrest?”

“Absolutely not.
Winkler’s
a courier. I want the big fish. He might be inside that house. What happened to the Sheffield party?”

Burkinshaw laughed. “Thank God for the British police. Sheffield is Yorkshire; this is Derbyshire. They’re going to have to sort it out between their chief constables in the morning. It gives you time.”

“Yeah. Where are the others?”

“Down the street. We came back by taxi and dismissed it. John, we’ve got no wheels. Also, come the dawn, this street’s got no cover.”

“Put two at the top of the street and two down here,” said Preston. “I’m going back into the town to find the police station and ask for a bit of backup. If Chummy leaves, tell me. But shadow him with two of the team— keep two on that house.”

He left the garden and walked back into central Chesterfield looking for the police station, which he found on
Beetwell
Street. As he walked, a thought kept repeating itself in his head. There was something about Winkler’s performance that did not make sense.

Superintendent Robin King was not pleased to be woken at three in the morning, but on hearing there was an officer from MI5 at his police station seeking assistance, he agreed to come at once, and was there, unshaven and uncombed, twenty minutes later. He listened attentively while Preston explained the gist of the story: that a foreigner believed to be a Soviet agent had been tailed from London, had jumped train at Chesterfield, and had been followed to a house on Compton Street, number as yet unknown.

“I do not know who lives in that house, or why our suspect has visited it. I intend to find out, but for the moment I do not want an arrest. I want to watch the house. Later this morning, we can sort out a fuller authority through the chief constable for Derbyshire; for the moment the problem is more urgent. I have four men from our watcher service on that street, but come the daylight they’ll stick out like sore thumbs. So I need some assistance now.”

“What, exactly, can I do for you, Mr. Preston?” the senior police officer asked.

“Have you got an unmarked van, for instance?”

“No. Several police cars, unmarked, and a couple of vans, but with police insignia on the side.”

“Can we get hold of an unmarked van and park it on that street with my men inside, just as a temporary measure?”

The superintendent called the duty sergeant on the phone. He put the same question and listened for a while. “Raise him on the phone and ask him to call me right now,” he said. To Preston: “One of our men has a van. It’s pretty battered—he’s always having his leg pulled about it.”

Thirty minutes later the sleepy police constable had made rendezvous with the watcher team outside the football stadium’s main entrance. Burkinshaw and his men piled inside and the van was driven to Compton Street and parked opposite the suspect house. On instructions, the policeman climbed out, stretched, and walked away down the road, for all the world like a man coming home after working the night shift.

Burkinshaw peered from the van’s rear windows and came on the radio to Preston. “That’s better,” he said, “we’ve got a great view of the house across the street. By the way, it’s Number Fifty-nine.”

“Hold on there for a while,” said Preston. “I’m trying to fix something better. Meanwhile, if
Winkler
leaves on foot, tail him with two men and leave two to stay with the house. If he leaves by car, follow in the van.” He turned to Superintendent King. “We may have to stake out that house for a longer period. That means taking over an upstairs room of a house across the way. Can we find anyone in Compton Street who might let us do that?”

The police chief was thoughtful. “I do know someone who lives on Compton Street,” he said. “We’re both Masons, members of the same lodge. That’s how I know him. He’s a former chief petty officer in the navy, retired now. He’s at Number Sixty-eight. I don’t know where it’s located on the street, though.”

Burkinshaw confirmed that 68 Compton Street was across from the suspect house and two buildings up. The second-floor-front window, probably a bedroom, would provide a perfect view of the target. Superintendent King rang his friend from the station.

At Preston’s suggestion the policeman told the sleepy householder, a Mr. Sam Royston, that this was an official operation—they wished to watch a possible suspect who had taken refuge across the street. When he had gathered his wits, Royston rose to the occasion. As a law-abiding citizen he would certainly allow the police to use his front room.

The van was quietly driven around the block into West Street; Burkinshaw and his team slipped between the houses there, over the garden fences, and entered Royston’s house on Compton Street from the back garden. Just before the sun flooded the street, the watcher team settled down in the Roystons’ bedroom behind the lace curtains, through which they could see No. 59 across the way.

Royston, ramrod-stiff in camel dressing gown and bristling with the self-importance of a patriot asked to assist the Queen’s officers, glowered through the curtains to the house almost opposite. “Bank robbers, are they? Drug traffickers?”

“Something like that,” assented Burkinshaw.

“Foreigners,” growled Royston. “Never did like ’em. Should never have let ’em all into the country.”

Ginger, whose parents had come from Jamaica, stared stolidly through the curtains.
Mungo,
the Scot, was bringing a pair of chairs up from below.

Mrs. Royston emerged like a mouse from some secret hiding place, having removed her curlers and hairpins. “Would anyone,” she inquired, “like a nice cup of tea?”

Barney, who was young and handsome, flashed his most winning smile. “That would be lovely, ma’am.”

It made her day. She began to prepare the first of what turned out to be an endless relay of cups of tea, a brew upon which she appeared to live without any visible recourse to solid foods.

At the police station the desk sergeant had also established the identity of the inhabitants of 59 Compton Street.

“Two Greek Cypriots, sir,” he reported to Superintendent King. “Brothers and both bachelors, Andreas and Spiridon
Stephanides.
Been here about four years, according to the constable on that beat. Seems they run a Greek kebab and take-away joint at Holywell Cross.”

Preston had spent half an hour on the phone to London. First he raised the duty officer at Sentinel, who put him through to Banks. “Barry, I want you to contact C wherever he is and ask him to call me back.”

Sir Nigel Irvine came on the line five minutes later, as calm and lucid as if he had not been asleep at all. Preston informed him of the night’s events.

“Sir, there was a reception party at Sheffield. Two Special Branch and three uniformed, authorized to make an arrest.”

“I don’t think that was part of the arrangement, John.”

“Not as far as I was concerned.”

“All right, John, I’ll handle it at this end. You’ve got the house. Are you going to move in now?”

“I’ve got
a
house,” corrected Preston. “I don’t want to move in because I don’t think it’s the end of the trail. One other thing, sir. If
Winkler
leaves and heads for home, I want him to be allowed to go in peace. If he is a courier, or message carrier, or just checking up, his people will be expecting him back in Vienna. If he fails to show, they’ll switch off the cutouts from top to bottom.”

“Yes,” said Sir Nigel carefully. “I’ll have a word with Sir Bernard about that. Do you want to stay with the operation up there or come back to London?”

“I’d like to stay up here, if possible.”

“All right. I’ll make it a top-level request from Six that what you want is accorded to you. Now, cover yourself and make your operational report to Charles Street.”

When he put the phone down, Sir Nigel called Sir Bernard Hemmings at his home. The Director-General of Five agreed to meet him for breakfast at the Guards Club at eight.

“So you see, Bernard, it really may be that the Center is mounting quite a large operation inside this country at the moment,” said C as he buttered his second piece of toast.

Sir Bernard Hemmings was deeply disturbed. He sat with his food untouched in front of him. “Brian should have told me about the Glasgow incident,” he said. “What the hell’s that report still sitting on his desk for?”

“We all make errors of judgment from time to time.
Errare humanum
est
,
and all that,” murmured Sir Nigel. “After all, my Vienna people thought
Winkler was
a bagman for a longstanding ring of agents, and I deduced Jan
Marais
might be one of that ring. Now it appears there could be two separate operations, after all.”

He refrained from admitting that he himself had written the Vienna cable of the previous day in order to obtain what he wanted from his colleague—Preston’s inclusion as field controller in the
Winkler
operation. For C there was a time for candor and a time for discreet silence.

“And the second operation, the one linked to the intercept in Glasgow?” asked Sir Bernard.

Sir Nigel shrugged. “I just don’t know, Bernard. We’re all feeling our way in the dark. Brian evidently does not believe it. He may be right. In which case I’m the one with egg all over his face. And yet, the Glasgow affair, the mysterious transmitter in the Midlands, the arrival of
Winkler
.. . That man
Winkler was
a lucky break, maybe the last we’ll get.”

“Then what are your conclusions, Nigel?”

C smiled apologetically. It was the question he had been waiting for. “No conclusions, Bernard. A few tentative deductions. If
Winkler
is a courier, I’d expect him to make his contact and hand over his package, or to pick up the package he came to collect, at some public place. A parking lot, river embankment, garden bench, seat by a pond ... If there is a big operation going down here, there must be a top-level illegal in on the ground. The man running the show. If you were he, would you want the couriers turning up at your doorstep? Of course not. You’d have one cutout, maybe two. Do have some coffee.”

“All right, agreed.” Sir Bernard waited as his colleague poured him a cup.

“Therefore, Bernard, it occurs to me that
Winkler
cannot be the big fish. He’s small potatoes—a bagman, a courier, or something else. Same goes for the two Cypriots in a small house in Chesterfield. Sleepers, wouldn’t you say?”

“Yes,” agreed Sir Bernard, “low-level sleepers.”

“It begins to look, therefore, as if the Chesterfield house might be a depository for incoming packages, a mail drop, a safe house, or maybe the home of the transmitter. After all, it’s in the right area; the two squirts intercepted by GCHQ were from the Derbyshire Peak District and the hills north of Sheffield, an easy drive from Chesterfield.”

“And
Winkler?“

“What can one think, Bernard? A technician sent in to repair the transmitter if it develops problems? A supervisor to check on progress? Either way, I think we should let him report back that everything is in order.”

“And the big fish—do you think he might show up?”

Sir Nigel shrugged again. His own fear was that Brian Harcourt-Smith, balked of his intended arrest at Sheffield, would try to engineer the storming of the Chesterfield house. For Sir Nigel, this would be wholly premature. “I should have thought there has to be a contact there somewhere. Either he comes to the Greeks or they go to him,” he said.

“You know, Nigel, I think we should stake out that house in Chesterfield, at least for a while.”

The Chief of the SIS looked grave. “Bernard, old friend, I happen to agree with you. But young Brian seems very gung-ho to move in and make a few arrests. He tried last night at Sheffield. Of course, arrests look good for a while, but—”

“You leave Harcourt-Smith to me, Nigel,” said Sir Bernard grimly. “I may be pegging out, but there’s a bark left in the old dog yet. You know, I’m going to take over the direction of this operation personally.”

Sir Nigel leaned forward and placed his hand on Sir Bernard’s forearm. “I really wish you would, Bernard.”

Winkler
left the house on Compton Street at half past nine, on foot.
Mungo
and Barney slipped out of the rear of the Royston house, through the garden, and picked up the Czech on the corner of Ashgate Road.
Winkler
went back to the station, took the London train, and was picked up at St.
Paneras
by a fresh team.
Mungo
and Barney went back to Derbyshire.

Winkler
never returned to his boardinghouse. Whatever he had left there he abandoned, as he had the suitcase with pajamas and shirt on the train, and went straight to Heathrow. He caught the afternoon flight to Vienna. Irvine’s head of station there later reported that
Winkler was
met on his arrival in Austria by two men from the Soviet Embassy.