The Fourth Protocol (47 page)

“Yes.”

It was the uranium rod from the hollow fire extinguisher.

“That rod will fit exactly into the two-inch hole in the center of this ball. When it does, the whole mass will go critical. The steel tube over there is like a gun barrel, with the uranium rod as the bullet. In detonation the plastic explosive will blast the uranium rod down the tube and into the heart of this ball.”

“And it goes bang.”

“Not quite. You need the initiator. Left to itself, the uranium would fizz into extinction, create a hell of a lot of radioactivity, but no explosion. To get the bang you have to bombard the critical uranium with a blizzard of neutrons. Those two disks, the lithium and the polonium, form the initiator. Left apart, they are harmless; the polonium is a mild alpha-emitter, the lithium is inert. Smash them together and they do something odd. They start a reaction; they emit that blizzard of neutrons we need. Subjected to this, the uranium tears itself apart in a gigantic release of energy—the destruction of matter. It takes one hundred millionth of a second. The steel tamper is to hold it all together for that tiny period.”

“Who drops in the initiator?” asked Petrofsky in an attempt at gallows humor.

Vassiliev grinned. “No one. The two disks are in there already, but held apart. We put the polonium at one end of the hole in the uranium ball, and the lithium on the nose of the incoming uranium projectile. The bullet comes down the tube, into the heart of the ball, and the lithium on its nose is slammed into the polonium waiting at the other end of the tunnel. That’s it.”

Vassiliev used a drop of Super Glue to stick the polonium disk to one face of the flat steel plug from Lichka’s shoe heel. Then he screwed the plug into the hole at the base of one of the steel bowls. Taking the uranium ball, he lowered it into the bowl. The interior of that bowl had four nodules, which slotted into four indentations cast in the uranium. When they met and engaged, the ball was held in place. Vassiliev took a pencil flashlight and peered down the hole through the core of the uranium ball.

“There it is,” he said, “waiting at the bottom of the hole.”

Then he placed the second steel bowl over the top, to form a perfect globe, and spent an hour tightening the sixteen bolts around the flange to hold the two halves together.

“Now, the gun,” he remarked. He pushed the plastic explosive down the eighteen-inch-long steel tube, tamping it firmly but gently with a broom handle from the kitchen until it was packed tightly. Through the small hole in the base of the tube, Petrofsky could make out the plastic explosive bulging up. With the same Super Glue, Vassiliev attached the lithium disk to the flat nose of the uranium rod, wrapped it in a tissue to ensure it could not slip back down the tube from vibration, and rammed the rod down onto the explosive at the bottom. Then he screwed the tube into the globe. It looked like a gray, seven-inch-diameter melon with an eighteen-inch handle sticking out of one end; a sort of oversized stick-grenade.

“Nearly done,” said Vassiliev. “The rest is conventional bomb-making.”

He took the detonator, separated the wires from its end and insulated each with tape. If they touched each other, there could be a premature detonation. A length of five-amp electrical wiring was twisted onto each wire from the detonator. Then he pressed the detonator through the hole in the far end of the tube until it was embedded in plastic explosive.

He lowered the bomb like a baby onto its foam-rubber cradle, packing more foam rubber all around its sides, and yet more over the top, as if it were going to bed. Only the two wires were kept free. One of these was attached to the positive terminal of the battery block. A third wire went from the negative terminal on the batteries, so Vassiliev still had one of each in his hands. He insulated each exposed end.

“Just in case they touch each other.” He grinned. “Now that
would
be bad news.”

The single unused component was the timer box. Vassiliev used the drill to bore five holes in the side of the steel cabinet near the top. The center hole was for the wires out of the back of the timer, which he fed through. The other four were for thin bolts with which he fixed the timer to the exterior of the cabinet. This done, he linked the wires from the batteries and detonator to those from the timer, according to their color coding. Petrofsky held his breath.

“Don’t worry,” said Vassiliev, who had noticed his apprehension. “This timer was repeatedly tested back home. The cutout, or circuit breaker, is inside, and it works.”

He stowed the last of the wires, insulated the joins heavily, and lowered the lid of the cabinet, locking it securely and tossing the key to Petrofsky.

“So, Comrade Ross, there it is. You can wheel it on the dolly and put it in the rear of the hatchback, and it will not be damaged. You can drive where you wish—the vibration will not disturb it. One last thing. The yellow button, here, if pushed firmly, will start the timer, but it will not complete the electrical circuit. The timer will do that two hours later. Press this yellow button and you have two hours to get the hell out. The red button is a manual override. Press that and you get instant detonation.”

He did not know he was wrong. He really believed what he had been told. Only four men in Moscow knew that both buttons were set for instant detonation. It was now evening.

“Now, friend Ross, I want to eat, drink a little, sleep well, and go home tomorrow morning. If that is all right with you.”

“Sure,” said Petrofsky. “Let’s get the cabinet into the corner here, between the sideboard and the drinks table. Help yourself to a whisky, and I’ll rustle up some supper.”

They set off for Heathrow in Petrofsky’s small car at ten the next morning. At a place southwest of Colchester where the dense woods come close to the road, Petrofsky stopped the car and got out to relieve himself. Seconds later, Vassiliev heard a sharp cry of alarm and ran to investigate. The assembler ended his life with an expertly broken neck behind a screen of trees. The body, stripped of all identification, was laid in a shallow ditch and covered with fresh branches. It would probably be discovered in a day or so, maybe later. Police inquiries would eventually involve a photograph in the local papers, which Petrofsky’s neighbor Armitage might or might not see, and might or might not recognize. It would be too late, anyway. Petrofsky drove back to Ipswich.

He had no qualms. His orders had been quite clear on the matter of the assembler. How Vassiliev had ever thought he would be allowed to go home, Petrofsky could not imagine. In any case, he had other problems. Everything was ready, but time was short. He had visited Rendlesham Forest and picked his spot; in dense cover but hardly a hundred yards from the perimeter wire of the USAF base at Bentwaters. There would be no one there at four in the morning when he pressed the yellow button to initiate detonation for six o’clock. Fresh branches would cover the cabinet while the minutes ticked away and he drove hard toward London.

The only thing he did not know was which morning it would be. The signal to go operational would, he knew, come on the Radio Moscow English-language-service news at ten o’clock of the preceding evening. It would be in the form of a deliberate word-fluff by the broadcaster in the first news item. But since Vassiliev could not tell them, Petrofsky still had to inform Moscow that all was in readiness. This meant a last message by radio. After that, the
Stephanides
brothers would be expendable. In the dusk of a warm June evening he left Cherryhayes Close and drove sedately north toward Thetford and his motorcycle. At nine o’clock, having changed clothes and vehicles, he began to ride northwest into the British Midlands.

The boredom of an ordinary evening for the watchers in the second-floor-front bedroom of the Royston house was broken at just after ten when Len Stewart came on the air from the police station.

“John, one of my lads was eating in the kebab place just now. The phone rang twice, then the caller hung up. It rang again twice, and he hung up again. Then he did it a third time. The listeners confirm it.”

“Did the Greeks try to answer it?”

“They didn’t reach it in time the first occasion it rang.

After that, they didn’t try for it. Just went on serving. … Hold on. ... John, are you there?”

“Yes, of course.”

“My people outside report one of the brothers is leaving. Through the back. He’s going for his car.”

“Two cars and four men to follow,” ordered Preston. “Remaining two to stay with the restaurant. The runner may be leaving town.”

But he was not. Andreas
Stephanides
drove back to Compton Street, parked the car, and let himself in. Lights went on behind the curtains. Nothing else happened. At eleven-twenty, earlier than usual, Spiridon closed the restaurant and walked home, arriving at a quarter to twelve.

Preston’s tiger came just before the hour of midnight. The street was very quiet. Almost all the lights were out. Preston had scattered his four cars and their crews far and wide, and nobody saw him come. The first they knew, there was a mutter from one of Stewart’s men.

“There’s a man at the top end of Compton Street, junction of Cross Street.”

“Doing?” asked Preston.

“Nothing. Standing motionless in the shadows.”

“Wait.”

It was pitch-dark in the Roystons’ upstairs bedroom. The curtains were back, the men standing away from the window.
Mungo
crouched behind the camera, which was wearing its infrared lens. Preston held his small radio close to one ear. Stewart’s team of six and Burkinshaw’s two drivers with their cars were out there somewhere, all linked by radio. A door opened down the street as someone put a cat out. It closed again.

“He’s moving,” the radio muttered. “Down toward you. Slowly.”

“Got him,” hissed Ginger, who was at one of the side windows. “Medium height and build. Dark, long raincoat.”

“Mungo,
can you get him under that streetlight, just before the Greeks’ house?” asked Burkinshaw.

Mungo
turned the lens a fraction. “I’m focused on the pool of light,” he said.

“He’s got ten yards to go,” said Ginger.

Without a sound the figure in the raincoat entered the glow cast by the streetlamp. Mungo’s camera threw off five fast exposures. The man passed out of the light and arrived at the gate to the
Stephanides
house. He went up the short path and tapped, instead of ringing, at the door. It opened at once. There was no light in the hall. The dark raincoat passed inside. The door closed.

In the Roystons’ bedroom the tension broke.

“Mungo,
get that film out of there and over to the police lab. I want it developed and passed straight to Scotland Yard. Immediate transmission to Charles and Sentinel. I’ll tell them to be ready to try to get a make.”

Something was bothering Preston. Something about the way the man had walked. It was a warm night—why a raincoat? To keep dry? The sun had shone all day. To cover something? Pale clothing, distinctive clothing?

“Mungo,
what was he wearing? You saw him in close-up.”

Mungo was
halfway out the door. “A raincoat,” he said. “Dark. Long.”

“Under that.”

Ginger whistled. “Boots. I remember them now. Ten inches of jackboot.”

“Shit, he’s on a motorcycle,” said Preston. He spoke into the radio. “Everyone out on the streets. On foot only. No car engines. Every street in the district except Compton. We’re looking for a motorcycle with a warm engine block.”

The problem is, he thought, I don’t know how long he’s going to be in there. Five minutes? Ten? Sixty? He radioed Len Stewart.

“Len, John here. If we get that motorcycle, I want a bleeper in it somewhere. Meanwhile, call up Superintendent King. He’ll have to mount the operation. When Chummy leaves, we’ll be after him. Harry’s team and me. I want you and your boys to stay on the Greeks. When we are all one hour clear, the police can take the house and the Greeks.”

Len Stewart, inside the police station, assented and started to phone Superintendent King at home.

It was twenty minutes before one of the roving team found the motorcycle. He reported to Preston, still at the Royston house.

“There’s a big BMW, top end of Queen Street. Carrier box behind the pillion, locked. Two saddlebags either side of the rear wheel, unlocked. Engine and exhaust still warm.”

“Registration number?”

The number was given him. He passed it to Len Stewart at the police station. Stewart asked for an immediate make on it. It turned out to be a Suffolk number, registered to a Mr. James Duncan Ross of Dorchester.

“It’s either a stolen vehicle, a false plate, or a blind address,” muttered Preston. Hours later, the Dorchester police established it was the last of the three.

The man who had found the motorcycle was ordered to plant the direction-finder in one of the saddlebags, switch it on, and get well away from the vehicle. The man, Joe, was one of Burkinshaw’s two drivers. He went back to his car, effaced himself behind the steering wheel, and confirmed that the bleeper was functioning.

“Okay,” said Preston, “we’re doing a changeover. All drivers back to their cars. Three of Len Stewart’s men, move toward the West Street rear entrance to our observation post and relieve us. One by one, quietly, and now,” To the men around him in the room he said, “Harry, pack up. You go first. Take the lead car. I’ll ride with you. Barney, Ginger, take the backup car. If
Mungo
can make it back in time, he’ll be with me.”

One by one, Stewart’s men arrived to replace Burkinshaw’s team. Preston prayed that the agent across the road would not move out while the changeover was taking place. He was the last to leave, putting his head around the door of the Roystons’ bedroom to thank them for their help and assure them it would all be over by dawn. The whispers that came back were more than a little worried.

Preston slipped through the back garden and into West Street, and five minutes later joined Burkinshaw and Joe, the driver, in their lead car, parked on Foljambe Road. Ginger and Barney reported in from the second car, at the top end of Marsden Street, off the Saltergate.