The Fourth Protocol
Read The Fourth Protocol Online
Authors: Frederick Forsyth
Tags: #General, #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #Suspense, #Action & Adventure, #History, #Thrillers, #20th Century, #Modern, #Political Freedom & Security, #Espionage, #Spy stories, #Political Science, #Intelligence, #Intelligence service
DON’T MISS THESE
GRIPPING BOOKS
BY FREDERICK
FORSYTH
THE DAY OF THE JACKAL
THE ODESSA FILE
THE DOGS OF WAR
THE DEVIL’S ALTERNATIVE
NO COMEBACKS
THE FOURTH PROTOCOL
THE NEGOTIATOR
THE DECEIVER
THE FIST OF GOD
AND IN HARDCOVER
ICON
AVAILABLE WHEREVER
BANTAM BOOKS ARE SOLD
THE FOURTH PROTOCOL
“Pure suspense.”
—Saturday Review
“Frederick
Forsyth
has hit the jackpot again. ...
The Fourth Protocol
is striking ... hard to put down. ... His grasp of the organization of various intelligence agencies is unimpeachable.”
—The Wall Street Journal
“
The Fourth Protocol
begins slowly and gently with a common jewel robbery and quickly evolves into an espionage thriller involving Great Britain, South Africa and the Soviet Union. ... As in all good spy novels there are plenty of threads that remain loose until the last 50 pages. ... Fast paced.”
—Bestsellers
“
The Fourth Protocol
is as good as anything he has done. ...
Forsyth’s
appeal in this kind of book goes well beyond his clockwork plots—and in
The Fourth Protocol
he is at the top of his form.”
—Houston Chronicle
“Will keep espionage fans turning the pages. ... The plotting is clever, and there is plenty of action, and a neat twist at the end.”
—New Woman
“Suspenseful plotting, direct and efficient writing, and detailing of everything from a safe-cracking to the smuggling of nuclear bomb components. ... The most fascinating spy novel since
The Little Drummer Girl
.”
—The Christian Science Monitor
“For sheer professionalism I give you the knowledge, invention and narrative skill of Frederick
Forsyth
who, ever since his
The Day of the Jackal
,
has proved himself a master of the genre. ... In this large-scale novel of international intrigue he outdoes himself both as storyteller and in extrapolating fiction from the facts of world affairs. ... You will find it hard to stop reading once you have begun. ... His most ambitious and intricately constructed book to date. ...
Forsyth
has no peer.”
—John Barkham Reviews
“An exciting tale of espionage, filled with the sorts of twists spy-story aficionados love.”
—Associated Press
“Forsyth
has meticulously constructed another intricate yet exciting spy novel. ... It succeeds magnificently ... as a scrupulously detailed study of spy ‘tradecraft’ and as a testament to the virtues of a well-constructed plot.”
—Booklist
“Forsyth
is rather like watching a ballet. Each component—the prose, the pacing, the story, the characters—is beautiful to watch, the whole superbly executed, setting the blood running much as music does.”
—Cosmopolitan
“Pure
Forsyth: a
meticulous, detailed unraveling of a dastardly plot to send the world, or at least most of Europe, into ferment. ... Nary a reader,
Forsyth
veteran or otherwise, will be disappointed.”
—Chicago Sun-Times
“Frederick
Forsyth
is a giant among the creators of fictional international intrigue. ... Truly fascinating ... rousing.”
—Kansas City Star
“Frederick
Forsyth,
who once labored for the Reuters news service, burst on the thriller scene in pretty dramatic fashion a while back with his first novel
The Day of the Jackal
. ...
Comes now
The Fourth Protocol
,
which I’m sure Mr.
Forsyth’s
fans will gobble up.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“Vitally suspenseful. ...
Forsyth
not only knows how to craft a successful suspense novel—he also has a well-developed sense of the political realities of confrontation between East and West.”
—Seattle Times
“Damnably good reading.”
—
St.
Petersburg Times
“The plots and counterplots of
The Fourth Protocol
race toward each other with shrewd complexity, unfolding with the brisk, mesmerizing suspense and clockwork timing that have become
Forsyth
’s
trademarks. ...
Forsyth
’s
proven again he is the unsurpassed master of the countdown thriller.”
—The Charlotte Observer
Bantam Books by Frederick
Forsyth
Ask your bookseller for the books you have missed
THE DAY OF THE JACKAL
THE ODESSA FILE
THE DOGS OF WAR
THE DEVIL’S ALTERNATIVE
NO COMEBACKS
THE FOURTH PROTOCOL
THE NEGOTIATOR
THE DECEIVER
THE FIST OF GOD
BANTAM BOOKS
NEW YORK • TORONTO • LONDON • SYDNEY • AUCKLAND
This edition contains the complete text of the original hardcover edition.
NOT ONE WORD HAS BEEN OMITTED.
THE FOURTH PROTOCOL
A Bantam Book / published by arrangement with Viking Penguin
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Viking edition published September 1984
Bantam Export edition / April 1985
Bantam edition / September 1985
Bantam reissue / August 1995
All rights reserved.
Copyright
©
1984 by Frederick
Forsyth.
Cover art copyright
©
1995 by Bantam Books.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information address: Viking Penguin, 375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014.
If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
ISBN 0-553-25113-9
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Bantam Books, 1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
OPM 18 17
For
Shane Richard, aged five,
without whose loving attentions this book
would have been written in half the time.
Chapter 1
The man in gray decided to take the Glen Suite of diamonds at midnight. Provided they were still in the apartment safe and the occupants away. This he needed to know. So he watched and he waited. At half past seven he was rewarded.
The big, wide limousine swooped up from the subterranean parking area with the powerful grace implied by its name. It paused for an instant in the mouth of the cavern as its driver checked the street for traffic, then turned into the road and headed toward Hyde Park Corner.
Sitting across from the luxury apartment building, dressed in a chauffeur’s uniform at the wheel of the rented Volvo Estate, Jim Rawlings breathed a sigh of relief. Gazing unobserved across the Belgravia street, he had seen what he had hoped for—the husband had been at the wheel, with his wife beside him. Rawlings already had the engine running and the heater on to keep out the cold. Moving the automatic shift into Drive, he eased out of the line of parked cars and went after the Jaguar.
It was a crisp and bright morning, with a pale wash of light over Green Park in the east, and the streetlights still on. Rawlings had been at the stakeout since five o’clock, and although a few people had passed down the street, no one had taken any notice of him. A chauffeur in a big car in Belgravia, richest of London’s West End districts, attracts no attention, least of all with four suitcases and a hamper in the back, on the morning of December 31. Many of the rich would be preparing to leave the capital to celebrate the festivities at their country homes.