Red storm rising - By Tom Clancy Page 0,151

those lights could just be--shit!" Edwards cursed. The lights hadn't taken the sweeping turn on the coastal highway. They were coming down the road to the farm. Was it a car or a track with its driving lights on? "Spread out and stay awake." Smith stayed with Edwards, and the two privates moved downhill about fifty yards.

Edwards lay prone, his elbows propped up on the wet grass and binoculars to his eyes. He didn't think they could be spotted. The Marine pattern camouflage made them nearly invisible in daylight as long as they didn't move rapidly. In the dark they were transparent shadows.

"Looks like a pickup, four-by-four, something like that. Lights are pretty far off the ground, bouncing around too much to be a track," Edwards thought aloud.

The lights came directly--but slowly--to the farmhouse and stopped. Its doors opened, men got out, and one stepped in front of the headlights before they were extinguished.

"Damn!" Smith snarled.

"Yep, looks like four or five Ivans. Get Garcia and Rodgers over here, Sergeant."

"Right."

Edwards kept his binoculars on the house. There were no electric lights lit. He guessed that this area got its power from Artun, and he'd watched the bombs wipe that plant off the map. There was some internal illumination, though, maybe from candies or a hurricane lamp. It really was a lot like home, Edwards told himself; our electricity went off often enough, from nor'east-em storms or ice on the wires. The people in that house had to be asleep. Working farmers, early to bed, early to rise--wears you out and dulls the brain, Edwards thought. Through the lenses he watched the Russians--he counted five--circle the house. Like burglars, he thought. They looking for ... us? No. If they were looking for us, there'd be more than five guys in a four-by-four. That's interesting. They must be looting--but what if somebody ... Jesus, we know that somebody lives there. Somebody lit that lamp. What are they up to?

"What gives, sir?" Smith asked.

"Looks like we got five Russkies. They're playing peeper, looking in the windows and--one just kicked the door in! I don't like the way this is going, troops, I--"

A scream confirmed his evaluation. A woman's scream, it cut right through the falling rain and made them feel someone's terror, chilling men already cold.

"People, let's move in a little. We stay together and we damned well stay alert."

"Why we movin' in now, sir?" Smith asked sharply.

"'uz 1 say so." Edwards stowed his field glasses. "Follow me."

Another light was lit in the building, and it seemed to be moving around. Edwards walked quickly, keeping low in a way that punished his back. In two minutes he was a few yards from the truck that had driven in, no more than twenty yards from the home's front door.

"Sir, you're getting a little careless," Smith warned.

"Yeah, well, if I guess right, so are they. I bet--"

There was a sound of breaking glass. A shot rang out through the semidarkness. It was followed by a blood-chilling shriek--and a second shot, and a third. Then there was another scream.

"What the hell's going on in there?" Garcia asked in a rasp.

A hoarse male voice shouted something in Russian. The front door opened and four men came out. They conferred for a moment, then split into pairs, going left and right to side windows, where all four men stood to look inside. Then there came another scream, and it was perfectly clear what was going on.

"Those son of a bitches," Smith observed.

"Yeah," Lieutenant Edwards agreed. "Let's back off and think about this for a minute." The four men retreated about fifty yards and bunched together.

"I think it's time we do something. Anybody disagree?" Edwards asked. Smith just nodded, interested in Edwards's change of demeanor. "Okay, we take our time and do it right. Smith, you come with me and we go around the left. Garcia and Rodgers go around the right. Go wide and come in slow. Ten minutes. If you can take 'em alive, that's okay. If not, stick 'em. We try not to make noise. But if you gotta shoot, make Goddamned sure the first burst does it. Okay?" Edwards looked around for additional Russians. None. The four men slipped out of their packs, checked their watches, and moved out, crawling through the wet grass.

There was another scream, but none after that. Edwards was glad there weren't--he didn't need the distraction. The crawling was a slow, tiring effort that sapped the strength from his arms. Edwards and