Again the Russian carefully scanned the clearing and the house, left to right. He caught a movement in the woods across the driveway, lost it, then picked it up again, a dark figure moving silently. It was Lakomsky getting into position. From the helicopter they had spotted a man on the east side of the house. Lakomsky would be in position to see him at any moment now. The walkie-talkie he had taken from Sills’s body crackled to life. “Hank”
Deryugin pulled it from his pocket and put it to his ear. “Hank, for Christ’s sake, was that you making all that goddamned noise over there”
Apparently he had heard the body crashing into the brush, but had not heard the silenced shot. “Tom, you copy”
“What the hell is going on out there” another voice radioed. “Is that Bert”
“Yeah, I’m in the front hallway. Now what the hell is going on out there”
“I heard a noise in the woods, and now I can’t raise Hank or.” The agent’s voice was abruptly cut off in midsentence by a distinctive short, sharp sound and the radio was silent. Deryugin knew what he had heard. Lakomsky had shot him. The sound was that of a high-powered rifle bullet hitting a human skull. “Mays, you were cut off” the agent from inside the house answered. Deryugin keyed the walkie-talkie. “Christ, I think Mays and Hank are both down. We’ve got troubles out here”
” Who is this”
“Tom” Deryugin replied, muffling his voice a little. “Goddamnit, Sills, where the hell are you”
“I’m coming up the road from the truck. Should be to you in a couple of minutes, maybe less”
“Are we under attack”
“I think so Deryugin radioed, cutting himself off before finishing the sentence. He dropped the walkie-talkie to the ground and raised his rifle, aiming at the front door of the farmhouse.
“Sills” the agent in the house radioed urgently. “Sills, goddamit”
At this point, his first objective accomplished, Lakomsky would have moved farther south so that he could cover the rear exits from the house. Sixty seconds. Deryugin was going to give the agent inside the house that long. No more. Less than ten seconds later the front door of the house opened. Deryugin could see the figure of a man just inside. He waited patiently. The FBI agent came out of the house a moment later in a dead run, momentarily catching Deryugin off guard. But the Russian was a professional and extremely well trained. He led the man off the porch, and twenty feet from the house, he squeezed off a shot, hitting the man high on his torso, literally lifting him off his feet. Bert Langerford’s M 16 fired a quick burst as he went down, but he was dead before he hit the ground.
Deryugin lowered his rifle. Now there was only the woman and Trotter, left inside. Moving fast, he stepped around from behind the tree and zigzagged across the clearing toward the house.
Langerford was down and a darksuited figure was racing across the clearing from the woods. Trotter, standing a few feet inside the stairhall, led the man with his pistol and fired off three shots in rapid succession. The figure went down, rolled twice, and fired two shots, the bullets smacking into the wall behind Trotter. A silenced rifle, Trotter had time to note, as he dove left. His heart was hammering in his chest. Somehow they had managed to take out all four agents. There was no telling how many of them were out there. But Sills had said he had called for reinforcements. If they could only hold out here for a little longer. Lorraine Abbott was at the head of the stairs.
Langerford had told her to hide herself somewhere upstairs, but she had turned back when she’d heard the M16 firing. Deryugin fired a third shot, the bullet shattering a section of banister a few feet below where she stood. “Get back” Trotter shouted up at her. He started for the stairs when the back door burst open, and Lakomsky’s big frame suddenly filled the doorway. Trotter snapped off two shots, both of them hitting the Russian in the chest, driving him backward.
Ignoring it, Trotter took the stairs up two at a time. Lorraine had shrunk back against the corridor wall, her eyes wide with fright.
Grabbing her arm, he roughly hauled her the rest Of the way down the hall to the attic door, which he yanked open. The narrow stairs led up into the darkness. “They’ve come here to kill me, haven’t they”
Lorraine whispered. She was very frightened” Yes, but I’ve managed to kill one of them, and I may have wounded the one out front”
“There’s probably more than two of them”
“Possibly” Trotter admitted.
“But the FBI is sending someone else out here. They should be arriving very soon. “Can we hold out that long”
“We’re going to try, Doctor, believe me” Trotter said. His weapon was a six-shot .38 caliber revolver. He’d already fired five times. “For now I want you to go up to the attic, find the darkest spot, and hide yourself. No noise, no sounds, nothing. And I don’t want you coming out of there until you hear my voice or McGarvey’s”
“He’s coming here”
“I left the message for him. Now get up there. No noise” She looked at him for a long moment, then turned and headed up the stairs on the balls of her feet. As soon as she had disappeared into the darkness, Trotter closed the door and headed back down the corridor to the stairs, stopping just at the end of the corridor. Nothing moved below in the stairhall. The front door was still open. Turning, he hurried silently back down the corridor and went into one of the front bedrooms, where he cautiously approached the window and, parting the curtain slightly, looked down into the clearing. Langerford’s body still lay in the gravel driveway, but the Russian was gone. Where was he, and how many others were out there? There was no telling when Sills’s reinforcements would — god Until then it would be up to him to hold out here. His first task would be to find more ammunition for his weapon, or take the rifle from the dead Russian in the back hall. “Put your gun down, Mr. Trotter”
someone said from behind him. Trotter stiffened and started to turn. “I will kill you unless you do exactly as I say” Trotter weighed his chances, which at the moment were practically nil. The man behind him was almost certainly a Russian Department Viktor type. Highly trained, highly motivated. “We don’t do things like this on each other’s territory” he said. “Your gun. Drop it”
“If you know my name, then you know who and what I am. If you kill me, the political repercussions could even bring a man such as Baranov down”
“I have no time to argue with you. Either drop your gun this instant or I will kill you” Trotter had absolutely no doubt the man meant what he was saying. Time, it was all he needed. Slowly he bent over and laid the .38 on the floor, and straightening up he stepped away from it and turned around. The Russian was tall and very well built. His weapon was equipped with the latest night spotting scope, and silencer, which explained their effectiveness. “Where is Dr. Abbott”
“The FBI is sending reinforcements out here. They will be here momentarily”
“Yes, I know this” Deryugin replied calmly. “So you will either take me to Dr. Abbott or I will kill you and search the house myself” Trotter shook his head. “You will either kill me now or then, so it doesn’t matter”
“No. I don’t mean to kill either of you. My orders were to come here, kidnap Dr. Abbott, and take her to Freder City. If you cooperate, I will bring you as well. You would be quite a prize in Moscow” Was the man telling the truth? Probably not, Trotter decided. An assassination was infinitely easier than kidnapping. There would be no need for them to take the latter risk. Again it came down to a question of time. “She’s in the basement” Deryugin’s eyes narrowed. “I think she is up here somewhere”