The man shook his head. "Spreche deutsch.
Edwards had taken two years of German in high school, but suddenly found himself unwilling to talk with this man. He had already decided to kill him, and he didn't wish to speak with someone he was about to kill-it might bother his conscience. Edwards didn't want his conscience to remember this. But he watched the man for a minute or two, examining what sort of person would do what he had done. He expected to discover something monstrous, but didn't. He looked up. Smith was leading Vigdis down the stairs.
"She's got good gear, skipper. Nice warm clothes, her boots are all broke in. I expect we can get her a canteen, a parka, and a field pack. I'd let her bring a brush an' girl stuff, sir. I'll get us some soap, too, and maybe a razor."
"Way to go, Sergeant. Vigdis," Edwards said, getting her attention. "We will be leaving soon." He turned to look back down at the Russian:
"Leutnant. Wofur? Warum?" What for-why did you do all this? Not for me. For her.
The man knew what was coming. He shrugged. "Afghanistan."
"Skipper, they're prisoners," Rodgers blurted. "I mean, sir, you can't-"
"Gentlemen, you are charged under Uniform Code of Military Justice with one specification of rape and two specifications of murder. These are capital crimes," Edwards said, mainly so that he could assuage his conscience for the other two. "Do you have anything to say in your defense? No? You are found guilty. Your sentence is death." With his left hand, Edwards pushed the lieutenant's head back. His right hand flipped the knife into the air, reversing it; then he swung it viciously, striking the man's larynx with the pommel. The sound was surprisingly loud in the room, and Edwards kicked him backward.
A terrible thing to watch, it lasted several minutes. The lieutenant's larynx was instantly fractured, and its swelling blocked his trachea. Unable to breathe, his torso bucked from side to side as his face darkened. Everyone in the room who could see watched. If any felt pity for the man, none showed it. Finally he stopped moving.
"I'm sorry we weren't faster, Vigdis, but this thing won't be hurting anyone else." Edwards hoped that his amateur psychiatry would work. The girl went back upstairs, probably to wash, he thought. He'd read that after being raped one thing women wanted to do was bathe, as though there were a visible stigma from being the victim of an animal's lust. He turned toward the remaining two. There was no way they could manage prisoners, and what they had been up to merely provided him with a good excuse. But these two hadn't hurt the girl yet, and-
"I'll take care of it, sir," Garcia said quietly. The private was standing behind the kneeling prisoners. One of them was making some noise, but even if he hadn't been gagged, none of the Americans knew a word of Russian. They had no chance at all. Garcia stabbed from the side, sticking his knife completely through one neck, then the other. Both men fell. It was over quickly. The private and the lieutenant went into the kitchen to wash their hands.
"Okay, we load them back into the four-by-four and drive it back to the main road. We'll see if we can fake an accident and torch the vehicle. Get some liquor bottles. We'll make it look like they were drinking."
"They were, sir." Rodgers held up a bottle of clear liquor.
Edwards gave the bottle a brief look, but shook off the thought. "Figures. If I guess right, these guys were the crossroads guards from the main highway-or maybe just a patrol. I don't think they can guard every crossroads on this island. If we're just a little lucky, maybe their bosses'll never figure out we were involved in this." A long shot, he thought, but what the hell?
"Skipper," Smith said. "If you want to do that, we gotta-"
"I know. You and Rodgers stay here and get ready. If you see anything else we can use, pack it up. When we get back, we'll have to haul ass."
Edwards and Garcia loaded all the bodies into the back of the truck, careful to sort through the battle gear. They unloaded waterproof parkas whose camouflage pattern was almost identical with their own and a few other items that wouldn't be missed, then drove off quickly down the road.
Luck was with them. There was no permanent guard post at the crossroads, perhaps because the farm road led nowhere. The Russians had probably been a patrol team, and had chosen the farm for a little informal R amp;R. Two hundred yards down the coastal highway the road paralleled a steep cliff. They halted the vehicle there and manhandled the bodies into the seats. Garcia emptied a jerrican of gasoline into the back and the two men pushed it toward the edge with the rear hatch open. Garcia tossed a Russian grenade into the back as it went over the edge. Neither man wanted to admire their handiwork. They ran back the half mile to the farmhouse. Everything was ready.
"We have to bum the house, Miss Vigdis," Smith was explaining. "If we don't, the Russians'll know for sure what happened here. Your mom and dad are dead, ma'am, but I'm sure they'd want you to stay alive, Okay?"
She was still too much in shock to offer more than token resistance. Rodgers and Smith had cleaned off the bodies, and moved them upstairs to their own bedroom. It would have been better to bury them, but there just wasn't time.
"Let's get moving, people," Edwards ordered. They should have been moving already. Somebody had to be coming to investigate the burning truck, and if they used a chopper... "Garcia, you watch the lady. Smith has the rear. Rodgers, take the point. We have to put six miles between us and this place in the next three hours."
Smith waited ten minutes before tossing his grenade into the house. The kerosene he'd spread on the first floor went up at once.
USS CHICAGO
The contact was a lot better now. They had classified one ship as a Kashin-class missile destroyer, and her propeller-blade count indicated a speed of twenty-one knots. The leading elements of the Soviet formation were now thirty-seven miles away. There seemed to be two groups, the leading formation fanned out and screening the second. McCafferty ordered the ESM mast raised. It showed lots of activity, but he expected that.
"Up scope." The quartermaster worked the operating ring, then snapped the handles into place and stepped back. McCafferty swept the horizon quickly. After ten seconds, he flipped the handles up, and the periscope was instantly lowered back into its well.
"It's going to be a busy day, troops," the captain said; he always let the attack center crew know as much of what was going on as possible. The more they knew, the better they could do their jobs. "I saw a pair of Bear-Fs, one due north, the other west. Both a good way off, but you can bet they're dropping sonobuoys. XO, take her back down to five hundred feet, speed five knots. We'll let them come to us."
"Conn, sonar."
"Conn, aye," McCafferty answered.
"We got some pingers, active sonobuoys to the northwest. We count six of them, all very faint." The sonar chief read off the bearings to the signal sources. "Still no active sonar signals coming from the target formation, sir."
"Very well." McCafferty returned the mike to its holder. Chicago's depth was changing quickly, as they dove at a fifteen-degree angle. He watched the bathythermograph readout. At two hundred twenty feet the water temperature began to drop rapidly, changing twelve degrees inside of seventy feet. Good, a strong layer to hide under, and cold water deep to allow good sonar performance for his own sensors.