Anthology of Mystery and Suspense [antikvár]

TOWE HAUTi. A HOUK ------SalEViD XLm^OAUTIOrrr^hey emerged from the woods a few minutes after dawn, a cold, moist dawn with a mist billowing up from the fields.J L There were three of them, their uniforms blending with the yellowing autumn green. They paused only briefly, scanning the deserted highway that lay flat across the flat Midwestern country. At a signal from onethe tall, lean, young-looking man who walked slighdy ahead of the other two, with his head tilted and his shoulders lifted at a defiant and slightly triumphant angle they proceeded swifdy, but not running, behind a screen of trees and underbrush, in a line parallel to the highway. In a very short time, and before anyone else appeared on the road, they reached a farm. In the barn lot, one detached himself from the others, moving quickly, a small young man, even younger than the tall one but without the other's jaunty manner, and began to work on the wires under the hood of the late-model, gray-colored sedan parked there. The other two moved swiftly but with stealth toward the barn. Inside, they came upon an elderly farmer, wearing blue overalls, shifting with pail and stool from one cow to another. The shorter of the two menwho was middle-aged and slower, but powerful-looking, with the ponderous, forward-leaning gait of a bearpicked up an axe handle and stepped acro.ss the straw-littered concrete floor. Before the starded farmer