The lamp wouldn't turn on. Andrew wasn't sure whether the power had gone out, or whether it was just the bulb -- these silly bulbs were always coming from the closet and going into the trashcan -- but he flicked the switch back in the off position and headed for the hallway. Rounding the corner out of the closet, he could see no light under the crack at the base of the door.

"Goddamn," he thought aloud, and thundered down two flights of steps to the basement, where his lighter illuminated the breaker panel. None of the switches were tripped, and he started to reach up to fiddle with them, when the dog barked. Just a single bark, and then silence. In a flash, he was out the back door, around the side of the house, and peering from the front bushes at his front door.

It was already open, and there were at least three men in amorphous head coverings moving in and out of his house -- his house! he had just paid the mortgage off -- with heavy-looking equipment. Their hoods, if you could call them that, flapped back and forth as they jostled up the stairs a step at a time. Their faces were indistinguishable fro