Holbrook followed, surprisingly quiet for such a large man. The land rose rather steeply. They had to stop twice in the next half hour to rest.
At 3:40 they came within sight of the Big Union sawmill. Three hundred yards to their right, a complex of two- and three-story clapboard and cinder-block buildings rose out of the frees. Lights glowed at all the windows, and arc lamps bathed the fenced storage yard in fuzzy purplish-white light. Within the huge main building, giant saws stuttered and whined continuously. Logs and cut planks toppled from conveyor belts and boomed when they landed in metal bins.
Rossner and Holbrook circled around the mill to avoid being seen. They reached the top of the ridge at four o’clock.
They had no difficulty locating the man-made lake. One end of it shimmered in the wan moonlight, and the other end was shadowed by a higher ridge that rose behind it. It was a neat oval, three hundred yards long and two hundred yards wide, fed by a gushing spring. It served as the reservoir for both the Big Union mill and the small town of Black River that lay three miles away in the valley.
They followed the six-foot-high fence until they came to the main gate. The fence was there to keep out animals, and the gate was not even locked. They went inside.
At the shadowed end of the reservoir, Rossner entered the water and walked out ten feet before it rose nearly to the tops of his hip boots. The walls of the lake slanted sharply, and the depth at the center was sixty feet.
He unraveled the hose from a storage reel on the side of the tank, grasped the steel tube at the end of it, and thumbed a button. A colorless, odorless chemical exploded from the nozzle. He thrust the end of the tube underwater and moved it back and forth, fanning the fluid as widely as possible.
In twenty minutes his tank was empty. He wound the hose around the reel and looked toward the far end of the lake. Holbrook had finished emptying his tank and was climbing out onto the concrete apron.
They met at the gate. “Okay?” Rossner asked.
“Perfect.”
By 5:10 they were back at the Land Rover. They got shovels from the back of the car and dug two shallow holes in the rich black earth. They buried the empty tanks, boots, holsters, and guns.
For two hours Holbrook drove along a series of rugged dirt trails, crossed St. John River on a timber bridge, picked up a graveled lane, and finally connected with a paved road at half past eight.
From there Rossner took the wheel. They didn’t say more than a dozen words to each other.
At twelve thirty Holbrook got out at the Starlite Motel on Route 15 where he had a room. He closed the car door without saying good-by, went inside, locked the motel door, and sat by the telephone.
Rossner had the Rover’s tank filled at a Sunoco station and picked up Interstate 95 south to Waterville and past Augusta. From there he took the Maine Turnpike to Portland, where he stopped at a service area and parked near a row of telephone booths.
The afternoon sun made mirrors of the restaurant windows and flashed off the parked cars. Shimmering waves of hot air rose from the pavement.
He looked at his watch. 3:35.
He leaned back and closed his eyes. He appeared to be nap
ping, but every five minutes he glanced at his watch. At 3:55 he got out of the car and went to the last booth in the row.
At four o’clock the phone rang.
“Rossner.”
The voice at the other end of the line was cold and sharp:
“I am the key, Mr. Rossner.”
“I am the lock,” Rossner said dully.
“How did it go?”
“As scheduled.”
“You missed the three-thirty call.”
“Only by five minutes.”
The man at the other end hesitated. Then: “Leave the turnpike at the next exit Turn right on the state route. Put the Rover up to at least one hundred miles an hour. Two miles along, the road takes a sudden turn, hard to the right; it’s banked by a fieldstone wall. Do not apply your brakes when you reach the curve. Do not turn with the road. Drive straight into that wall at a hundred miles an hour.”