“What is it?” McGreavy asked.
“New Jersey didn’t know if it’s important, Lieutenant, but you asked them to report anything unusual. An operator got a call from an adult female asking for Police Headquarters. She said it was an emergency, and then the line went dead. The operator waited, but there was no call back.”
“Where did the call come from?”
“A town called Old Tappan.”
“Did she get the number?”
“No. The caller hung up too quickly.”
“Great,” McGreavy said bitterly.
“Forget it,” Bertelli said. “It was probably some old lady reporting a lost cat.”
McGreavy’s phone rang, a long, insistent peal. He picked up the phone. “Lieutenant McGreavy.” The others in the room watched his face draw tight with tension. “Right! Tell them not to make a move until I get there. I’m on my way!” He slammed the receiver down. “The Highway Patrol just spotted Angeli’s car going south on Route 206, just outside Millstone.”
“Are they tailing it?” It was one of the FBI men.
“The patrol car was going in the opposite direction. By the time they got turned around, it had disappeared. I know that area. There’s nothing out there but a few factories.” He turned to one of the FBI men. “Can you get me a fast run down on the names of the factories there and who owns them?”
“Will do.” The FBI man reached for the phone.
“I’m heading out there,” McGreavy said. “Call me when you get it.” He turned to the men. “Let’s move!” He started out the door, the three detectives and the second FBI man on his heels.
Angeli drove past the watchman’s shack near the gate and continued toward a group of odd-looking structures that reached into the sky. There were high brick chimneys and giant flumes, their curved shapes rearing up out of the gray drizzle like prehistoric monsters in an ancient, timeless land scape.
The car rolled up to a complex of large pipes and conveyor belts and braked to a stop. Angeli and Vaccaro got out of the car and Vaccaro opened the rear door on Judd’s side. He had a gun in his hand. “Out, Doctor.”
Slowly, Judd got out of the car, followed by DeMarco. A tremendous din and wind hurtled at them. In front of them, about twenty-five feet away, was an enormous pipeline filled with roaring, compressed air, sucking in everything that came near its open, greedy lip.
“This is one of the biggest pipelines in the country,” De-Marco boasted, raising his voice to make himself heard. “Do you want to see how it works?”
Judd looked at him incredulously. DeMarco was acting the part of the perfect host again, entertaining a guest. No—-not acting. He meant it. That was what was terrifying. De-Marco was about to murder Judd, and it would be a routine business transaction, something that had to be taken care of, like disposing of a piece of useless equipment, but he wanted to impress him first.
“Come on, Doctor. It’s interesting.”
They moved toward the pipeline, Angeli leading the way, DeMarco at Judd’s side, and Rocky Vaccaro bringing up the rear.
“This plant grosses over five million dollars a year,” De-Marco said proudly. “The whole operation is automatic.”
As they got closer to the pipeline, the roar increased, the noise became almost intolerable. A hundred yards from the entrance to the vacuum chamber, a large conveyor belt car ried giant logs to a planing machine twenty feet long and five feet high, with half a dozen razor-sharp cutter heads. The planed logs were then carried upward to a hog, a fierce por cupine-looking rotor bristling with knives. The air was filled with flying sawdust mixed with rain, being sucked into the pipeline.
“It doesn’t matter how big the logs are,” DeMarco said proudly. “The machines cut them down to fit that thirty-six-inch pipe.”
DeMarco took a snub-nosed.38 Colt out of his pocket and called out, “Angeli.”
Angeli turned.
“Have a good trip to Florida.” DeMarco squeezed the trigger, and a red hole exploded in Angeli’s shirt front. An geli stared at DeMarco with a puzzled half-smile on his face, as though waiting for the answer to a riddle he had just heard. DeMarco pulled the trigger again. Angeli crumpled to the ground. DeMarco nodded to Rocky Vaccaro, and the big man picked up Angeli’s body, slung it over his shoulder, and moved toward the pipeline.