Page 15 (1/2)
THE BEGINNING
Saturday, August 6, 1977
THE DIRT TRAIL was narrow Drooping boughs of tamarack, spruce, and pine scraped the roof and brushed the side s of the Land Rover
“Stop here,” Rossner said tensely
Holbrook was driving He was a big, stehtly that his knuckles were bloodless He braked, pulled the Rover to the right, and coasted in a the trees He switched off the headlaht
“Check your gun,” Rossner said
Each man wore a shoulder holster and carried a SIC-Petter, the finest autoazines, checked for a full coazines back into the butts, and holstered the guns Their raphed, as if they had practiced this a thousand times
They got out and walked to the back of the car
At three o’clock in the , the Maine woods were ominously dark and still
Holbrook lowered the tailgate A light winked on inside the Rover He threw aside a tarpaulin, revealing two pairs of rubber hip boots, two flashlights, and other equipment
Rossner was shorter, slimmer, and quicker than Holbrook
He got his boots on first Then he dragged the last two pieces of their gear from the car
The main component of each device was a pressurized tankcylinder, complete with shoulder straps and chest belt A hose led from the tank to a stainless-steel, pinspray nozzle
They helped each other into the straps, made certain their shoulder holsters were accessible, and paced a bit to get accustoht on their backs
At 3:10 Rossner took a coht beam, put it away, and moved off into the forest
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 ca Union sawht, a complex of two- and three-story clapboard and cinder-block buildings rose out of the frees Lights glowed at all the s, and arc laht Within the huge iant 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 e at four o’clock
They had no difficulty locating the ht, 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 caate The fence was there to keep out aniate 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 frorasped 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 andthe 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 e out onto the concrete apron
They ate “Okay?” Rossner asked
“Perfect”
By 5:10 they were back at the Land Rover They got shovels fro two shallow holes in the rich black earth They buried the euns
For two hours Holbrook drove along a series of rugged dirt trails, crossed St John River on a tiraveled 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 rooood-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 s and flashed off the parked cars Shi 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 ot 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 , 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”