The Impaler

Chapter 33

Alan Gates had been dreaming about pigs when the telephone startled him awake. The clunky old ringer was set on high, but his wife kept on snoring. She was used to it; had always been a heavy sleeper, but had been conditioned over the course of their thirty-five-year marriage to snore through her husband’s occasional late-night interruptions.

It was all part of being married to “the life,” just one of the many sacrifices that Debbie Gates had made for her husband over the years. And in all that time, he never once took her for granted; still thanked God every night for his blessings even as he thought it was only a matter time before the Old Man Upstairs pulled the rug out from under his feet—just as He’d done to so many others in his line of work.

A deeply religious man, Alan Gates had indeed been blessed over the last forty years. Had come out unscathed from two tours in Vietnam and quickly made his way up through the ranks of the FBI in the seventies and early eighties. He could’ve long ago been promoted to director if he’d gunned for it; could have retired by now, too. But the unit chief slot at Quantico was where his heart was; and when he thought about it, he considered himself as much a part of the Behavioral Analysis Unit as the glass and steel and brick in which it was housed.

However, the fact that his wife had learned over the years to sleep through his late-night telephone calls always made him feel uneasy—even more so now that the kids were moved out and married. Heaven forbid if he was away on a case and needed to get in touch with her. Heaven forbid if there was ever an emergency. And if the Old Man were to decide that it was finally time to pull that rug out, Gates was sure He’d do it while he was away and Debbie was asleep—a fire or some other tragedy in which, if only she’d woken up, she could’ve been saved.

Something like that would be most in line with the Old Man’s MO, for over the years Gates had come to the conclusion that not only did God have a sick sense of humor but also that He judged a man’s character by how well he could take a joke.

Gates fumbled for the receiver and squinted at his bedside clock. 11:17 p.m.

“Yes?”

“Alan? It’s Sam.”

“Go ahead.”

“Sorry to bother you so late, but I’m here with Andy Schaap at the RA in Raleigh. We’ve found something. Something we need to get moving on right away.”

“Give it to me.”

Gates listened carefully as his number-one agent explained his theory. And when Markham was finished, Gates hung up and lay in bed staring up at the ceiling. His wife had slept through the entire conversation—had already started snoring full force again by the time he donned his bathrobe and closed the bedroom door gently behind him.

He would make his telephone calls downstairs in his study, but would first make a pot of coffee to clear his head. The necessary arrangements wouldn’t take much time. He could be back in bed in less than half an hour if he wanted. But Alan Gates decided it would be better if he remained in his study. After all, there was no way he was going to fall back to sleep now.

Not after what Sam Markham had just told him.