The Impaler

Chapter 64

The General almost fell off his ladder when the FBI agent’s BlackBerry went off. He was working in the attic with his grandfather’s old circular saw, and had he not paused to wipe the sweat from his brow, he most certainly wouldn’t have heard KISS’s “Detroit Rock City” blaring up at him from the attic floor. The General would never have pegged Andrew J. Schaap as a KISS fan, but then again, a lot of things had taken him by surprise today.

“I feel uptight on Saturday night,” Paul Stanley wailed, and the General nodded absently. He was uptight, too. Things were taking longer than expected, and even after all these years, he was still afraid to be in the attic alone. But the work up there had to be done. And soon.

True, judging from Andrew J. Schaap’s lists and the files on his computer, he and the Prince still had time to get things done before the rest of the FBI arrived. But what to do next and where to go once the work in the house was complete—well, that remained to be seen in the Prince’s visions.

The FBI agent was working alone. There was no doubt about that, and no doubt that he had only recently put two and two together and was working systematically down a list of names. The General had not been able to sign into the Sentinel case management system (something he shouldn’t do anyway, IP addresses and all that), but still, from what files he could access, the General was nothing short of blown away.

The FBI knew almost everything—his relationship with the Prince, the stars, the ancient texts, the mark of the lion, Nergal, and the connection to Iraq. But what really stunned the General was the account of how the ancient Babylonian seal was found in Italy—the same seal that Edmund Lambert had offered up to the lion on the eve of his anointing!

Incredibly, the ancient artifact had been found. How? The General couldn’t even begin to imagine. Maybe the lion dropped it, or maybe the seal had been discovered in the lion’s stomach by someone who had killed it for meat. Maybe it was found in the lion’s shit—

Or maybe, said a voice in his head, just maybe the lion never took the seal at all. Maybe you imagined the whole thing and dropped the seal in the alleyway. Maybe one of your comrades found it and sold it in Qatar himself—

But the General only laughed at this idea. The lion in Tal Afar had been real—there could be no doubt about that. The seal, that very instrument that the ancient Babylonians had used to seal their secret messages, was a secret message in and of itself. And that Edmund Lambert, the man who would become the General, should have selected it from all the other stolen artifacts proved that he was not only worthy but also the only mortal capable of understanding the Prince’s messages.

Furthermore, the fact that Andrew J. Schaap and almost the entirety of the FBI’s investigation had been literally dumped on his doorstep proved to the General two things: one, that the Prince’s return was indeed inevitable; and two, that it was up to the General to put all the information he had been given to good use.

“But who is this Sam Markham?” he’d wondered when he first searched the FBI agent’s laptop. “Who is this man who seems to know the Prince better than anyone?”

Oh yes, the General had thought, this Sam Markham was a very smart man; for the files on the computer made it abundantly clear that it was he who had singlehandedly put everything together.

But the General did not have the time to ponder this. More important matters required his immediate attention. And now, hours later, the BlackBerry was ringing on the attic floor; now, perhaps, Andrew J. Schaap’s friends had begun looking for him. The General didn’t know if they would activate the vehicle-tracking device that he figured was hidden inside the TrailBlazer. And would they be able to get a bead on their man’s cell signal? He would have to dispose of the TrailBlazer and the BlackBerry soon. The General had his own cell phone, which he hardly ever used; only kept it with him when he was at Harriot in case the alarm went off and the security company had to call him.

However, the fact that the BlackBerry had not rung until now told the General that the FBI was not looking for their agent just yet. He had time, he still had time—

But was Agent Schaap supposed to have been at another meeting tonight? Did this Sam Markham find out anything more about the Impaler?

The General hopped off the ladder and removed the pistol he’d tucked into the back of his jeans. He set it on the floor and sat down next to the cell phone. The message dinged into voice mail, and he stared at the word BlackBerry for a long time, wondering if there was a message in it.

No matter, he thought. The new doorway was already being prepared in the cellar. It was only a matter of time before it would be ready to be placed on the throne, and then the General would be able to communicate with the Prince again directly.

“Communicate,” the General said absently, and pressed the menu button on the BlackBerry. He didn’t bother trying to get into the FBI agent’s voice mail, and instead scrolled down the to the missed calls list.

“Sam Markham,” he read. “The smart little friend from the Federal Bureau of c’est mieux d’oublier.”

The General sprang to his feet, flew down the two flights of stairs, and ended up in the workroom. He sat down at his computer and googled “Sam Markham” and “FBI.”

Bingo, first hit, an article from a Tampa newspaper about a serial killer named Jackson Briggs—the Sarasota Stran-gler, they called him. Some petty, self-involved moron who brutalized little old ladies, then strangled them, all while dressed up as a ninja. Sam Markham had been the one to take him down.

“Looks like they brought out the big guns for us,” the General said, hitting the print button. “Only a matter of time before he figures out what his friend was up to.”

He clicked a few more links, and found a photograph of Markham standing with a group of FBI agents. He was an attractive male, the General thought. Chiseled features, penetrating eyes, a strong jaw—someone with whom the young man named Edmund Lambert might have liked to copulate back in those days when he searched for meaning in such things.

The General hit the print button again. The newspaper article and the photograph of Sam Markham most certainly would have to go on the reeducation chamber wall. After all, Sam Markham was part of the equation now, too. How? He wasn’t exactly sure.

But the General had an idea.