The Impaler

Chapter 74

KISS’s “Detroit Rock City” kicked in just as the General turned off the Mustang’s ignition, and for a moment he thought he’d tripped an alarm or something. He glanced down at the BlackBerry—the name Sam Markham in bright white letters on the screen—and waited patiently for the song to stop. And when it did, the General gazed across the parking lot to the apartment building where the famous Quantico profiler was staying.

The General had reconned the Resident Agency earlier that morning; had to circle the outside lot only once to realize it was too risky to grab out Markham there. His apartment would be much better. The General had found the address on Schaap’s computer, but after he left the theater he decided to first drive back to the farmhouse to check on the progress there. Satisfied, the General switched his pickup for Bradley Cox’s Mustang and arrived at the apartment building forty-five minutes later. The General hoped Markham had gotten the e-mail he’d sent from Schaap’s BlackBerry; hoped he’d stop first at the taxidermy shop or perhaps the Resident Agency before coming home. That was important, for the General’s plan would only work if Markham got home after dark.

Of course, as with the tattoo parlor, the FBI would find nothing at the taxidermy shop. The General was always careful not to leave any fingerprints, but the idea of sending Markham on a wild-goose chase excited him. He was tempted to send him another article or a text message, but knew he could play his little game only for so long before the FBI agent caught on. Indeed, the General suspected the game might already be over when he heard the voice mail notification on the BlackBerry. After all, Markham would grow suspicious when he didn’t hear from his partner in person.

He needed to be careful. There was no room for mistakes, and time was running short. The General had seen it all in the doorway.

Andrew J. Schaap had proved invaluable. The Prince was no longer angry with the General. He couldn’t come right out and say so (as the General suspected, such communication took up too much of the doorway’s power), but the General could tell from the Prince’s visions that he had forgiven him. Of course, Edmund Lambert’s mother was nowhere to be seen, but the Prince did show him Ereshkigal. She was most certainly part of the equation now. But exactly how she fit in, the General still wasn’t sure—he could only see himself running with her across the smoking battlefields. However, in the part of his brain that he could still keep hidden from the Prince, the General felt confident that he would be able to save his mother in the end. He didn’t know where she was—there was still so much about Hell that he didn’t understand—but knew that Ereshkigal would help him. Plus, the fact that the Prince would actually expect him and Ereshkigal to be together filled him with hope. Perhaps they could conspire behind his back. Perhaps she knew where the Prince had taken his mother. Perhaps, if the General promised to restore her to her throne she could—

He was getting ahead of himself again. That kind of thinking needed to go on the back burner for now. The equation must take precedence, and there was still time to balance it. The Prince had shown him this in his visions. And if everything went according to plan, as of tomorrow more than half of the nine would be complete. After that, and once Ereshki-gal had joined with him—the General would eventually be told what to do next.

After all, eventually had always been part of the equation.

First things first, the General said to himself, and he fished out a pair of binoculars from the glove compartment. Even though George Kiernan had messed things up for him by not canceling the show, he needed to take care of business here in Raleigh first.

He’d already telephoned Doug Jennings—told him his aunt had been in a car accident and that he wouldn’t be able to make the photo call. Then he left Cindy a voice mail saying would call her once he got his aunt home from the hospital. He had only a short window before Markham would come looking for his partner along with his friends, so it was critical that he be alone for what the Prince had in store for him.

Besides, despite the scene he had laid out in Cox’s apartment, the General knew it was only a matter of time before the police began questioning people. They would question everyone and would eventually get to Edmund Lambert. In that respect, the variable of eventually would not bode well for the equation.

True, even the Prince had no idea how long it would take before the police, and then the FBI, would start trying to connect Cox’s disappearance to Vlad the Impaler. But this Sam Markham character knew the murders had nothing to do with Vlad the Impaler; and judging from the FBI’s military profile for the killer, any interaction with the authorities was too risky for the former 187th Infantry Screaming Eagle. And that’s what had the General worried.

“But the seal-tailed lion left the FBI a present back in Greenville,” the General said, raising the binoculars to his eyes. “If they find it before I get to Markham, I’ll have to consult the Prince again. Either way, we’ll know exactly when the FBI figures out Andrew J. Schaap is missing.”

The General fingered the focus knob and trained the binoculars on Sam Markham’s front door. And in an instant he felt his worry drain away; for although there was still so much about the Prince’s plan that had yet to be revealed to him, one thing was certain:

Sam Markham was now part of the equation, too.