The Impaler

Chapter 78

Markham sat at his kitchen table with the lists spread out before him like a big flower. He’d grown frustrated with the sheer number of suspects—knew that Schaap had to be working from a more specific list—and had just picked up his BlackBerry to call him when the theme from Rocky sounded off in his hand. He looked at his watch—9:12 p.m.—and felt a wave of relief when he saw the name on the BlackBerry’s screen.

Schaap.

“Finally,” Markham answered. “Where the hell are you?”

“Watching you from the sky, Agent Markham,” said the voice on the other end.

Markham froze, his stomach dropping into his shoes.

“Schaap?” he said weakly, but the man on the other end only laughed and said:

“His body is the doorway.”

The voice was deep and thick with a Southern drawl, and even as Markham’s mind began to spin with “Dark in the Day” and the thousand reasons as to why this couldn’t be happening, all at once he knew that Andy Schaap had stumbled onto the Impaler.

“Who is this?” Markham asked, wincing at the futility of his question.

“I am the three,” said the man on the other end, “but you are the nine. Will you know him when he comes for you, Agent Markham?”

Markham felt his words stick in his throat—managed to squeak out, “What have you done with Schaap?”—but the man on the other end only laughed.

“His body is the doorway,” he said, his inflection like a child’s. Markham felt suddenly as if he would vomit. He swallowed hard, was about to speak, when the voice in his ear said: “But there’s still time, Agent Markham. If you hurry, if you truly understand the equation, you’ll be allowed to touch the doorway, too.”

“What have you done to Schaap?!” Markham screamed, but got only the blinking call timer for an answer.

And then he was moving.

He ran into the bedroom and grabbed his gun—punched a number on his BlackBerry and put on his Windbreaker.

“This is Markham,” he shouted. He was back in the kitchen now, gathering up the lists. “Andy Schaap is in trouble. Get the tech unit to put a trace on his vehicle. Get them on his cell signal, too, and get the plate number into the local systems ASAP. I’m on my way back to the RA now.”

Markham hung up and slipped the paperwork into his briefcase.

He was out the door in a streak; dashed down the front steps and reached his TrailBlazer in a matter of seconds—when out of nowhere he felt a searing pain shoot across the back of his skull.

He watched his BlackBerry and his briefcase fall from his fingers in slow motion; saw himself stumbling sideways as the cars and the streetlights and the shadows swirled about him and grew blurry.

But Sam Markham stayed on his feet long enough to see the man in the ski mask stuff the smelly rag in his face.

“Textbook,” he heard Alan Gates say somewhere far away.

Then everything went black.