The Impaler (43 page)

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.

Markham arrived at the Resident Agency to find Andy Schaap’s office empty. He flicked on the light and sat at his desk—stared grimly at the scattered papers before him and picked up a stack with a yellow Post-it note on top.

First batch just came in,
the note read. Markham stuck the Post-it to Schaap’s computer screen. It was a fax from the Marines—a list of Iraq War veterans from units that fit Dr. Underhill’s insignia profile, and who had undergone psychiatric counseling before, during, and after tours of duty beginning in April of 2003 through June of 2004.

Markham looked at the time and date stamp.

“Yesterday afternoon,” he muttered.

He found two more faxes: another from the Marines and one from the Army. Both were stamped from earlier that morning and had been tucked underneath the first fax.

Markham ruffled absently through the other lists of servicemen that Schaap had strewn across his desk—faxes and printouts and PDFs from all the branches of the U.S. Armed Forces. There were some other lists, too, and Markham quickly deduced that Schaap’s computer program had begun priori-
tizing the names according to various criteria. On one of the lists, Markham discovered, Schaap had narrowed down the names further by inputting birthdays that fell under the astrological sign of Leo.

Still, there were a lot of names—hundreds of them.

“Oh, it’s you,” said a voice, and Markham looked up, startled.

It was Big Joe the Sox Fan Connelly. He stood in the doorway.

“Sorry, Sam,” he said. “I thought you were Schaap. Another batch of those medical records just came in. Air Force is being a bit of a bitch, though.”

He handed Markham the fax.

“You know where Schaap is?” Markham asked.

“I haven’t seen him since before noon yesterday. Said we’d start checking the lists against each other when you got back.”

“You know if he checked out the taxidermy shop?”

“Taxidermy shop?”

“Schaap sent me an article this morning about the theft of a lion head over in Durham. Happened in November of last year. He didn’t tell you about it?”

“I haven’t seen him today. Something you want my team to look into?”

“No, no, I plan on heading out there tomorrow.”

“Tech will have the Google Earth setup ready for us tomorrow morning,” Big Joe said. “Schaap’s already begun narrowing down his lists by probability of location. Wants to divvy up some addresses and have our boots on the ground by noon.”

Markham nodded.

“I’m gonna jet now if you don’t need anything. Kid’s got a soccer game.”

Markham gave him a thumbs-up, and Joe left. He sat there for a moment staring at the yellow Post-it on Schaap’s
screen. He returned the note to its proper place, then went into his office and turned on his computer—signed into Sentinel and saw that Schaap had not updated anything since Friday.

Markham sat back in his chair and closed his eyes—hundreds of names, unreadable, but scrolling upward, white on black like credits at the end of a movie.

“What are you up to, Andy Schaap?” he whispered.

Bradley Cox felt as if his head were about to spin off his neck—the deafening pump of the Clone Six song over and over again, the flash of the strobe light threatening to drive him insane.

He was naked and strapped to a dentist’s chair in the man’s cellar—the cold, the writing all over his body, the newspaper articles taped to the wall. And his nose still hurt from where the man rammed him with the rag. However, along with his feelings of encroaching madness, Bradley Cox’s senses were sharp. And, despite the swelling, his nose still worked fine; could smell the chemicals and taste the bitterness in the back of his throat. He could also smell Pine-Sol and something else—something faint, but foul and rotting underneath it all. He found that focusing on the smells helped him keep it together. He would need to have his wits about him when the motherfucker in the ski mask returned.

Despite the ski mask and the bloody tattoo on his chest, Bradley Cox knew who’d come for him—knew it as soon as he woke up and the son of a bitch asked: “Will you know him when he comes for you?”

Cox had recognized that slow Southern drawl at once—but somehow, amid his growing terror, he was able to heed the advice of a voice inside his head.
Stay calm, Bradley,
it whispered.
As long as he thinks you can’t identify him to the police you still have a chance.

Cox had pleaded to be let go—repeated over and over that he had no idea what the man in the ski mask was talking about—but the dude had kept asking:

“Will you
know
him when he
comes
for you?”

“Yes,” Cox had said finally, exhausted. “Whoever you want me to know I’ll know, okay? Just let me go!”

“And do you accept your mission?”

“What the fuck are you—”

“Do you
accept
your
mission
?”

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about!”

“The nine to three,” the man had said, pointing to the large numbers on either side of the chamber’s doorway. “The three to one. Do you see them?”

“Yes,” Cox had whimpered, “but I—”

“You are the nine, I am the three. You are the three and I am the one. Your destiny is written all around you, in the stars. The equation is in everything and always was. It is why you must accept. Do you understand?”

“I’m not accepting shit, you sick motherfucker!”

The man in the ski mask had deflated for a moment, seemed to sigh, and quickly left.

A minute later he returned with the razor blade.

Bradley Cox gritted his teeth as the searing pain in his chest reminded him what the man in the ski mask had done. The man in the ski mask—a.k.a Edmund Lambert, a.k.a
Vlad the Impaler. The fucking symbols he’d written all over his body, just like the ones on the Internet—
it had to be him!

However, through all his hours of screaming—even through his ordeal with the razor blade—Bradley Cox had not let on that he knew the identity of his captor. A childhood spent watching countless episodes of
America’s Most Wanted
and
Unsolved Mysteries
with his father had taught him that.

As long as Lambert doesn’t know I’m on to him,
he kept repeating to himself,
I still have a chance.

But Cox hadn’t seen Edmund Lambert for hours, and sensed that he was gone now not just from the cellar, but from the house above it, too. About twenty versions of the song ago, he heard an alarm go off briefly upstairs. Shortly afterwards, he saw a figure standing in the darkened hallway. He wasn’t exactly sure when the figure disappeared, but in the transition between the eighties version and the Clone Six cover he heard the alarm again and a door slamming. Everything upstairs had been quiet in the transitions since then. And thank God there were no more sounds of hammering and power tools coming from the other room; no more flashes of yellow light and little breezes coming from the darkened hallway, either.

Bradley Cox had read all about Vlad and his victims on the Internet, and knew damn well what Edmund Lambert had in store from him when he returned. And there was no doubt that Edmund Lambert would return—the blood, the stinging pain in his chest where the Impaler had carved him up made that abundantly clear.

That had been another lifetime ago, it seemed, and the pain in his chest was nothing compared to the pain in his left wrist where the leather strap bore into it. But Bradley Cox had himself to blame for that. He’d been twisting and pulling on it for hours now; and as he gave his wrist another strong tug, the young man felt his thumb pop out of its socket.

He howled in agony, but paused only briefly to catch his breath before he began pulling again, twisting and squirming as the wounds on his chest cracked open. He could feel the blood trickling down to his naked groin, but rather than cry out, Bradley Cox began to laugh.

Perhaps he was going insane; perhaps his senses weren’t as sharp as he’d thought they were. But through all the pain, he could swear the strap around his wrist suddenly felt looser.

It was almost eight o’clock when the black SUV pulled into a spot in front of Sam Markham’s apartment building. The General recognized it as the same make and model as Andrew J. Schaap’s, but only when it came to a complete stop and the driver emerged was he sure it belonged to Sam Markham.

The General recognized him immediately—thought he looked shorter in person than in his picture, and felt a surge of excitement at the thought of what he and the Prince had in store for him.

In this Sam Markham they had found the ultimate soldier. Someone who feared the Prince as much as those who had worshipped him in the old days. Someone who understood the inevitability of the Prince’s return almost as much as the General himself. And surely this Markham was a gift of destiny; surely his delivery to the Prince via the randomness of the FBI agent’s lists was no accident. It was almost too good to be true; and the thought of the power the Prince would draw from this man’s service made his doorway tingle beneath the bandages.

Yes, the wound between the 9 and the 3 was already healing up nicely.

The General followed Markham with his binoculars until he disappeared into the apartment building. It had grown darker, but the General would wait a while longer. He lowered the binoculars and gazed down at Andrew J. Schaap’s BlackBerry. At that moment, his own cell phone began ringing on the seat beside him. He picked it up and read the name on the screen: Cindy Smith.

The General answered as Edmund Lambert. “Hi, Cindy.”

“Hi, Edmund. How’s your aunt doing?”

“Fine. Still a bit shaken up, but she’s sleeping now. My uncle is here, too, so I’ll be taking off shortly.”

“That’s good news.”

“Yes, it is. Any word on Bradley?”

“No,” Cindy said. “No one’s heard from him all day. Looks like he just bolted after last night’s show—car is gone and everything. I hope he’s okay.”

“I hope so, too,” Edmund said. “Did the show and the photo call go well?”

“Yes, but it was weird playing opposite George Kiernan. The show ended up being pretty good, actually. We even got a standing ovation, but the whole thing seems like a dream. Everything, I mean—the show, me and you, what happened the other night. You think we can talk about it?”

“Of course. How about I give you call when I get settled back at the house?”

“That’d be awesome, yeah.”

“But it might be late, okay? I still have some things I need to do.”

“Okay. Talk to you later.”

“Yes, you will. Good-bye, Cindy.”

Edmund picked up the BlackBerry and held it up next to
his cell phone—stroked each of them with his thumbs and smiled. He was the General again.

“Sam Markham has no idea his partner is even missing,” he said. “If he did, Ereshkigal would have told us.”

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.