Chapter 81

The General had just pulled Sam Markham from the Mustang’s trunk and hoisted him over his shoulder when he felt his cell phone buzzing in his back pocket. He’d already destroyed the FBI agents’ BlackBerrys and tossed them along with Markham’s briefcase in a Dumpster on his way back to Wilson. They wouldn’t be able to trace anything to him now—at least not until his work in the farmhouse was finished.

The General let the call buzz into voice mail. Other than the alarm company, only two people had his cell phone number now. And since he couldn’t imagine why Doug Jennings would be calling him at this hour, he knew the call had to be from Ereshkigal.

The General closed the trunk and carried Markham from the horse barn—chained the doors from the outside with one hand, then reached into his pocket. He was about to check his message when the incoming text told him everything he needed to know.

Something’s happened, it read. On the news now, an ex- plosion near Bradley’s apt. Please call me back asap. I’m worried and need 2 talk. Cindy

The General smiled.

The FBI had found Andrew J. Schaap’s TrailBlazer and the little improvised explosive device that the General had rigged for them—courtesy of the101st Airborne and almost ten months in Tal Afar learning from Iraqi insurgents. Even if the bomb hadn’t gone off, its discovery would have made the news anyway. But how fitting, he thought, that Ereshki-gal should be the one to notify him. After all, hadn’t the Prince told him that Ereshkigal was part of the equation now?

Ereshkigal will help us, his mother had said, too—but the General could not preoccupy himself with that part of the equation now. He mustn’t let on to the Prince that his mother was still the center of it all, mustn’t even think it. He had to keep up appearances; had to put all his energy into serving the Prince. The answer as to how he would save his mother would come to him eventually—just as the real reason for the IEDs had come to him eventually, too.

The General had actually built the IEDs the previous fall: a pair of small but powerful hydrogen peroxide–based bombs similar to the ones used in the London terror attacks of 2005. The General wasn’t sure why the Prince had originally wanted him to build the bombs after learning of the terror attacks, and had since stored them in the old horse barn. Back then, the General still had to decipher the Prince’s messages without the doorway and the lion’s head—from the newspaper and Internet articles and his research in the Harriot library. And until this business with Markham and the FBI, the General had planned on detonating the bombs with his home security system—after the Prince had returned, of course; a little surprise for the authorities once he had no more need of the farmhouse.

But then Andrew J. Schaap entered into the equation, and the General understood almost immediately why the Prince had him prepare the IEDs so far in advance. The Prince most certainly must have foreseen something like this occurring. Yes, the General thought, the Prince never ceased to amaze and terrify him with his power. And more than ever now, the General understood that he must never underestimate or second-guess the Prince again.

It hadn’t taken the General long to rewire the homemade detonators to the TrailBlazer’s battery and then rig them to be triggered by the SUV’s electric locking mechanism. There had been no need to hide the bombs, either, and the General just left them in a pair of black duffel bags on the floor behind the front seats. The TrailBlazer’s black interior and tinted windows would camouflage them nicely. Pretty amateurish by today’s standards, he thought—a tape-and-bubblegum hack job at which most Iraqi insurgents would probably thumb their noses.

But now all that didn’t matter; and, now that the General had Sam Markham, the little warning he’d given himself was moot. He didn’t have to worry about the authorities surprising him and spoiling his plans just yet. The explosion, the disappearances of Schaap and Markham and Cox should keep the FBI busy long enough for the General to finish his business at the farmhouse. After that, the Prince would tell him where to go and what to do next to complete the nine.

The General returned his cell phone to his back pocket and made his way toward the house. He would call Ereshki-gal later—after he had consulted with the Prince.

And, of course, after he had finished with Sam Markham.