Hannibal

NOTABLE OCCASIONS ON THE CALENDAR OF DREAD

Chapter 69

ON MONDAY, Clarice Starling had the weekend exotic purchases to check, and there were glitches in her system that required the help of her computer technician from Engineering. Even with severely pruned lists of two or three of the most special vintages from five vintners, the reduction to two sources for American foie gras, and five specialty grocers, the numbers of purchases were formidable. Call-ins from individual liquor stores using the telephone.number on the bulletin had to be entered by hand.

Based on the identification of Dr Lecter in the murder of the deer hunter in Virginia, Starling cut the list to East Coast purchases except for Sonoma foie gras. Fauchon in Paris refused to cooperate. Starling could make no sense of what Vera dal 1926 in Florence said on the telephone, and faxed the Questura for help in case Dr Lecter ordered white truffles.

At the end of the workday on Monday, December 17, Starling had twelve possibilities to follow up. They were combinations of purchases on credit cards. One man had bought a case of Petrus and a supercharged Jaguar, both on the same American Express.

Another placed an order for a case of Batard-Montrachet and a case of green Gironde oysters.

Starling passed each possibility along to the local line bureau for follow-up.

Starling and Eric Pickford worked separate but overlapping shifts in order to have the office manned during store retail hours.

It was Pickford's fourth day on the job and he spent part of it programming his auto-dial telephone. He did not label the buttons.

When he went out for coffee, Starling pushed the top button on his telephone, Paul Krendler himself answered.

She hung up and sat in silence. It was time to go home. Swiveling her chair slowly around and around, she regarded all the objects in Hannibal 's House. The X rays, the books, the table set for one. Then she pushed out through the curtains.

Crawford's office was open and empty. The sweater his late wife knitted for him hung on a coat tree in the corner. Starling put her hand out to the sweater, did not quite touch it, slung her coat over her shoulder and started the long walk to her car.

She would never see Quantico again.

Chapter 70

ON THE evening of December 17, Clarice Starling's doorbell rang. She could see a federal marshal's car behind the Mustang in her driveway.

The marshal was Bobby, who drove her home from the hospital after the Feliciana shoot-out.

"Hi, Starling."

"Hi, Bobby. Come in."

"I'd like to, but I oughta tell you first. I've got a notice here I've got to serve you."

"Well, hell. Serve me in the house where it's warm," Starling said, numb in the middle.

The notice, on the letterhead of the Inspector General of the Department of justice, required her to appear at a hearing the next morning, December 18, at nine A.M. in the J. Edgar Hoover Building…"You want a ride tomorrow?" the marshal asked.

Starling shook her head. "Thanks, Bobby, I'll take my car. Want some coffee?"

"No, thanks. I'm sorry, Starling." The marshal clearly wanted to go. There was an awkward silence. "Your ear's looking good," he said at last.

She waved to him as he backed out of the drive.

The letter simply told her to report. No reason was given.

Ardelia Mapp, veteran of the Bureau's internecine wars and thorn in the side of the good-old-boy network, immediately brewed her grandmother's strongest medicinal tea, renowned for enhancing the mentality. Starling always dreaded the tea, but there was no way around it.

Mapp tapped the letterhead with her finger. "The Inspector General doesn't have to tell you a damn thing," Mapp said between sips. "If our Office of Professional Responsibility had charges, or the OPRDOJ had something on you, they'd have to tell you, they'd have to serve you with papers. They'd have to give you a damn 645 or a 644 with the charges right there on it, and if it was criminal you'd have a lawyer, full disclosure, everything the crooks get, right?"

"Damn straight."

"Well, this way you get diddly-squat in advance. Inspector General's political, he can take over any case."

"He took over this one."

"With Krendler blowing smoke up his butt. Whatever it is, if you decide you want to go with an Equal Opportunity case, I've got all the numbers. Now, listen to me, Starling, you've got to tell them you want to tape. IG doesn't use signed depositions. Lonnie Gains got into that mess with them over that. They keep a record of what you say, and sometimes it changes after you say it. You don't ever see a transcript."

When Starling called Jack Crawford, he sounded as though he'd been asleep.

"I don't know what it is, Starling," he said. "I'll call around. One thing I do know, I'll be there tomorrow."

Chapter 71

MORNING, AND the armored concrete cage of the Hoover Building brooding under a milky overcast.

In this era of the car bomb, the front entrance and the courtyard are closed most days, and the building is ringed by old Bureau automobiles as an improvised crash barrier.

The D.C. police follow a mindless policy, writing tickets on some of the barrier cars day after day, the sheaf building up under the wipers and tearing off in the wind to blow down the street.

A derelict warming himself over a grate in the sidewalk called to Starling and raised his hand as she passed. One side of his face was orange from some emergency room's Betadine. He held out a Styrofoam cup, worn down at the.edges. Starling fished in her purse for a dollar, gave him two, leaning in to the warm stale air and the steam.

"Bless your heart," he said.

"I need it," said Starling. "Every little bit helps."

Starling got a large coffee at Au Bon Pain on the Tenth Street side of the Hoover Building as she had done so many times over the years. She wanted the coffee after a ragged sleep, but she didn't want to need to pee during the hearing. She decided to drink half of it.

She spotted Crawford through the window and caught up with him on the sidewalk. "You want to split this big coffee, Mr. Crawford? They'll give me another cup."

"Is it decaf?"

"No."

"I better not, I'll jump out of my skin."

He looked peaked and old. A clear drop hung at the end of his nose. They stood out of the foot traffic streaming toward the side entrance of the FBI headquarters.

"I don't know what this meeting is, Starling. Nobody else from the Feliciana shoot-out has been called, that I can find out. I'll be with you."

Starling passed him a Kleenex and they entered the steady stream of the arriving day shift.

Starling thought the clerical personnel looked unusually spiffy.

"Ninetieth anniversary of the FBI. Bush is coming to speak today," Crawford reminded her.

There were four TV satellite uplink trucks on the side street.

A camera crew from WFUL-TV was set up on the sidewalk filming a young man with a razor haircut talking into a hand microphone. A production assistant stationed on top of the van saw Starling and Crawford coming in the crowd.

"That's her, that's her in the navy raincoat," he called down.

"Here we go," said Razor Cut. "Rolling."

The crew made a swell in the stream of people to get the camera in Starling's face.

"Special Agent Starling, can you comment on the investigation of the Feliciana Fish Market Massacre? Has the report been submitted? Are you the subject of charges in killing the five-"

Crawford took off his rain hat and, pretending to shield his eyes from the lights, managed to block the camera lens for a moment. Only the security door stopped the TV crew.

Sumbitches were tipped…Once inside Security, they stopped in the hall. The mist outside had covered Starling and Crawford with tiny droplets. Crawford popped a Ginkgo Biloba tablet dry.

"Starling, I think they may have picked today because there's all the stir over the impeachment and the anniversary. Whatever they want to do could slide by in the rush."

"Why tip the press then?"

"Because not everybody in this hearing is singing off the same page. You've got ten minutes, want to powder your nose?"

Chapter 72

STARLING HAD rarely been up to seven, the executive floor of the J. Edgar Hoover Building. She and the other members of her graduating class gathered there seven years ago to see the director congratulate Ardelia Mapp as valedictorian, and once an assistant director had summoned her to accept her medal as Combat Pistol Champion.

The carpet in Assistant Director Noonan's office was deep beyond her experience. In the clubby atmosphere of leather chairs in his meeting room there was the distinct smell of cigarettes. She wondered if they had flushed the butts and fanned the air before she got there.

Three men stood up when she and Crawford came into the room and one did not. The standees were Starling's former boss, Clint Pearsall of the Washington Field Office, Buzzard's Point; A/DIC Noonan of the FBI, and a tall red-haired man in a raw silk suit. Keeping his seat was Paul Krendler of the Inspector General's Office. Krendler turned his head to her on his long neck as though he were locating her by scent. When he faced her she could see both his round cars at the same time. Oddly, a federal marshal she didn't know stood in the corner of the room.

FBI and justice personnel customarily are neat in their appearance, but these men were groomed for TV. Starling realized they must be appearing in the ceremonies downstairs with former President Bush later in the day. Otherwise she would have been summoned to the justice Department rather than the Hoover Building.

Krendler frowned at the sight of Jack Crawford at Starling's side.

"Mr. Crawford, I don't think your attendance is required for this procedure."

"I'm Special Agent Starling's immediate supervisor. My place is here."

"I don't think so," Krendler said. He turned to Noonan. "Clint Pearsall is her boss of record, she's just TDY with Crawford. I think Agent Starling should be questioned privately," he said. "If we need additional information, we can ask Section Chief Crawford to stand by where we can reach him."

Noonan nodded. "We certainly would welcome your input, Jack, after we've heard independent testimony by the by Special Agent Starling. Jack, I want you to stand by. If you want to make it the reading room of the library, make yourself comfortable, I'll call you."

Crawford got to his feet. "Director Noonan, may I say-"

"You may leave, is what you may do," Krendler said…Noonan got to his feet. "Hold it please, it's my meeting, Mr. Krendler, until I turn it over to you. Jack, you and I go way back. The gentleman from Justice is too recently appointed to understand that. You'll get to say your piece. Now leave us and let Starling talk for herself," Noonan said. He leaned to Krendler and said something in his ear that made his face turn red.

Crawford looked at Starling. All he could do was bitch himself up.

"Thank you for coming, sir," she said.

The marshal let Crawford out.

Hearing the door click shut behind her, Starling straightened her spine and faced the men alone.

From there the proceeding went forward with the dispatch of an eighteenth- century amputation.

Noonan was the highest FBI authority in the room, but the Inspector General could overrule him, and the inspector apparently had sent Krendler as his plenipotentiary.

Noonan picked up the file before him. "Would you identify yourself, please, for the record?"

"Special Agent Clarice Starling. Is there a record, Director Noonan? I'd be glad if there was."

When he did not answer, she said, "Do you mind if I tape the proceedings?"

She took a tough little Nagra tape recorder from her purse.

Krendler spoke up. "Ordinarily this sort of preliminary meeting would be in the Inspector General's office at Justice. We're doing it here because it's to everybody's convenience with the ceremony today, but the IG rules apply. This is a matter of some diplomatic sensitivity. No tape."

"Tell her the charges, Mr. Krendler," Noonan said. "Agent Starling, you stand accused of unlawful disclosure of sensitive material to a fugitive felon," Krendler said, his face under careful control. "Specifically you are accused of placing this advertisement in two Italian newspapers warning the fugitive Hannibal Lecter that he was in danger of being captured."

The marshal brought Starling a page of smudged newsprint from La Nazione. She turned it to the window to read the circled material: A. A. Aaron-Turn yourself in to the nearest authorities, enemies are close. Hannah.

"How do you respond?"

"I didn't do it. I never saw this before."

"How do you account for the fact that the letter uses code name `Hannah' known only to Dr Hannibal Lecter and this Bureau? The code name Lecter asked you to use?"

"I don't know. Who found this?"

"The Document Service at Langley happened to see it in the course of translating La Nazione's coverage on Lecter. " "If the code is a secret within.the Bureau, how did Document Service at Langley recognize it in the paper? CIA runs Document Service. Let's ask them who brought `Hannah' to their attention."

"I'm sure the translator was familiar with the case file."

"That familiar? I doubt it. Let's ask him who suggested he watch out for it. How would I have known Dr Lecter was in Florence?"

"You're the one who found the computer query from the Questura in Florence to the Lecter VICAP file," Krendler said. "The query came several days prior to the Pazzi murder. We don't know when you discovered it. Why else would the Questura in Florence be asking about Lecter?"

"What possible reason would I have to warn him? Director Noonan, why is this a matter for the IG? I'm prepared to take a polygraph examination anytime. Wheel it in here."

"The Italians registered a diplomatic protest over the attempted warning of a known felon in their country," Noonan said. He indicated the red-haired man beside him. "This is Mr. Montenegro from the Italian Embassy."

"Good morning, sir. And the Italians found out how?"

Starling said. "Not from Langley."

"The diplomatic beef puts the ball in our court," Krendler said before Montenegro could open his mouth. "We want this cleaned up to the satisfaction of the Italian authorities, and to my satisfaction and that of the IG, and we want it PDQ. It's better for everybody if we look at all the facts together. What is it with you and Dr Lecter, Ms Starling?"

"I interrogated Dr Lecter several times on the orders of Section Chief Crawford. Since Dr Lecter's escape I've had two letters from him in seven years. You have both of them," Starling said.

"Actually, we have more," Krendler said. "We got this yesterday. What else you might have received, we don't know."

He reached behind him to get a cardboard box, much stamped and much battered by the mails.

Krendler pretended to enjoy the fragrances coming from the box. He indicated the shipping label with his finger, not bothering to show Starling. "Addressed to you at your home in Arlington, Special Agent Starling. Mr. Montenegro, would you tell us what these items are?"

The Italian diplomat poked through the tissue-wrapped items, his cufflinks winking.

"Yes, this are lotions, sapone di mandorle, the famous almond soap of Santa Maria Novella in Florence, from the Farmacia there, and some perfumes. The sort of thing people are giving when they felt in love."

"These have been scanned for toxins and irritants, right, Clint?"

Noonan asked Starling's former supervisor.

Pearsall looked ashamed. "Yes," he said. "There's nothing wrong with them."."A gift of love," Krendler said with some satisfaction. "Now we have the mash note."

He unfolded the sheet of parchment from the box and held it up, revealing the tabloid picture of Starling's face with the winged body of a lioness. He turned the sheet to read Dr Lecter's copperplate script: "Did you ever think, Clarice, why the Philistines don't understand you? It's because you're the answer to Samson's riddle: You are the honey in the lion."

"Il miele dentro la leonessa, that's nice," Montenegro said, filing it away for his own use at a later time.

"It's what?" Krendler said.

The Italian waved the question away, seeing that Krendler would never hear the music in Dr Lecter's metaphor, nor feel its tactile evocations anywhere else.

"The Inspector General wants to take it from here, because of the international ramifications," Krendler said. "Which way it will go, administrative charges or criminal, depends on what we find out in our ongoing probe. If it goes criminal, Special Agent Starling, it'll be turned over to the Public Integrity Section of the Justice Department, and PIS will take it to trial. You'll be informed in plenty of time to prepare. Director Noonan…"

Noonan took a deep breath and swung the axe. "Clarice Starling, I'm placing you on administrative leave until such time as this matter is adjudicated. You will surrender weapons and FBI identification. Your access is revoked to all but public federal facilities. You will be escorted from the building. Please surrender your sidearms and ID now to Special Agent Pearsall. Come."

Walking to the table, Starling saw the men for a second as bowling pins at a shooting contest. She could kill the four of them before one could clear his weapon. The moment passed. She took out her.45, looked steadily at Krendler as she dropped the clip into her hand, put the clip on the table and shucked the round out of the pistol's chamber. Krendler caught it in the air and squeezed it until his knuckles turned white.

Badge and ID went next.

"You have a backup sidearm?" Krendler said. "And a shotgun?"

"Starling?" Noonan prompted.

"Locked in my car."

"Other tactical equipment?"

"A helmet and a vest."

"Mr. Marshal, you will retrieve those when you escort Miss Starling to her vehicle," Krendler said. "Do you have an encryption cell phone?"

"Yes."

Krendler raised his eyebrows to Noonan.

"Turn it in," Noonan said.

"I want to say something, I think I'm entitled to that.".Noonan looked at his watch. "Go ahead."

"This is a frame. I think Mason Verger is trying to capture Dr Lecter himself for purposes of personal revenge. I think he just missed him in Florence. I think Mr. Krendler may be in collusion with Verger and wants the FBI's effort against Dr Lecter to work for Verger. I think Paul Krendler of the Department of Justice is making money out of this and I think he is willing to destroy me to do it. Mr. Krendler has behaved toward me before in an inappropriate manner and is acting now out of spite as well as financial self-interest. Only this week he called me a `cornpone country pussy.' I would challenge Mr. Krendler before this body to take a lie detector test with me on these matters. I'm at your convenience. We could do it now."

"Special Agent Starling, it's a good thing you're not sworn here today-" Krendler began.

"Swear me. You swear too."

"I want to assure you, if the evidence is lacking you're entitled to full reinstatement without prejudice," Krendler said in his kindliest voice. "In the meantime you'll receive pay and remain eligible for insurance and medical benefits. The administrative leave is not itself punitive, Agent Starling, use it to your advantage," Krendler said, adopting a confidential tone. "In fact, if you wanted to take this hiatus to have that dirt taken out of your cheek, I'm sure the medical-"

"It's not dirt," Starling said. "It's gunpowder. No wonder you didn't recognize it."

The marshal was waiting, his hand outstretched to her.

"I'm sorry, Starling," Clint Pearsall said, his hands full of her equipment.

She looked at him and looked away. Paul Krendler drifted toward her as the other men waited to let the diplomat, Montenegro, leave the room first. Krendler started to say something between his teeth, he had it ready: "Starling, you're old to still be-"

"Excuse me." It was Montenegro. The tall diplomat had turned away from the door and come to her. "Excuse me," Montenegro said again, looking into Krendler's face until he went away, his face twisted.

"I am sorry this has happen to you," he said. "I hope you are innocent. I promise I will press the Questura in Florence to find out how the inserzione, the ad, was paid for at La Nazione. If you think of something in… in my sphere of Italy to follow up, please tell me and I will insist on it."

Montenegro handed her a card, small and stiff and bumpy with engraving and seemed not to notice Krendler's outstretched hand as he left the room.

Reporters, cleared through the main entrance for the coming anniversary ceremony, thronged in the courtyard. A few seemed to know whom to watch for.

"Do you have to hold my elbow?"

Starling asked the marshal.

"No ma'am, I don't," he said, and made a way for her through the boom microphones and the shouted questions…This time Razor Cut seemed to know the issue. The questions he shouted were "Is it true that you've been suspended from the Hannibal Lecter case? Do you anticipate criminal charges being brought against you? What do you say to the Italian charges?"

In the garage, Starling handed over her protective vest, her helmet, her shotgun and her backup revolver. The marshal waited while she unloaded the little pistol and wiped it down with an oily cloth.

"I saw you shoot at Quantico, Agent Starling," he said. "I got to the quarterfinals myself for the marshal's service. I'll wipe down your.45 before we put it up."

"Thank you, Marshal."

He lingered after she was in the car. He said something over the boom of the Mustang. She rolled down the window and he said it again.

"I hate this happening to you."

"Thank you, sir. I appreciate you saying it."

A press chase car was waiting outside the garage exit. Starling pushed the Mustang to lose him and got a speeding ticket three blocks from the J. Edgar Hoover Building. Photographers took pictures while the D.C. patrolman wrote it out.

Assistant Director Noonan sat at his desk after the meeting was over, rubbing the spots his glasses left on the sides of his nose.

Getting rid of Starling didn't bother him so much. He believed there was an emotional element in women that often didn't fit in with the Bureau. But it hurt him to see Jack Crawford cut down. Jack had been very much one of the boys. Maybe Jack had a blind spot for the Starling girl, but that happens – Jack's wife was dead and all. Noonan had a week once when he couldn't keep from looking at an attractive stenographer and he had to get rid of her before she caused some trouble.

Noonan put on his glasses and took the elevator down to the library. He found Jack Crawford in the reading area, in a chair with his head back against the wall.

Noonan thought he was asleep. Crawford's face was gray and he was sweating. He opened his eyes and gasped.

"Jack?"

Noonan patted his shoulder, then touched his clammy face. Noonan's voice then, loud in the library. "You, librarian, call the medics!"

Crawford went to the FBI infirmary, and then to the Jefferson Memorial Intensive Care Cardiac Unit.

Chapter 73

KRENDLER COULD not have asked for better coverage. The ninetieth birthday of the FBI was combined with a tour for newsmen of the new crisis management center. Television news took full advantage of this unaccustomed access to the J. Edgar Hoover Building, C-SPAN carrying former President Bush's remarks in.full, along with those of the director, in live programming. CNN excerpted the speeches in running coverage and the networks covered for the evening news. It was as the dignitaries filed off the dais that Krendler had his moment. Young Razor Cut, standing near the stage, posed the question: "Mr. Krendler is it true that Special Agent Clarice Starling has been suspended in the Hannibal Lecter investigation?"

"I think it would be premature, and unfair to the agent, to comment on that, at the moment. I'll just say that the Inspector General's office is looking into the Lecter matter. No charges have been filed against anyone.

CNN caught a whiff too. "Mr. Krendler, Italian news sources are saying Dr Lecter may have received information improperly from a government source warning him to flee. Is that the basis of Special Agent Starling's suspension? Is that why the Inspector General's office is involved rather than the internal Office of Professional Responsibility?"

"I can't comment on foreign news reports, Jeff. I can say the IG's office is investigating allegations that so far have not been proven. We have as much responsibility toward our own officers as we do our friends overseas," Krendler said, poking his finger into the air like a Kennedy. "The Hannibal Lecter matter is in good hands, not just the hands of Paul Krendler, but experts drawn from all the disciplines of the FBI and the Justice Department. We have a project under way that we can reveal in due time when it has borne fruit."

The German lobbyist who was Dr Lecter's landlord furnished his house with an enormous Grundig television set, and tried to blend it into the decor by putting one of his smaller bronzes of Leda and the Swan on top of the ultramodern cabinet.

Dr Lecter was watching a film called A Brief History of Time, about the great astrophysicist Stephen Hawking and his work. He had watched it many times before. This was his favorite part, where the teacup falls off the table and smashes on the floor.

Hawking, twisted in his wheelchair, speaks in his computer-generated voice: "Where does the difference between the past and the future come from? The laws of science do not distinguish between the past and the future. Yet there is a big difference between the past and future in ordinary life.

"You may see a cup of tea fall off of a table and break into pieces on the floor. But you will never see the cup gather itself back together and jump back on the table."

The film, run backward, shows the cup reassembling itself on the table. Hawking continues: "The increase of disorder or entropy is what distinguishes the past from the future, giving a direction to time."

Dr Lecter admired Hawking's work very much and followed it as closely as he could in the mathematical journals. He knew that Hawking had once believed the universe would stop expanding and would shrink again, and entropy might reverse itself. Later Hawking said he was mistaken.

Lecter was quite capable in the area of higher mathematics, but Stephen Hawking is on another plane entirely from the rest of us. For years Lecter had teased the problem, wanting very much for Hawking to be right the first time, for the expanding universe to stop, for entropy to mend itself, for Mischa, eaten, to be whole again…Time. Dr Lecter stopped his videotape and turned to the news.

Television and news events involving the FBI are listed daily on the FBI's public Web site. Dr Lecter visited the Web site every day to make sure they were still using his old photograph among the Ten Most Wanted. So he learned of the FBI birthday in plenty of time to tune in. He sat in a great armchair in his smoking jacket and ascot and watched Krendler lie. He watched Krendler with his eyes half closed, holding his brandy snifter close under his nose and swirling the contents gently. He had not seen that pale face since Krendler stood outside his cage in Memphis seven years ago, just before his escape.

On the local news from Washington, he saw Starling receive a traffic ticket with microphones stuck in the window of her Mustang. By now the television news had Starling "accused of breaching U.S. security" in the Lecter case.

Dr Lecter's maroon eyes opened wide at the sight of her and in the depths of his pupils sparks flew around his image of her face. He held her countenance whole and perfect in his mind long after she was gone from the screen, and pressed her with another image, Mischa, pressed them together until, from the red plasma core of their fusion, the sparks flew upward, carrying their single image to the east, into the night sky to wheel with the stars above the sea. Now, should the universe contract, should time reverse and teacups come together, a place could be made for Mischa in the world. The worthiest place that Dr Lecter knew: Starling's place. Mischa could have Starling's place in the world. If it came to that, if that time came round again, Starling's demise would leave a place for Mischa as sparkling and clean as the copper bathtub in the garden.

Chapter 74

DR LECTER parked his pickup a block from Maryland-Misericordia Hospital and wiped his quarters before he put them in the meter. Wearing the quilted jumpsuit workmen wear against the cold, and a long-billed cap against the security cameras, he went in the main entrance.

It had been more than fifteen years since Dr Lecter was in Maryland – Misericordia Hospital, but the basic layout appeared unchanged. Seeing this place where he began his medical practice meant nothing to him. The secure areas upstairs had undergone cosmetic renovation, but should be almost the same as when he practiced here, according to the blueprints at the Department of Buildings.

A visitor's pass from the front desk got him onto the patient floors. He walked along the hall reading the names of patients and doctors on the doors of the rooms. This was the postoperative convalescent unit, where patients came when released from Intensive Care after cardiac or cranial surgery.

Watching Dr Lecter proceed down the hall, you might have thought he read very slowly, as his lips moved soundlessly, and he scratched his head from time to time like a bumpkin. Then he took a seat in the waiting room where he could see the hallway. He waited an hour and half among old women recounting family tragedies; and endured The Price Is Right on television. At last he saw what he was waiting for, a surgeon still in surgical greens making rounds alone. This would be… the surgeon was going in to see a patient of… Dr Silverman. Dr Lecter rose and scratched. He picked up a blowzy newspaper from an end table and walked out of the waiting room. Another room with a Silverman patient was two doors down. Dr Lecter slipped inside. The room was semi-dark, the patient satisfactorily asleep, his head and the side of his face heavily bandaged. On the monitor screen, a worm of light humped steadily…Dr Lecter quickly stripped off his insulated coveralls to reveal surgical greens. He pulled on shoe covers and a cap and mask and gloves. He took out of his pocket a white trash bag and unfolded it.

Dr Silverman came in speaking over his shoulder to someone in the hall. Was a nurse coming with him? No.

Dr Lecter picked up the wastebasket and began to tip the contents into his trash bag, his back to the door.

"Excuse me, Doctor, I'll get out of your way," Dr Lecter said.

"That's all right," Dr Silverman said, picking up the clipboard at the end of the bed. "Do what you need to do."

"Thank you," Dr Lecter said, and swung the leather sap against the base of the surgeon's skull, just a flip of the wrist, really, and caught him around the chest as he sagged. It is always surprising to watch Dr Lecter lift a body; size for size he is as strong as an ant. Dr Lecter carried Dr Silverman into the patient's bathroom and pulled down his pants. He set Dr Silverman on the toilet.

The surgeon rested there with his head hanging forward over his knees. Dr Lecter raised him up long enough to peer into his pupils and remove the several ID tags clipped to the front of his surgical greens.

He replaced the doctor's credentials with his own visitor's pass, inverted. He put the surgeon's stethoscope around his own neck in the fashionable boa drape and the doctor's elaborate magnifying surgical glasses went on top of his head. The leather sap went up his sleeve.

Now he was ready to penetrate to the heart of Maryland- Misericordia.

The hospital adheres to strict federal guidelines in handling narcotic drugs. On the patient floors, the drug cabinets on each nurse's station are locked. Two keys, held by the duty nurse and her first assistant, are required to get in. A strict log is kept.

In the operating suites, the most secure area of the hospital, each suite is furnished with drugs for the next procedure a few minutes before the patient is brought in. The drugs for the anesthesiologist are placed near the operating table in a cabinet that has one area refrigerated and one at room temperature.

The stock of drugs is kept in a separate surgical dispensary near the scrub room. It contains a number of preparations that would not be found in the general dispensary downstairs, the powerful sedatives and exotic sedative- hypnotics that make possible open-heart surgery and brain surgery on an aware and responsive patient.

The dispensary is always manned during the working day, and the cabinets are not locked while the pharmacist is in the room. In a heart surgery emergency there is no time to fumble for a key. Dr Lecter, wearing his mask, pushed through the swinging doors to the surgical suites.

In an effort at cheer, the surgery had been painted in several bright color combinations even the dying would find aggravating. Several doctors ahead of Dr Lecter signed in at the desk and proceeded to the scrub room. Dr Lecter picked up the sign-in clipboard and moved a pen over it, signing nothing…The posted schedule showed a brain tumor removal in Suite B scheduled to start in twenty minutes, the first of the day. In the scrub room, he pulled off his gloves and put them in his pockets, washed up thoroughly, working up to his elbows, dried his hands and powdered them and re-gloved. Out into the hall now. The dispensary should be the next door on the right. No. A door painted apricot with the sign EMERGENCY GENERATORS and ahead the double doors of Suite B.A nurse paused at his elbow.

"Good morning, Doctor."

Dr Lecter coughed behind his mask and muttered good morning. He turned back toward the scrub room with a mutter as though he had forgotten something. The nurse looked after him for a moment and went on into the operating theater. Dr Lecter stripped off his gloves and shot them into the waste bin. Nobody was paying attention. He got another pair. His body was in the scrub room, but in fact he raced through the foyer of his memory palace, past the bust of Pliny and up the stairs to the Hall of Architecture. In a well-lit area dominated by Christopher Wren's model of St Paul 's, the hospital blueprints were waiting on a drawing table. The Maryland-Misericordia surgical suites blueprints line for line from the Baltimore Department of Buildings. He was here. The dispensary was there. No. The drawings were wrong. Plans must have been changed after the blueprints were filed. The generators were shown on the other side in mirror- image space off the corridor to Suite A. Perhaps the labels were reversed. Had to be. He could not afford to poke around.

Dr Lecter came out of the scrub room and started down the corridor to Suite A. Door on the left. The sign said MRI. Keep going. The next door was Dispensary. They had split the space on the plan into a lab for magnetic resonance imaging and a separate drug storage area.

The heavy dispensary door was open, wedged with a doorstop. Dr Lecter ducked quickly into the room and pulled the door closed behind him.

A pudgy male pharmacist was squatting, putting something on a low shelf.

"Can I help you, Doctor?"

"Yes, please."

The young man started to stand, but never made it. Thump of the sap, and the pharmacist broke wind as he folded on the floor.

Dr Lecter raised the tail of his surgical blouse and tucked it behind the gardener's apron he wore beneath.

Up and down the shelves fast, reading labels at lightning speed; Ambien, amobarbital, Amytal, chloral hydrate, Dalmane, flurazepam, Halcion, and raking dozens of vials into his pockets. Then he was in the refrigerator, reading and raking, midazolam, Noctec, scopolamine, Pentothal, quazepam, solzidem. In less than forty seconds, Dr Lecter was back in the hall, closing the dispensary door behind him.

He passed back through the scrub room and checked himself for lumps in the mirrors. Without haste, back through the swinging doors, his ID tag deliberately twisted upside down, mask on and the glasses down over his eyes, binocular lenses raised, pulse seventy-two, exchanging gruff greetings with other doctors. Down in the elevator, down and down, mask still on, looking at a clipboard he had picked up at random…Visitors coming in might have thought it odd that he wore his surgical mask until he was well down the steps and away from the security cameras. Idlers on the street might have wondered why a doctor would drive such a ratty old truck.

Back in the surgical suite an anesthesiologist, after pecking impatiently on the door of the dispensary, found the pharmacist still unconscious and it was another fifteen minutes before the drugs were missed.

When Dr Silverman came to, he had slumped to the floor beside the toilet with his pants down. He had no memory of coming into the room and had no idea where he was. He thought he might have had a cerebral event, possibly a strokelet occasioned by the strain of a bowel movement. He was very leery of moving for fear of dislodging a clot. He eased himself along the floor until he could put his hand out into the hall. Examination revealed a mild concussion.

Dr Lecter made two more stops before he went home. He paused at a mail drop in suburban Baltimore long enough to pick up a package he had ordered on the Internet from a funeral supply company. It was a tuxedo with the shirt and tie already installed, and the whole split up the back.

All he needed now was the wine, something truly, truly festive. For that he had to go to Annapolis. It would have been nice to have had the Jaguar for the drive.

Chapter 75

KRENDLER WAS dressed for jogging in the cold and had to unzip his running suit to keep from overheating when Eric Pickford called him at his Georgetown home.

"Eric, go to the cafeteria and call me on a pay phone."

"Excuse me, Mr. Krendler?"

"Just do what I tell you."

Krendler pulled off his headband and gloves and dropped them on the piano in his living room. With one finger he pecked out the theme from Dragnet until the conversation resumed: "Starling was a techie, Eric. We don't know how she might have rigged her phones.

We'll keep the government's business secure."

"Yes, sir."

"Starling called me, Mr. Krendler. She wanted her plant and stuff – that stupid weather bird that drinks out of the glass. But she told me something that worked. She said to discount the last digit on the zip codes for the suspect magazine subscriptions if the difference is three or less. She said Dr Lecter might use 435 several mail drops that were conveniently close to each other."

"And?"

"I got a hit that way. The journal of Neurophysiology's going to one zip code and Physica Scripta and ICARUS are going to another. They're about ten miles apart. The subscriptions are in different names, paid with money orders."

"What's ICARUS?"."It's the international journal of solar system studies. He was a charter subscriber twenty years ago. The mail drops are in Baltimore. They usually deliver the journals about the tenth of the month. Got one more thing, a minute ago, a sale on a bottle of Chateau, what is it, Yuckum?"

"Yeah, it's pronounced like EEE-Kim. What about it?"

"High-end wine store in Annapolis. I entered the purchase and it hit on the sensitive dates list Starling put in. The program hit on Starling's birth year. That's the year they made this wine, her birth year. Subject paid three hundred twenty-five dollars cash for it and-"

"This was before or after you talked with Starling?"

"Just after, just a minute ago-"

"So she doesn't know it."

"No. I should call-"

"Are you saying the merchant called you on a single-bottle purchase?"

"Yes, sir. She's got notes here, there are only three bottles like that on the East Coast. She'd notified all three. You've got to admire it."

"Who bought it – what did he look like?"

"White male, medium height with a beard. He was bundled up."

"Has the wine store got a security camera?"

"Yes, sir, that's the first thing I asked. I said we'd send somebody for the tape. I haven't done it yet. The wine store clerk hadn't read the bulletin, but he told the owner because it was such an unusual purchase. Owner ran outside in time to see the subject – he thinks it was the subject – driving away in an old pickup truck. Gray with a vise on the back. If it's Lecter, you think he'll try to deliver it to Starling? We better alert her."

"No," Krendler said. "Don't tell her."

"Can I post the VICAP bulletin board and the Lecter file?"

"No," Krendler said, thinking fast. "Have you got a reply from the Questura about Lecter's computer?"

"No, sir.

"Then you can't post VICAP until we can be sure Lecter's not reading it himself. He could have Pazzi's access code. Or Starling could be reading it and tipping him some way like she did in Florence."

"Oh, right, I see. Annapolis FO can get the tape."

"Leave it all strictly to me."

Pickford dictated the address of the wine store.

"Keep going on the subscriptions," Krendler instructed. "You can tell Crawford about the subscriptions when he comes back to work. He'll organize coverage on the mail drops after the tenth.".Krendler called Mason's number, and started out running from his Georgetown town house, trotting easily toward Rock Creek Park.

In the gathering gloom only his white Nike headband and his white Nike shoes, and the white stripe down the side of his dark Nike running suit were visible, as though there were no man at all among the trademarks.

It was a brisk half-hour run. He heard the blat of helicopter blades just as he came in sight of the landing pad near the zoo. He was able to duck under the turning propeller blades and reach the step without ever breaking stride. The lift of the jet helicopter thrilled him, the city, the lighted monuments falling away as the aircraft took him to the heights he deserved, to Annapolis for the tape and to Mason.

Chapter 76

"WILL You focus the fucking thing, Cordell?"

In Mason's deep radio voice, with its lipless consonants, "focus" and "fucking" sounded more like "hocus" and "bucking. " Krendler stood beside Mason in the dark part of the room, the better to see the elevated monitor. In the heat of Mason's room he had his yuppie running suit pulled down to his waist and the sleeves tied around him, exposing his Princeton T-shirt. His headband and shoes gleamed in the light from the aquarium.

In Margot's opinion Krendler had the shoulders of a chicken. They had barely acknowledged one another when he arrived.

There was no tape or time counter on the liquor store security camera and Christmas business was brisk. Cordell was pushing fast-forward from customer to customer through a lot of purchases. Mason passed the time by being unpleasant.

"What did you say when you went in the liquor store in your running suit and flashed the tin, Krendler? You say you were in the Special Olympics?"

Mason was much less respectful since Krendler had been depositing the checks.

Krendler could not be insulted when his interests were at stake. "I said I was undercover. What kind of coverage have you got on Starling now?"

"Margot, tell him."

Mason seemed to want to save his own scarce breath for insults.

"We brought in twelve men from our security in Chicago. They're in Washington. Three teams, one member of each is deputized in the state of Illinois. If the police catch them grabbing Dr Lecter, they say they recognized him and it's a citizen's arrest and blab blah. The team that catches turns him over to Carlo. They go back to Chicago and that's all they know. " The tape was running.

"Wait a minute-Cordell, back it up thirty seconds," Mason said. "Look at this."

The liquor store camera covered the area from the front door to the cash register.

In the silent videotape's fuzzy image, a man came in wearing a billed cap, a lumber jacket and mittens. He had full whiskers and wore sunglasses. He turned.his back to the camera and carefully closed the door behind him.

It took a moment for the shopper to explain to the clerk what he wanted and he followed the man out of sight into the wine racks.

Three minutes dragged by. At last they came back into camera range. The clerk wiped dust off the bottle and wrapped padding around it before he put it in a bag. The customer pulled off only his right mitten and paid in cash. The clerk's mouth moved as he said "thank you" to the man's back as he was leaving.

A pause of a few seconds, and the clerk called to someone off camera. A heavyset man came into the picture and hurried out the door.

"That's the owner, guy who saw the truck," Krendler said.

"Cordell, can you copy off this tape and enlarge the customer's head?"

"Take a second, Mr. Verger. It'll be fuzzy."

"Do it."

"He kept the left mitten on," Mason said. "I may have gotten screwed on that X ray I bought."

"Pazzi said he got his hand fixed, didn't he? Had the extra finger off," Krendler said.

"Pazzi might have had his finger up his butt, I don't know who to believe. You've seen him, Margot, what do you think? Was that Lecter?"

"It's been eighteen years," Margot said. "I just had three sessions with him and he always just stood up behind his desk when I came in, he didn't walk around. He was really still. I remember his voice more than anything else."

Cordell's voice on the intercom. "Mr. Verger, Carlo is here."

Carlo smelled of the pigs and more. He came into the room holding his hat over his chest and the rank boar-sausage smell of his head made Krendler blow air out his nose. As a mark of respect, the Sardinian kidnapper withdrew all the way into his mouth the stag's tooth he was chewing.

"Carlo, look at this. Cordell, roll it back and walk him in from the door again."

"That's the stronzo son of bitch," Carlo said before the subject on the screen had walked four paces. "The beard is new, but that's the way he moves."

"You saw his hands in Firenze, Carlo."

"Si."

"Five fingers or six on the left?"

"… Five."

"You hesitated."

"Only to think of cinque in English. It's five, I'm sure.".Mason parted his exposed teeth in all he had for a smile. "I love it. He's wearing the mitten trying to keep the six fingers in his description," he said.

Perhaps Carlo's scent had entered the aquarium via the aeration pump. The eel came out to see, and remained out, turning, turning in his infinite Mobius eight, showing his teeth as he breathed.

"Carlo, I think we may finish this soon," Mason said. "You and Piero and Tommaso are my first team. I've got confidence in you, even though he did beat you in Florence. I want you to keep Clarice Starling under surveillance for the day before her birthday, the day itself, and the day after. You'll be relieved while she's asleep in her house. I'll give you a driver and the van."

"Padrone," Carlo said.

"Yes. " "I want some private time with the dottore, for the sake of my brother, Matteo. You said I could have it."

Carlo crossed himself as he mentioned the dead man's name.

"I understand your feelings completely, Carlo. You have my deepest sympathy. Carlo, I want Dr Lecter consumed in two sittings. The first evening, I want the pigs to gnaw off his feet, with him watching through the bars. I want him in good shape for that. You bring him to me in good shape. No blows to the head, no broken bones, no eye damage. Then he can wait overnight without his feet, for the pigs to finish him the next day. I'll talk to him for a while, and then you can have him for an hour before the final sitting. I'll ask you to leave him an eye and leave him conscious so he can see them coming. I want him to see their faces when they eat his face. If you, say, should decide to unman him, it's entirely up to you, but I want Cordell there to manage the bleeding. I want film."

"What if he bleeds to death the first time in the pen?"

"He won't. Nor will he die overnight. What he'll do overnight is wait with his feet eaten off. Cordell will see to that and replace his body fluids, I expect he'll be on an IV drip all night, maybe two drips."

"Or four drips if we have to," said Cordell's disembodied voice on the speakers. "I can do cut-downs on his legs."

"You can spit and piss in his IV at the last, before you roll him into the pen," Mason told Carlo in his most sympathetic voice. "Or you can come in it if you like."

Carlo's face brightened at the thought, then he remembered the muscular signorina with a guilty sideways glance. "Grazie mille, Padrone. Can you come to see him die?"

"I don't know, Carlo. The dust in the barn disturbs me. I may watch on video. Can you bring a pig to me? I want to put my hand on one."

"To this room, Padrone?"

"No, they can bring me downstairs briefly, on the power pack."

"I would have to put one to sleep, Padrone," Carlo said doubtfully.

"Do one of the sows. Bring her on the lawn outside the elevator. You can run.the forklift over the grass."

"You figure on doing this with one van, or a van and a crash car?" Krendler asked.

"Carlo?"

"The van is plenty. Give me a deputy to drive."

"I've got something else for you," Krendler said. "Can we have some light?"

Margot moved the rheostat and Krendler put his backpack on the table beside the bowl of fruit. He put on cotton gloves and took out what appeared to be a small monitor with an antenna and a mounting bracket, along with an external hard drive and a rechargeable battery pack.

"It's awkward covering Starling because she lives in a cul-de-sac with no place to lurk. But she has to come out – Starling's an exercise freak," Krendler said. "She's had to join a private gym since she can't use the FBI stuff anymore. We caught her parked at the gym Thursday and put a beacon under her car. It's Ni-Cad and recharges when the motor's running so she won't find it from a battery drain. The software covers these five contiguous states. Who's going to work this thing?"

"Cordell, come in here," Mason said.

Cordell and Margot knelt beside Krendler and Carlo stood over them, his hat held at the height of their nostrils.

"Look here."

Krendler switched his monitor on. "It's like a car navigation system except it shows where Starling's car is."

An overview of metropolitan Washington appeared on the screen: "Zoom here, move the area with the arrows, got it? Okay, it's not showing any acquisition. A signal from Starling's beacon will light this, and you'll hear a beep. Then you can pick up the source on overview and zoom in. The beep gets faster as you get closer. Here's Starling's neighborhood is in street-map scale. You're not getting any blip from her car because we're out of range. Anywhere in metro Washington or Arlington you would. I picked it up from the helicopter coming out. Here's the converter for AC plug in your van. One thing. You have to guarantee me this thing never gets in the wrong hands. I could get heat from this, it's not in the spy shops yet. Either its back in my hands or it's in the bottom of the Potomac. You got it?"

"You understand that, Margot?" Mason said. "You, Cordell? Get Mogli to drive and brief him."