Capture

By Jstarz927

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Summary:     Clarice Starling has been captured by the FBI and must now undergo the ultimate test of mental courage.

Timeline:       Set five years after Hannibal the book, follows canon

Rating:          PG

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It was springtime. The bright sun cast its beams on a newly awakened land. The flowers were just beginning to open and the birds were in full-song. It was the time for new life.

In Arlington the optimism of the season failed to reach Ardelia Mapp as a cold chill went through her body. Her breathing quickened and the magazine that she held in both her hands began to tremble. She’d heard the rumors, and the emerald ring on her finger had only confirmed her suspicions. She knew it had to be true but had denied it, as if her denial could make things all right.

They had never had any solid proof and could do little more than spout off accusations. But here it was in screaming black and white, seventy-two-point Railroad Gothic, National Tattler’s headlines.

“MRS. LECTER IN FBI CUSTODY!! HANNIBAL THE CANNIBAL STILL AT LARGE!!!”

The article continued with details, but Mapp did not bother to read anymore. She had seen what she needed to know. Ever since Clarice’s disappearance had coincided with Lecter’s rampage on Muskrat Farm, Mapp knew there was something funny going on.

But this. Her mind was overwhelmed and her hands grabbed car keys and a jacket without her conscious thought. She simply refused to believe that her former roommate had willingly remained in Lecter’s company for five years.

Okay, she thought as she climbed into her car, suppose Clarice had stayed of her own free will. Where was her mind?! It was Hannibal Lecter they were talking about, whose body count had climbed well over twenty. Whatever the reason, Mapp had to see her. Clarice Starling was back from the dead, and no matter what she was like now, Clarice had once been her best friend.

*

Mapp’s car was pushing 120 mph on the highway from Arlington to Quantico. There was the exit. Car horns screamed obscenities as Mapp swerved across five lanes of traffic.

Once at FBI Headquarters, Mapp did not have to search for her friend. The paparazzi had scouted out the place and politely guided Mapp with their shouts and flashing cameras. Flashbulbs popped over and over again as Mapp pushed through the mob.

“Is it true that former FBI agent Clarice Starling has been living with the infamous Hannibal Lecter for five years?”

“What are your feelings on this case?”

“Do you think Starling has been changed by…”

Mapp ignored the questions and pushed into the relative solitude of the building. It was not peaceful for long.

“You let me in, you bastards! I have a right!”

The two guards who blocked the way to the interrogation room would not be moved. “Nobody questions the suspect without written consent from the director. For security reasons.” The guard added that last sentence as if lecturing a child.

“The suspect is my friend and she’s done nothing wrong.”

“Dan, she’s not going to bust Starling out. Let her in.” Special Agent Clint Pearsall came up behind Mapp and flashed his I.D.

“Yes, sir.” The doors opened. If Mapp had known how much her life would change, she might never have gone past the entrance. She entered and the doors clanged shut behind her like a cell.

Pearsall led her through the floodlit corridors until they reached the room they wanted. “Are you sure you want to see her? She’s not the same.” Pearsall said this as the interrogation room was about to come into view.

Mapp whirled on Pearsall. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me you had her? I had to find out from the National Tattler.”

“We tried to call you for seven hours.”

“You could have left a message.”

“Your phone line had been disconnected.”

“That’s B.S.”

Mapp stared through the one-way mirror at Clarice Starling. She sat calmly at the bare table in a splendid gown. Her hair was unkempt and evident of a wild struggle. The cashmere dress had been torn in several places and there were blood spots settled like flowers among the emeralds. Mapp thought for a moment that Lecter had drawn the blood and was getting riled up when Pearsall began to read the case report.

“She was taken at a Broadway musical. Les Misérables. Anonymous phone call. Officers apprehended her on the way to her car. Lecter nowhere to be found. The suspect,” he paused, “…cried for the assistance of wanted fugitive Hannibal Lecter, who was believed to be in the vicinity. She struggled violently and was injured in her arrest. Numerous cuts and bruises. The suspect was taken to the interrogation room. Awaiting further orders.”

Mapp felt beaten to the ground. The ring seemed to burn on her finger, and she wondered if Lecter had handed the emerald to Clarice to be set in the ring. “I’m going to talk to her.”

“I can’t allow that.”

Mapp ran ahead of Pearsall and tore open the door to the interrogation room. Clarice looked up as Mapp rushed in, followed by Pearsall and FBI Director Tunberry.

“You can’t do this, Agent Mapp.” The director’s voice would have sounded threatening at any other time. Mapp was beyond caring and could only see Clarice in front of her. Director Tunberry took Pearsall aside. “How the hell did she get in here, Clint?”

“I…I let her in, sir. I saw no harm in it.”

Tunberry looked as if he were going to explode for a moment. Then he suddenly quieted. “Well, I guess our little agent won’t be too much trouble. See that she gets out of here in due time.”

Pearsall knew better than to question his boss. “Yes, sir.” Mapp heard the door click shut behind her. She carefully took a seat across from her friend. As she sat down, she slowly came to eye level with Clarice. Eyes that never left her face. Mapp shuddered. A hidden fire blazed behind the cold blue, fish-like irises that seemed to repel the light in the room. An icy, unfriendly flame. She looked just like him…

“Hello, Ardelia.”

“Hello, Clarice.”

“You didn’t come all the way over here just to say that.”

Mapp took off her ring and slid it to the middle of the table. She turned it so Clarice could see the AM-CS engraved inside. A beat of silence. “Why, girlfriend, why?”

“Oh, Ardelia. You’d never understand.”

Mapp diverted her gaze from Clarice’s intense eyes and fixed it on her mouth. “Do you still understand us? Do you still remember us?”

“I remember you, Ardelia. You shouldn’t have come here. It would have saved you a lot of pain.” Mapp watched Clarice’s red lips slide smoothly up and down like poison as she talked. They shone as if with fresh blood.

“Would it be better to be worrying every second of the day that your best friend is in danger?”

“I think I made it quite clear in my letter that I was fine.”

“You think he loves you? How long do you think Lecter will toy with you before he gets tired of it? He’s a vicious criminal. He’s not capable of love.”

“Then tell me why I’m still alive.”

“Lecter has killed 21 people. That we know of. Does he have any more bodies stuffed in his freezer?”

Clarice laughed, not pleasantly. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he did.”

Mapp got unsteadily out of her chair. Her limbs were like water as she faced the monster that used to be her friend. She cleared her throat and looked directly into Clarice’s eyes. “Agent Clarice Starling. Do you have knowledge of the current whereabouts of Hannibal Lecter?”

“No.”

“Then you will remain incarcerated until you choose to inform the FBI.” Mapp walked briskly to the door with Clarice’s voice ringing in her ear.

“This didn’t have to happen. I’m sorry I had to hurt you, Ardelia.”

After Mapp was out of sight and before she could get back behind the one-way mirror, Clarice picked up the ring that Mapp had left behind. She brought the ring to her nose and sniffed the cold metal. Then she smiled and removed a small object from behind her ear. She placed the object on the gold ring and pushed until the soft gold began to form a little depression. The tiny object was now perfectly embedded in the ring. Clarice slipped the ring onto her finger and sat back in the chair.

They would question her, she knew. Far away, in a deep corner of her memory palace, she remembered how suspects were questioned. If an attorney did not work, they would switch to drugs. Clarice closed her eyes and walked down the halls of her memory palace. Hannibal had taught her how to build it. He had spoken softly in her mind, guiding her as, block by block, her worst memories were placed in far corners and bright, airy rooms were constructed at her pleasure. With a sigh, Clarice began to shut doors in the palace. It would take a long time to open them all again, but she could not risk the information in those rooms falling into the wrong hands.

Meanwhile, she would wait.

*          *            *

Hannibal Lecter’s eyes narrowed as he observed the computer screen. He watched the picture slowly creep into existence. He could hardly understand the enthusiasm over this pitiful machine. Yet Lecter waited patiently while the blurry pictures began to focus. It was what he needed to pinpoint the signal. He touched the stack of newspapers next to him with one finger. Mostly tabloids. Clarice Starling had been moved from building to building to avoid the press, but the newspapers still carefully followed her whereabouts.

Her current location was classified, but that was no problem. The location chip was working quite nicely. Lecter had planted the chip on Clarice a few weeks ago, knowing it might be needed. However, the signal had been far too weak until, four days ago, the signal had surged back, stronger than ever. Lecter knew that Clarice had probably placed it in a better electrical conductor. Silver or gold, he thought, from the strength of the signal. Clever girl.

Even under the circumstances, Lecter was supremely confident that getting her out would be no problem. A bit awkward, perhaps, but not difficult. Clarice could manage until then. If there was one thing that Lecter admired in her, it was her self-reliance. She managed that better than even he could have taught her.

Was the computer finished? No, another minute. Lecter supported his chin with two fingers as he waited. He had not seen Clarice’s capture. He was outside for intermission when her scream reached his ear. The police car was just pulling away when he arrived on the scene. A failure on his part that he would be sure never to repeat.

“Hannibal! Hannibal!” she had cried. Lecter closed his eyes and allowed his first image of Clarice to appear in his mind. A nervous FBI trainee. It never failed to amaze him just how much she had changed since then. How deeply she trusted in him. Perhaps he felt that the first time she made love to him.

“Well, Clarice,” he said to himself, “I can’t let you down then, can I?”

Lecter opened his maroon eyes. The computer was finally finished. Lecter’s eyes looked at the map on the computer screen. He blinked once, like a camera clicking. Lecter allowed himself to drift away. In his memory palace, he ran up marble stairs, the map clutched in his hand. He reached a table where the receiver of the signal was located. Lecter placed the map next to the receiver and quickly pinpointed Clarice’s location. A few miles away from Quantico. No trouble.

In the real world, Lecter’s head came around as he heard a sound to his right. He quickly shut down the computer and unplugged the locator. He had no transportation. His Jaguar had been parked in the area Clarice was taken. The FBI had confiscated it. Lecter had meant for this to be a weekend excursion to Broadway, and his other automobile was in Buenos Aires. However…

*          *            *

Ardelia Mapp was tired and burned-out when she flopped down on her bed. She had spent the last few days in a mind-numbing miasma, dodging reporters. Her life was down in the pits and everyone seemed intent on knocking her down lower. Especially Clarice.

She had watched Starling through the one-way mirror as questions were politely asked and finally shouted into her face. Clarice’s expression had never changed from one of enticing boredom. Whenever Mapp stood behind the mirror, Clarice’s head would turn towards her and her eyes seemed to see right through the mirror. Mapp had watched as the Director and Pearsall had become more and more agitated as each day passed. It was infuriating, for they knew that Clarice was hiding something. A hoard of information placed just out of their reach.

Here in her room, Mapp closed her eyes and tried to forget it all. She was just drifting off to sleep when scratching claws descended into her lap.

“Ahhh!” Mapp kicked frantically and the object flew to the floor. She looked and her heart dropped back down to her feet. “Amy, what the hell are you doing?!”

The tiger-striped cat picked itself from the floor, shaking each paw in disgust. Mapp poked her finger through the rips in her shirt. “Great…”

Amy hissed and rubbed against Mapp’s leg. Then she lay down and began to shred the carpet.

“Amy, stop it.” Mapp bent to pick up the cat. She hung on, her claws stretching. She let go abruptly and began rubbing against the doorjamb. “Amy, what is it?” More than a little annoyed now. Then she didn’t need to ask again because she heard the loud popping noises and ran for the garage. She arrived just in time to see her car pulling out of the driveway.

She ran after it, pulling her gun. “Stop! Stop right there!” The driver didn’t even slow. Mapp fired at the tires and missed. She watched in frustration as her car turned a corner and disappeared.

With a deep breath, Clint Pearsall slid into the seat across from Director Tunberry. A few minutes passed before Tunberry said a word. Pearsall shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He did not like Tunberry, but he was his boss. If Tunberry told Pearsall to sit his ass down, he had to do it. Tunberry cleared his throat and set his paper cup of coffee down on the table. “We have two days to make Starling talk. We have nothing on her except resisting arrest and the board won’t let us keep her any longer.”

Pearsall ventured his opinion. “She knows where Lecter is, sir. I’m sure of that.”

Tunberry stared at him levelly. “I am not quite the asshole you might think I am that I do not recognize that, Agent Pearsall.” He paused. “What was your relationship with former Special Agent Clarice Starling?”

“She was an agent under my jurisdiction while she worked in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.”

“Did you get to know her?”

“Not very well, sir.”

“It was you who suspended her, am I right?”

“I helped, yes.”

“What sort of person was she?”

“She did her duty as an agent.”

Pause. Tunberry said, “Agent Pearsall, I must say that you remind me of a stubborn tube of toothpaste that I have to keep squeezing for information. What can you tell me about Starling that might be remotely useful in figuring out whether or not she will answer our questions?”

Pearsall sighed. “Clarice Starling had a mind of her own. She didn’t seem to agree with the FBI’s ideals. All the work she did on Lecter was on her own. She cleaned out every file she could find in the library and created her own office in our proposed darkroom. She seemed to be doing a good job, and then…something happened and she was suspended.”

“One week before her disappearance…Was there ever doubt about Starling’s loyalty to the Bureau?”

“No, sir.” – Pearsall remembered the last desperate phone call. “You’re not a law officer while you’re on suspension…You’re Joe Blow.” “Yes, sir, I know.” – Pearsall sighed. “I’m afraid I…was not sure about Starling’s loyalty to the Bureau at that time.”

“That, is what we need to prove.” Tunberry sounded surprisingly cheerful. “We need Starling to prove that to herself.” He slid something from his pocket and placed it in front of Pearsall. “You are the one that will make sure it happens.”

Pearsall looked at the small package wrapped in brown paper. The black printing on the package was small, but he could not mistake the medical staff-and-snakes symbol. Or the complicated Latin printed in jet-black capitals.

“Sodium amytal? Sir, we need a court order for this. Drugs cannot be used unless the suspect shows clear signs of mental disorder…” Pearsall withered under Tunberry’s stare. “I’ll have the answers for you tomorrow.”

“Fantastic.” Tunberry picked up his coffee cup and folded up his newspaper. “Good day, Agent Pearsall.”

Clint Pearsall was alone in the FBI break room. His hand picked up the needle wrapped in brown paper and his eyes looked at it as if it were a filthy bug. This was absolutely illegal and he felt as if he was being forced to cross over a dangerous line. It might have interested Pearsall to know that this was exactly how Clarice Starling felt, right before her journey to the dark side.

Pearsall dialed numbers into his cell phone. “Hello, Dan? I need some extra guards for Ms. Starling…yes, I know it’s a Saturday…”

Inside Ardelia Mapp’s car, Hannibal Lecter removed bottle after bottle from his briefcase. They were the same bottles he had stolen from Maryland-Misercordia Hospital so many years ago. The drugs in most bottles were almost empty, but he still had enough of what he needed: stimulants, anesthetics, sleeping draughts, and deadly poisons.

*          *            *

Clarice Starling sat at the rough wooden table. She was back inside the same interrogation room she had been taken to right after her arrest. The FBI agents had shifted her around to avoid the media, but had finally given up and allowed the media to do their worst.

The table, however, was different. It was a crude replacement for the fine wooden table, which had had one of its legs kicked out by an over-frustrated interrogator. Starling was dressed in tired blue prison fatigues, they were clean, for they had been changed the very morning. She half-smiled. The interrogators were more considerate than she had remembered. Starling glanced up at the huge one-way mirror on the wall. She sensed rather than saw the four men behind the silver glass. They were angry. Pity she couldn’t hear them. She knew they were talking about her.

“With all due respect, Mr. Pearsall, what sort of ass is the director to permit drug intervention? Do you know what the media will do when they find out?”

“Regardless, they are direct orders from the director, who is more powerful than the media any day.”

“You would be the last person I expected to say that, Pearsall.”

Another agent spoke then. “Again, we have no proof of mental illness.”

Pearsall rounded on the man and spoke in a slow, taunting voice. “She danced off into the sunset with Hannibal Lecter. What more proof of mental disorder do you need?”

“Proof that what you just said is true.”

“That is what I’m going to get for you.”

A minute later, the door to the interrogation room burst open and Starling saw the four men walk in with equally grim expressions on their faces. Pearsall cleared his throat as he read the forged official court order for the drug out loud and then laid it in front of Starling to examine. Starling barely glanced at the paper. She regarded Pearsall with a mixture of curiosity and disgust. “White-out and a photocopier, am I right?”

Pearsall shifted nervously. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Starling continued as if she hadn’t heard. “A particularly nice job, too. It would have fooled me had you not left this bit of the original signature intact.” She pointed to a smudge on the paper.

Pearsall went slightly pale and hid his discomfort by busying himself with preparing the needle. Two agents went to either side of Starling, clearly expecting her to struggle. Pearsall walked toward Starling with the prepared needle. His hand was shaking slightly.

“If you like, I can inject myself. Then you won’t be blamed for breaking the law.”

Pearsall’s eyes flared and he said nothing, but slid the needle into Starling’s arm. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head and she went into a trance. “What does the law mean to you anymore?” Pearsall said while she could not hear. He and the other officers waited for a few moments for the drug to take full effect. He knew when it would happen. There: the sound of her breathing changes ever so slightly from unconsciousness to unnatural self-control. Pearsall kneeled in front of Starling and looked into her half-open eyes. “Clarice Starling, can you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“Can you count backwards from fifty for me?”

“Fifty, forty-nine, forty-eight…”

“What comes after forty-eight?”

No response. “Clarice?”

So tired. So careless. She should…just…go to sleep. In a quiet but clear voice. “Thirty, nineteen…”

Pearsall removed a hand-held recorder from his jacket and placed it on the table. He took a deep breath. “Clarice, according to FBI records, you disappeared from service five years ago. Your .45 Colt was found at Muskrat Farm, the same night that Dr. Lecter killed Mason Verger and several farmers at the same location.”

Starling mumbled something.

“I’m sorry?”

“That’s a lie. You never reported me missing from active duty. I was just another missing person, whose picture you print on the little blue and white card people try to ignore in their mail.”

“Clarice, I understand that you were bitter about being suspended, but it was backed up by solid proof and official statements from your superiors. And believe me, the FBI did everything in their power to find you afterwards.”

“Solid proof? You drove Jack Crawford away and let a screwball such as Krendler feed you stories. Someone with a brain the size of a gnat and so bland that Hannibal —.” Starling stopped talking suddenly, her face frozen in shock. Something was wrong. The halls of her mind had darkened and she was lost.

Pearsall got to his feet and leaned closer to her face. “WHAT?!! What did you just say about Agent Krendler? Let me tell you he disappeared from duty about the same time as you. DO YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THAT?!”

Starling’s eyes were dancing in her skull. Confusion set into her brain. The familiar halls of her memory palace were being twisted out of the shape. The structure spinning into a blur. A stranger was in her palace. A dark shadow. Starling froze stiff as the shadow melted into her. The shadow made her reach for the knob of a door. A door she had closed. Her arm jerked up and down like a robot as she fought the shadow. She couldn’t let herself open that door. Couldn’t.

In the real world, Pearsall stared as Starling trembled. He managed to catch a few words of what she was saying. “Krendler…took wrong helicopter…parsley and thyme…D below middle C…Château d’Yquem…golden liquid…golden heaven…”

Pearsall leaned closer to Starling. “Clarice, were you with Lecter these past five years?”

“His name is Hannibal.” Starling managed to keep her voice calm.

“Fine,” Pearsall hissed, “Hannibal is responsible for the deaths of over twenty people.”

“No, he didn’t kill those people at Muskrat Farm. It was…Marghaa…” Starling gagged on her own words. The shadow was tearing at the door. It sent her nails gouging deep into the wood, not noticing the blood fountaining from the fingers. Cracks had already appeared, but Starling couldn’t let it happen. Her head smashing against the stubborn woodwork. Screaming in agony. The shadow driving her to the edge of her endurance.

The interrogation room was in pandemonium. Pearsall roaring orders that the officers keep still as Starling went into convulsions.

“Pearsall, she’ll die if she keeps fighting that drug!”

“She won’t. She can’t.” Pearsall bent toward Starling’s face again. “Where is he, Starling? Where is Hannibal Lecter?”

More convulsions. “I swear to you, if you don’t tell me, I have plenty more of this stuff to give. Now, WHERE IS HE?”

Starling slumped in the chair and whispered. “I don’t know. We were in Buenos Aires for five years. If one of us was caught, the other would go into hiding.” She was about to tell them everything. The boars, the dinner, the trip, everything… The shadow had ripped the door in half and the room was revealed. But then, instead of ransacking the room, the shadow began to dissolve. As night dissolves into dawn, the shadow changed to nothingness. Starling dropped to the floor, the hallways of her memory palace slowly fading into darkness. She laid her face down, the bloodstained white marble cool on her face.

Clarice Starling sat limply in the chair, her head lolling forward. Pearsall wiped beads of sweat from his forehead and turned to face the officers. It was hard not to read the expressions of murder in their faces. “We have the information we need to put her away. Do you have all of this on videotape?”

“Yes.”

“Get rid of it. An edited recording will do well enough.” Pearsall scooped the recorder back into his jacket.

“This whole thing was uncalled for, Pearsall.”

“It was the only way,” Pearsall snapped.

“Wrong, it was the easy way.” Starling had recovered completely from the drug and had set glittering eyes on Pearsall. “Were you afraid for your career, Agent? You think you made the right choice? Are you scared now that all the morals you have fought for are now garbage?”

Pearsall whirled on Starling, pushing aside his surprise at her quick recovery. “You’ve told me what I need to know. Now, with no drug intervention, tell me, why?”

Starling sat up straight in the chair and spat words at Pearsall like poison. “Fidelity, bravery, and integrity are things of the past. The FBI has become no more than a gang of career-climbers, all aching for the chance to steal your victories, reputation, and career. I bring Buffalo Bill to justice, I am demoted. I find more information on Hannibal Lecter than any of you could hope to know, I get suspended. I disappear from service, nobody cares. All for what? A promotion for one of your men, perhaps? I spent all my life chasing a dead-end career while shoving emotions to the side. Hannibal has never deserted me. He has never failed to keep his promises. He is the only person who has ever done so. He set me free. Now you ask me why I happened? You are the answer, Agent, you and this entire suffocating cocoon around you.”

There was silence for a whole minute in the interrogation room as Pearsall stared furiously at Starling, Starling maddeningly calm. The silence was broken by the shrill chirping of a cell phone. It was Pearsall’s. “What?” he snarled into the phone. His face contorted. “Can it wait? I’m busy at the moment…All right, this better be worth my time.” He turned the phone off. “Put her in a holding cell until I get back.” And then he was gone.

*          *            *

Pearsall burst through the doors of the local police station. There was a huge commotion going on in the back of the room. “What is this?” he said as he made his way to the fight. The pounding of fists stopped as Pearsall made his appearance. The policemen in the middle of the mob moved to the sides except two officers holding what seemed to be the source of the trouble. It was a man with heavy tattoos over his arms and a face that would scare his own mother. He had ice-blue eyes and several days’ stubble on his jaw. Pearsall stepped toward him. “Do I know you? Why do you want to talk to me?”

“You’re holding Clarice Starling,” he hissed.

“Whoever you are, she is none of your concern.”

“Don’t you know who I am? Who we are? The Trey-Eight Crips want her head on a platter for what she did to Evelda Drumgo.”

Pearsall rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “This is insane,” he muttered under his breath. “I hope you know that this isn’t exactly the best way to get what you want.”

The Crip spat on the ground. “Damn you cops. I’m the messenger. Piss me off and the entire gang will be after your blood.”

“Oh, so you waited five years to display your strength. I think our forces are more than a match for you.”

“I wouldn’t be sure,” said the Crip with a sneer. “It seemed that the time you took Evelda, we took down two of yours. Cops die as easy as anyone.”

Pearsall’s face twisted. “Take him away,” he snapped. He turned his back.

In a flash, before anyone could move. The Crip had crossed the space between him and Pearsall. Pearsall felt his head slam against the ground. One hand went around his throat and the other dug into the flesh below his right eye. The Crip roaring and tearing away at his face, Pearsall rendered helpless by shock, screaming, shouts and gunshots from the policemen, a terrible pain in Pearsall’s skull, his right eye was gone. Sound of blows falling on the Crip. Crip’s blood dripping on Pearsall’s face. Pearsall was beyond feeling. As the gunshot went off, he sunk into deep blackness, unaware of the blood and particles of brain matter that covered his savaged face.

It took three weeks for the FBI to cover up everything about the extremely embarrassing incident. Perhaps they shouldn’t have wasted their time. A little while afterwards, the attack on Pearsall seemed quite a trivial incident. Pearsall was placed in the hospital under intensive care for a week. During that time, on his order, guards were doubled in the building where Starling was still held captive. But that week passed with no events out of the ordinary. The Crips seemed to have gone into hiding. Although the hospital strongly advised against it, Pearsall checked himself out of the hospital after the week of intensive care and paid a visit to Starling. The three other officers tried not to stare at Pearsall’s heavily bandaged face as he wrote down his words on paper. His mouth was not yet operational.

Your court date is scheduled in three more weeks, he scrawled on the paper. Then a look of pure evil at Starling. You’re going down. A pause. Then more words written on the paper. Leave us. The three officers exchanged looks of apprehension, but they willingly stepped out of the room.

Pearsall moved to where he could look Starling in the face. She did not flinch as she stared into his one remaining eye. However, give me Lecter and I might rethink your fate.

“I’ve told you, I don’t know where he is.”

You know how to contact him.

Starling stared at Pearsall in disbelief. Did he really think that she was going to betray the only person who had never betrayed her? Her spit reached Pearsall, but it landed harmlessly on one of the many wide bandages covering his face. Pearsall did not bother to wipe it away. He exited the room without a word and slammed the door.

Starling was not bothered for a few days afterwards. Pearsall went through several surgeries to reconstruct his face. The surgeon tried not to think about the last similar patient he’d had. Will Graham had come out of the operating room looking like a Picasso painting. And Pearsall’s injuries were far more severe. However, technology had improved a bit since then. Pearsall would never look quite normal again, but he would manage. He emerged from surgery still swathed in bandages and more paranoid than ever. Expectantly, the media had had a field day of theories about the sudden security over Starling. Several bootleg videotapes of the interrogation room had found their way to national television. Pearsall moved Starling to a little hideaway inside a one-room cabin with no cameras in a final attempt to escape them.

Most of the media was convinced that Hannibal Lecter had returned to the area and that the FBI was too irresponsible to find him. Try as they might, none of the investigators could confirm that fact with Starling through any form of persuasion. She kept her mouth shut tight. And so the days and weeks passed until it was finally the day before Starling’s trial. Pearsall went to visit Starling once again on that day. Most of the heavy bandages had been replaced with lighter ones, but his face was still a mess.

A few days after the attack, Pearsall had gotten his hands on the audiotapes of Starling’s first conversations with Lecter and enjoyed taunting her with them. This day was certainly no exception. “What is your worst memory of adulthood, Clarice? Oh, could it be the fact that you’ll never see the sky as a free person again?”

Starling slid into a deep corner of her memory palace and blocked out the voice of Pearsall. It had been this way ever since the attack. She watched the three other officers out of the corner of her eye. They had been getting madder and madder every day. Pearsall shouldn’t be doing this, Starling thought, if he continues, those people are liable to snap. She wondered about the sudden change in Pearsall’s mood. Pearsall had never been a sadist. In fact, if Starling’s shadowy memory of her days as an agent served her correctly, Pearsall always wanted to help. But he was weak, ready to take whatever path suited him best. Starling frowned as he stared into her eyes in an oddly familiar way and grinned evilly. His mind had most likely been damaged. Pearsall was still talking…“If I saw you every day forever, I’d remember this time.”

Wait, that wasn’t in those tapes. Where did Pearsall—

As if in slow motion, Starling saw one officer reach toward his holster and draw his weapon. He had finally snapped. The other two simply stood there stunned but the one officer had his gun trained on Pearsall’s back. “I’m sorry, Clint. But everyone has his breaking point. I have reached mine. I’ll have to ask you to leave.”

Pearsall was still facing Starling. Ever so slowly his hand came to rest on his own holster, the movement hidden by his trench coat. “You ask me? Why, how civil of you. I suppose I must oblige.”

As he turned to go, the gun was in his hand. The officer never saw it coming. He was dead before he hit the floor. In the next two seconds, the other two officers gaped and drew their own weapons. Two more seconds and they lay peacefully on the floor, as if sleeping. Pearsall turned back to Clarice, the smoking handgun held loosely in his right hand, perfectly calm. The officers had been so close, that he had been spattered by some of their blood. He raised his left hand to his face where a drop of blood was tickling his cheek. He scratched at the loose skin.

Then Hannibal Lecter pulled the ragged remains of Clint Pearsall from his face and tossed them to the floor.

Clarice hid the surprise from her face and rose from her chair. “Hello, Hannibal.” His arm went around her waist and his bloodstained head tilted to rest on top of Clarice’s hair. He breathed in her scent. A scent he had been deprived of for several weeks. He had smelled nothing from beneath his mask of flesh. His eyes opened wide, crackling, like sparks in a cave.

“I took more time than I intended. Please forgive me.”

“How did you ever catch him?”

“Mr. Pearsall was exiting the hospital in terrible condition. He was in too much of a hurry. Now I believe he can take his time.”

“I’m sorry, Hannibal. I’m so sorry.”

“What for, my dear?”

“I told them—.”

A movement from the doorway. Agilely as a cat, Hannibal turned toward the door and with one swift movement brought the handgun to Ardelia Mapp’s head level. She stood frozen there, her gun half-drawn, her eyes darting from Clarice to Hannibal and back to Clarice. “Clarice—.”

“Drop it, Ardelia.”

“Clarice, how—.”

“Drop it, and slide it over here.”

Ardelia lowered the gun to the floor and slid it over to Clarice. She picked it up and looked at Ardelia with an expression of sadness and bewilderment. “What are you doing here, Ardelia?”

“I could say the same about him. I came to help you, as a friend.” She looked at the gun barrel pointed at her face and then at the holder. There is a senseless boldness that comes with terror. Ardelia half-smiled, “Still free, Dr. Lecter? I must commend you despite myself.”

Hannibal nodded. “Charmed.” But the gun never left her face. “Clarice, I trust I should let you take care of this?”

“Yes.”

Hannibal lowered the gun and stepped back. Clarice went towards her former roommate. “What can I do with you, Ardelia? You would take our freedom away in a second.”

“Damn right I would.” Ardelia visibly trembled as Clarice came towards her. “After all he screwed with your mind, I know you’ll kill me. I’m sorry, but I was wrong about you. I thought I might actually turn you around.”

“That’s why they let you in, in the first place, huh?” Clarice raised the gun quickly. “I’m sorry, too. How could you even begin to understand what truly happened, Ardelia? Because of him, I’m free.”

Ardelia took a deep breath and held it tight.

*          *            *

Hannibal and Clarice walked out into the bright sunlight. Clarice savored the light wind batting around her face. She had not been outside for so long. Her fourth finger was bare. The ring was now resting safely on Ardelia’s finger. “Those must have been a horrible nine years for you, Hannibal.”

“My mind was free, Clarice. That’s all that mattered. I trust yours was, as well?”

“Yes…unfortunately…they know where we live…because I could not keep my mind contained.”

“Everyone makes mistakes. I do.”

“No, this is different. I became…weak. You wouldn’t have broken.”

“I can’t answer that, Clarice, I wasn’t there.” Hannibal turned her around so that she was facing him. “You still have much to learn, but you are a warrior. Never forget that, you are a warrior, you did splendidly. You stayed strong until the end.” He leaned in close and kissed her passionately. They stayed that way for a few minutes, Hannibal’s arms locked around Clarice’s waist and her hand on the back of his neck.

“Now,” said Hannibal, pulling away, “don’t worry about our little problem. I hear Paris is quite beautiful this time of year. And I have prepared the most excellent meal for you…”

Clarice closed her eyes and let herself drift away. In her memory palace, she fixed a new door into position and mopped up the bloodstained marble. Hannibal was right, everything would work out. After all, it was springtime. It was a time for new life, and new beginnings.

Fin

Copyright 2001, Jstarz927