The true man wants two things – danger and play. Therefore he wants woman, as the most dangerous plaything. – Friedrich Nietzsche
It was a beautiful summer day in Berlin, the sort of bright sunny day which can't help but cheer up anyone. The southwest area of Berlin has always been the playplace of the wealthy, and the lawns were green and bright. The Benjamin Franklin Hospital, part of the Free University of Berlin, sees to the medical needs of southwest Berliners, hovering grandly over the Hindenburgdamm on one side and the Lichterfelde Park on another. It seems surprising, somehow disjoint, that a hospital in Berlin, a city thriving long before Europeans ever set foot in the New World, be named after an American Founding Father, but it is so. Berliners are quite used to it.
Within the quiet walls of the surgical floor was another American. Although Dr. Angela Lind possessed German citizenship, which she had been granted upon proving that her grandfather was originally born in Cologne, the fact that she had been born in America and received her medical training there had ensured she would be called 'die Amerikanerin' for the remainder of her career. She fit well into the surgical staff: her fellow doctors believed her to be a highly competent, driven surgeon. The nurses generally liked Dr. Lind; they found her to be calm in a crisis and polite to those who did not bear the letters MD after their names. As well, Dr. Lind's dainty English consonants amused her co-workers. Her German was quite good, though, as only being immersed in a language daily will swiftly sharpen one's language skills.
The staff had also met Dr. Lind's husband. Dr. Henry Lind was a charming, courtly older man who occasionally dropped by the hospital to meet his wife. His work was not in the medical field. Instead, Henry Lind was the assistant curator of the German Historical Museum, and rumor had it that he would have the top job when its current occupant left it. Doubtlessly, one or two members of the surgical staff had thought occasionally about the May-December marriage of Herr and Frau Doktor Lind, but those thoughts were kept firmly to themselves. There could hardly be any doubt that the marriage was based on genuine love and affection: Frau Dr. Lind seemed crazy about her husband and met him often on the Unter den Linden. Usually it would be for a meal, lunch or dinner. A few staff members who also headed to that area might have told you, after you had plied them with a few beers, that they had seen the Drs Lind in an occasional hidden embrace or kiss, if they did not see anyone around.
If you had pressed the staff further, they might have told you that Dr. Lind occasionally went to the department of nephrology. She would not offer details of these visits voluntarily, and most of the staff had learned not to ask. A few surgeons in the department knew that Dr. Lind, herself, was a kidney transplant recipient. Out of deference to Dr. Lind's clear desire for privacy on the issue, they did not ask any more.
And it was on that fine summer day that Dr. Lind left the hospital and headed for the nearest U-bahn station. Her destination was the University Hospital-Mitte of Humboldt University, in Mitte near her husband's place of work. It would make for a nice surprise, she thought. She was registered for a conference on long-term graft survival for kidney transplant recipients, an area of medicine she maintained a professional interest in. It would be done soon and she would be able to meet her husband for dinner. The chief of surgery at Mitte had dropped occasional hints that he would like her as an attending surgeon, but Dr. Lind was already quite busy and did not know if she could divide her time between two hospitals.
Life was quite happy for Dr. Lind as she proceeded past the almond trees of the Lichterfelde Park. She had a thriving career and the respect of her colleagues. She shared a large house on the Wannsee with her husband. It was much larger than she was used to, and at time she felt that the two of them knocked around in it like a couple of acorns rattling around in a shoebox. And finally and most importantly, she had a loving marriage with her husband. She had worried upon their arrival in Germany several years ago that he would not be happy, even though he spoke German and she did not. But he was content, finding work as an assistant curator of the German Historical Museum. He was not so anxious as he had once been to be chief curator. Henry Lind enjoyed the access to Renaissance artifacts that his job gave him, but he was less excited about the political glad-handing and handshaking that the top spot would demand of him.
So Berlin was a good, happy place for Dr. Angela Lind, and she tried to be good back to her adopted home. Germany's liberal citizenship laws had allowed her the convenience of claiming German citizenship. All that had taken was showing that Angela Lind's maiden name had been Angela Brinkley, and that her grandfather on her mother's side had been born in Cologne in 1925. The fact that he had emigrated to Pennsylvania at age five mattered not a whit to the German government, nor did the fact that he had relinquished his German citizenship in favor of American citizenship at age seventeen. It would have mattered more to them had they known that that Angela Brinkley was dead, had never married, and that the woman using her name possessed not a drop of German blood. But this fact was not known to them, and so a dead American woman was now a liked and respected member of Berlin's medical community.
And Dr. Lind had tried to give back to her adopted home. She worked tirelessly, pulling long shifts and taking care of the sick and wounded of Berlin as she had taken care of the sick and wounded back in Columbus, Ohio, where she had learned her surgeon's trade. Medical students and residents tended to like her. As a teacher she was demanding, but did not gleefully humiliate them as some senior surgeons might.
Money was not a problem. This was no small comfort to a woman who had lived through college and med school on ramen noodles and store-brand soup. Her salary at the hospital was comfortable; her husband did reasonably well himself, and he had enough assets that working for a salary was not a necessity for either of them. Herr Dr. Lind was quite comfortable spending freely; Frau Dr. Lind would have been quite comfortable on much less. But it was a comfort to know that the house on the Grosser Wannsee – a house finer than any Dr. Lind had thought she would ever live in – was theirs, and it was a comfort to know that whatever might come, they were financially comfortable.
The best, of course, was her marriage. The career was great, but she'd had it before, and it wasn't much by itself. All this luxury and all this comfort was nice, but having it with him made it far, far better. It made it all worthwhile. She could tolerate twelve-hour surgical shifts knowing that she would see him afterwards. Whether it was at their own table, set elegantly with a gourmet meal, a five-star restaurant, or the simple little café they liked at Unter den Linden did not matter. It was being with him that she craved, content and at ease in his presence. Referring to each other by names that were not those given to them at birth meant nothing. Dr. Angela Lind was as deeply in love with her husband as she had been before they'd married, back in the U.S., when he had come to her in his time of need.
The U-Bahn ride was not terribly long, the cars reasonably clean and well cared for. He would have preferred that she drive, but it was easier to take the U-bahn. Besides, he had refused to let her have the small, sensible Volkswagen or Renault she had wanted – as close as she could get to her beloved Civic, the only car she had ever owned in her prior life. Instead, he had insisted on getting her a supercharged BMW that felt much too powerful for her. He told her about lateral acceleration and handling and power to justify the decision. He might like his cars to be barely tamed beasts, but she preferred cars that were tamer, not to mention cheaper to fuel. So she took the U-Bahn and left the Beemer in the driveway unless she really needed it.
The conference proved to be interesting, and she took copious notes. A few doctors there she recognized, but not all of them; this conference had attracted doctors from all over Europe. Thankfully, there were only a few Americans, and none that had known her in her former life. Even with different color hair and a bit of work around the eyes and nose, recognition by those who had known her was always a possibility. She knew very well where that might lead. It would start simply: Do I know you? Did you do your residency at OSU? Wasn't there a surgical resident there who disappeared, supposedly with that serial killer? Then, worse: word would get around, and eventually it would make its way back to those who sought her husband. After that, it would be horror. Apocalypse. Everything she'd ever wanted, everything she'd ever wished for, all burned in the ashes. In place of the mansion on the Wannsee they would have separate cells. Even if they didn't keep her, they would take him away, and that would be as great a punishment as fifty years in solitary confinement. Angela Lind could give up her name and her career in Berlin; she'd done it before. It would hurt, but she could give those things up. She could have even given up her career altogether, if that was necessary. But life without him was…inconceivable. Her mind quailed at the thought.
…
Dr. Henry Lind's footsteps echoed on the floor of the museum as he gazed around at the new exhibit. It had been set up today, Turkish Gastarbeiter sweating as they carefully moved boxes and unpacked things. Dr. Lind had been concerned that they would break things, but they had not. He had simply spoken politely with the foreman, a fellow who'd been in Germany for many years. Dr. Lind had felt some sympathy for them as they worked. He had provided, at his own expense, a water cooler and ample water jugs for them.
In a way, it was amusing. The medieval torture exhibit had made its way to the museum just as it had in Florence. He watched the Turks suspend the starvation cage and eyed the skeleton therein for a moment. Ah, old friend, he thought, much has changed for me since last we met. But no one has fed you as of yet, I take it.
Some things had been added to the exhibit. He tilted his head and glanced over at the large, four-handed saw and table. He thought briefly of another time, another place. Many years ago, across the Atlantic. Dr. Lind closed his eyes and screams from years in the past echoed through his mind. The saw had been most awfully messy. But sometimes it was necessary. Under the large saw and wooden table was a placard. Henry Lind read it solemly.
This particular large-toothed, four-handed woodsman's saw dates back only two centuries, though historical accounts of its victims abound. The unfortunate subject was suspended upside-down, and the saw was used to split the body in two, beginning at the crotch. Because the victim was inverted, the brain remained adequately oxygenated and little blood was lost, ensuring that consciousness was maintained until the saw reached the navel and even possibly the breast.
That was as true now as it had ever been. He remembered explaining to Clarice Starling that all recreational flayings took place with the victim inverted, for the same reason. From the cruel streak of those who had ruled Europe in the Dark Ages all the way down to Jame Gumb. The human echo of God's own depredations and matchless cruelty, he thought. He hadn't thought of Clarice Starling in months. The thought of her was not without pain. He was quite happy in his marriage, and quite happy with his life in Berlin, but he could never forget that Clarice had scorned him, spurned his offer, and continued to hunt him. Why was still a question he had to ask himself. Her talents were wasted in the FBI: they did not appreciate her uniqueness. Staying with the FBI was throwing away her life.
Those men who have second wives may care for them and love them very much, as Henry Lind did. Nonetheless, it is hardly uncommon or unreasonable for those same men to mourn the loss of their first marriage or relationship. Even if they are happy in their new marriage, as he was. Even if they knew that it was meant to be. Henry Lind saw no irrationality in loving the woman he was married to but still mourning the loss of Clarice Starling. Even now, if she had needed him, he would have given her the moon and the stars should she have asked him. He closed his eyes and forced the thought down the oubliette of his memory palace. He continued reading to clear his mind.
The saw was frequently assigned as a method of torture and execution to homosexuals of both sexes. In Spain, the saw was rumored to have been used in the armed forces until the end of the eighteenth century. The saw was the chosen method of execution for leaders of disobedient peasants in Lutheran Germany, and in France it provided punishment for witches who became pregnant by Satan.
Dr. Henry Lind had never been a homophobe; such beliefs were often the province of the less educated. He had known homosexuals as patients and as co-workers even then, when his name had been Hannibal Lecter. It made not a drop of difference to him. When he had first been brought to court for his crimes, there were those who had argued that he was either a homophobe or a homosexual or both, because of Benjamin Raspail. In fact, the case was neither. Raspail had been an annoyance, no more.
It did surprise him that the saw was a punishment for pregnant witches. It was an old quirk of law and custom that a pregnant woman was typically immune from the horrible punishments that the human mind thought up for those unfortunates who fell into bad odor with those in power. Although, he allowed, the placard did not specify if the witches in question were actually pregnant when they were sawed in half or if it occurred later, once their allegedly demonic offspring had been born.
"Herr Doktor Lind," sounded behind him. Hannibal Lecter turned and smiled, recognizing the sound of the voice. His wife stood behind him. Angela Lind, nèe Erin Lander. She wore a smart little suit and carried a briefcase. Her hair was blonde, no longer its natural black, but tastefully so. Her lips curved into a smile as he noted her presence with a pleasant nod and a smile of his own. She stepped forward to embrace him tightly. She smiled. He smiled himself, vaguely embarrassed by the show of affection in front of the workmen. Their lips touched.
"Frau Doktor Lind," he rejoined. "What a nice surprise. Weren't you on duty, Angela?" Only in private did the Drs. Lind refer to each other by their actual names. In public or on the phone, they used their cover names.
"Today was the neph conference," she explained. "I left early. And the conference actually finished on time." Her eyes danced. "So I thought I would drop by. Maybe get a bite to eat over at the café, you know, the one you like." Her German was excellent, but still held the dainty consonants of American English. The workmen seemed amused, for virtually all of them spoke accentless German.
"That sounds pleasant," Dr. Lecter agreed. "I do have to remain here for a bit to see that this exhibit gets set up."
She seemed disappointed. "How long?" She cast her eyes around the medieval torture equipment being set up for the admiration of the public. Her eyes caught on the metal saw and she stared curiously at it for a moment. Dr. Lecter supposed that she disapproved of the exhibit.
"Twenty minutes," he said. "Half an hour at most."
The answer pleased her. Her face brightened and she nodded approvingly. "All right, then," she said. "I'll go there and get a table before it fills up."
"I'll meet you there as soon as I can," Dr. Lecter assured her. "Thank you for your patience, dear."
Dr. Lecter watched his young wife leave. Her heels echoed on the floor as she departed. His life here in Berlin was quite happy, he thought. He had money, comfort, a job that pleased him, and a lovely young wife who adored him. Small wonder indeed that he had not killed anyone while here in this city that was three-quarters of a millennia old. He was quite content here, and would be happy to live out his life as a museum curator married to a surgeon.
If there were angels, he thought, they were not cherubs in robes with wings. They were people like his wife. That thought might have seemed surprisingly mawkish to those who studied the depravities Dr. Lecter had committed in his younger years. But Dr. Lecter had arrived at the conclusion without a trace of mawkishness or sentimentality; it was the only way he could possibly explain why his wife would work so tirelessly to save the lives of small, mean people who rarely showed even the slightest bit of gratitude for her efforts. Most of the time, Dr. Lecter thought, the public weal would be better served if his wife were to simply draw her scalpel across their throat while they lay unconscious before her. But she refused to see things this way.
The workmen were grateful to him for the water, and perhaps having seen his wife, they wanted to make it possible for him to meet her. Quickly enough, the ancient implements of torture were moved to where they could be mused over by the public. After twenty minutes, Dr. Lecter decided that the foreman could be trusted to see to it that the exhibit would be set up properly.
He glanced out at an eighteenth-century sailing vessel cruising along the Spree. A fine boat, he decided, probably belonging to a wealthy enthusiast. Its brass tack and new sails indicated that someone cared deeply for it. The walk down Unter den Linden was but a few blocks. Dr. Lecter walked past the Humboldt University campus, wondering if his wife was willing to take the adjunct position that the chief of surgery had been dying to offer her. The café was not far past the Friedrichstrasse.
Dr. Lecter continued walking, just another man in a suit in the busy streets. His eyes scanned those around him and dropped off, finding them harmless. He was perfectly calm and at ease. Then, half a block from his destination, he froze. His nostrils flared. Dr. Lecter was very familiar with the odors of the street. The exhaust fumes of cars, the perfume of female pedestrians, the green smell of the linden trees were all as they should be. But there were other odors, odors of danger that set him to alert immediately. He closed his eyes and drew in the smells through his nose. The metallic smell of gun bluing and gun oil. The atrocious aftershaves that it seemed all policemen favored, bright and offensive in his sensitive nose. The chemical smell of the plastic bodies of new radios pressed into use.
And faintly, almost completely covered by the sounds of city life, were the sounds of his hunters. He could hear metallic, staticky voices speaking into radios. It was too faint to make out the words, but he didn't need to. Like any predator who has survived his rambunctious young adulthood, Dr. Lecter was able to sense danger, his senses and subconscious constantly on the lookout for other predators who sought to hunt in his territory.
He saw his wife, seated at an outside table, waiting for him. Her back was to him. She seemed perfectly at peace, unable to sense the danger she was in. Dr. Lecter did not blame her for that; his senses were far sharper, his experience in being a fugitive far greater. Around her, the jackals were holed up, waiting to spring on the lion and his lioness.
A couple sat at a table nearby. They might as well have worn signs around their necks reading 'Undercover FBI'. They displayed not the slightest bit of interest in each other, but instead were trying to look inconspicuous while they watched his wife. They were stiff and uncomfortable as they sat at their table pretending to chit-chat. Dr. Lecter watched one of them raise his hand to his ear and presumed that he was mumbling something into the microphone in his ear.
Another man stood in the phone booth. He held the receiver and was talking to someone – or so it appeared. But his eyes were not blank, envisioning the person he was speaking to. They were clear, focused, and on Erin. Dr. Lecter knew without being told that the person on the other end of the line was doubtlessly either FBI or Bundeskriminalamt.
A third was a woman holding a blanket-wrapped bundle. Clever, Dr. Lecter thought. She bent over it and cooed to it. There would be no baby therein. Possibly a machine gun, if the BKA would allow such things in Germany. Or quite possibly a cunning disguise for electronics: a camera, perhaps, or a voice recorder wedged into a doll's body. American electronics and technology had always led the world. But the woman was walking along the street, gently rocking the bundle as if trying to get her baby to sleep. Her eyes remained on Erin, though, Erin sitting so calmly in the jackal's nest. Only when it was necessary for her role did she look into the blanket.
And finally, Dr. Lecter picked out one of the waiters. This was a favorite café of the Drs. Lind, and they knew the staff well. The young man in the waiter's apron seemed clumsy, ill at ease. He had not worked in food service. And this establishment was picky about its wait staff, which was why Dr. Lecter liked it. The suspicious bulge under the waiter's apron was a huge giveaway itself.
Pursuing him was something Dr. Lecter could deal with. But his wife – that was beyond the pale. Call her Erin Lander or Angela Lind, she was not a killer, and had never harmed a soul. Dr. Lecter shook with rage even as he began to drift back to the corner of the Friedrichstrasse. From his pocket he produced his phone and dialed.
He hovered around the corner of the Friedrichstrasse, watching carefully as the tiny figure sitting in the middle of the danger zone picked up the ringing device from her briefcase and held it to her ear.
"Lind," she said, answering with her last name in the German fashion. In her voice he heard no realization of the danger she was in.
"Erin," he said, knowing they might be listening and not caring. He spoke English. "There are FBI around you. Get out, now. Back the way you came."
He could hear her pant into the phone, two or three long, uneven breaths. Fortunately, she maintained enough self-control to keep up appearances.
"Really?" she asked. "I didn't know that. Let me check." She got up and began to walk towards him calmly. Behind her, the coupled agents leaned forward, suddenly on alert. The waiter, laden down with coffee cups in the carrying out of his phony duties, seemed chagrined. The woman with the fake baby turned and looked curiously.
"The woman with the baby," he said. "Watch her. Three more behind you, one dressed as a waiter. Act calm, Erin, and they won't suspect anything, they'll just follow you. Walk to me, Erin, come to me."
Her voice was constrained and restricted with terror. "…nnibal?" she asked, her voice shaky. Dr. Lecter did not know if fear or cell-phone static had cut off the first syllable of his name. The bastards. They could go after him if he wanted it, but leave his wife be. She hardly deserved to be terrorized like this. She crossed through the tables and extricated herself from the outdoor patio of the café, heading towards him. Her step was measured, if not calm. Good, good.
Behind her, the woman with the baby rose and fell into step behind her. Any doubt that Dr. Lecter might have had about the origin of the baby was erased. The woman clamped it against her side with her left arm, the baby completely sideways. She began fumbling with something in her right pocket, her eyes locked on the smaller blonde departing the café. No baby would have submitted to that without screaming, and no mother would have done that to her baby. After another few seconds, the couple got up and began to slowly meander after Erin. Their body language suggested nothing more than a couple out for a stroll on this beautiful day, but they never quite took their eyes off their target, and occasionally they spoke into the microphones nestled in their ears.
"You know what to do," he said. "Keep walking towards me, there's a good girl, they won't stop you until they see me. You have it in your pocket, do you not?"
"Yes," his wife husked back, and he could hear the panic in her voice. He knew this would be difficult for her. That was probably what they had thought of. It was probably Clarice's touch, it seemed like her style.
"Get it out and get ready. Remember, Erin…she is not a mother, and that is not a baby. It is a piece of plastic. Do what you have to, when she tries to stop you, and then run. But she won't until they see me. Remember that."
Her voice shook with fear. She was crying. The evil bastards, Dr. Lecter thought. He had shared a fairy-tale existence with her, here in Germany's greatest city, and they had to come in and destroy it all. It made him wonder who the monster truly was.
Behind Erin Lander, the woman shifted the plastic doll on her hip. Her eyes narrowed as she watched her prey walking under the linden trees. She touched one of the dials implanted in the abdomen of the doll. Inside, electronics began trying to track down the ESN of Dr. Lander's cell phone, which would lead them to the other cell phone, which would probably be Lecter.
She quickened her stride, noting the short, quick strides of her prey. She didn't want Lander to break and run. Normally, she would have preferred to simply stay half a block behind the woman, letting her lead them to Dr. Lecter, but she had a sinking feeling that her cover was blown.
"I'm so scared," Erin Lander whispered strengthlessly into her phone.
"Don't be. Deep, calm breath, Erin. You must be prepared."
Erin Lander dipped her hand into the jacket pocket of her suit. Her fingers closed around a small round cylinder therein. She remembered when he had gotten it for her, how she had objected to carrying it. Thank God he had stuck to his guns. She had been insistent on not carrying a knife or a gun – killing was wrong, in her view, she saw the results of violence every day and despised it. But Dr. Lecter had been equally insistent on this. Thank God. Fear made her gut churn, her knees weak.
"She's got something in her coat pocket," the woman behind her said suddenly into her baby's face. Her tone was not at all the tone of a loving mother; instead, it was the clipped, deliberate voice of the pack hunter. "Let her go with it or take her down?"
"Take her down," a metallic voice said from an earphone in the woman's ear.
The woman walked up three deliberate steps to where Erin Lander held her cell phone to her ear with her right hand and clenched a metal cylinder in her coat pocket with her left.
"Entschuldigung," the woman said. "Dr. Lander, I presume?"
Erin's left hand came out of her pocket. Her thumb flicked the plastic cap off the bottom of the can. She faced the woman, her eyes wide with panic, and felt her stomach lurch. But she knew what she had to do, and she knew what he had told her to do, and so she did it. The spray of police-strength mace blinded the disguised agent, who screamed and dropped her expensive electronic baby. It made a hollow plonk and rattled as its electronics broke on the sidewalk.
Erin Lander ran pell-mell along the Unter den Linden for perhaps sixty yards, until she saw him. She skidded around the corner, her hands out and grasping for him. He would keep her safe. He knew what to do. She saw him beginning to quicken his stride so that she did not simply hurtle past him, and then his hand was firm on her arm. Thank God.
Behind them, the couple had given up trying to conceal themselves once Erin Lander had maced the first agent. One stopped to see to their fallen comrade. After satisfying themselves that some soap, water, and time would solve whatever Erin had done to her, they pursued. Across the street, four people disgorged from a van and ran after the couple fleeing up the Friedrichstrasse.
Hannibal Lecter fled up the street, his legs pumping surprisingly quickly for a man of sixty-four. He maintained control of his wife with a simple hand on her arm, directing her where he wanted her to go. He didn't need to ask to be told that her brain was offline, the simple terror of a pursued prey animal crowding out everything else. But she was able to run, and he would do the thinking for both of them.
There. A fenced in yard. Dr. Lecter knew that if they could make it over, it would slow down their pursuers. Perhaps long enough to make it to a taxi stand. A car would come in quite handy about now. He would kill the driver and take the car. Or he could double back and they could vanish into the U-bahn station on the Friedrichstrasse. But he had to put some distance between them and his pursuers.
Handily, the gate was open, and Dr. Lecter ran through it, closing the gate after Erin was through. He ran across the fenced-in yard to the far side, his mind whirling from the here and now to his memory palace. What was the cross street? Dorothenstrasse, that was it. The offices of the Federal Press Agency were here. Perhaps they could disappear in there.
Dr. Lecter scaled the wrought iron fence. Conveniently, there was a cross bar mounted on the iron bars perhaps three feet high. It made for a reasonably convenient handhold. He could hear their shouts behind him moving closer, and he glanced back. They had made it into the yard. Now he had to get over, leaving them to scale the wall. The ornate points pressed into his hands, and he grimaced. Erin was making her way up the fence, getting her feet on the crossbar. Over, over, Erin, hurry, he thought. Then he was over himself, the shock of contact with the sidewalk racing up his legs and making his lips curl.
Erin shinnied up, struggling to get her leg over the fence. She was almost over, just a second more. He waited a moment for her, and then his eyes widened with horror. Time itself slowed down for him, the more to torture him. He was forced to relive this again, every horrid detail embellished in both their memories.
A taller agent, in hot pursuit, leaped up to the crossbar and grabbed Erin as she tried to make it over the fence. She felt a hand grip her nyloned calf and let out a shrill shriek of pure animal terror that chilled everyone who heard it. And then there were more hands, grabbing her, pulling her down. On the wrong side of the fence. One low-heeled pump fell off, landing with a rattle on the bricks. And then there were hands on her, grabbing her wrists and arms. Relentlessly, they grabbed her arms and began the work of forcing them behind her.
Erin grabbed his hand through the bars, and he grabbed hers back. His fingers tightened powerfully on her lower arm. On her face was perfect shock, horror, and misery. Then there was an awful yank from the agents who sought to control her. He felt every inch as it was jerked back; the silk of her jacket sleeve. Her bare wrist: he could feel its heat and caught a single pulsebeat as it passed. He grabbed her hand, and she his, but the robotic automatons holding her were relentless. There were far too many of them for him to free her, and more coming.
Then her palm was skidding along his fingers, and the fingernail of his middle finger caught against the engagement and wedding rings she wore. There was an audible click as they relentlessly dragged her hand back between the bars and his nail popped free.
During both her residency in Columbus and her practice in Berlin, Erin Lander had occasionally been forced to perform operations that she did not care for. Amputations were the most difficult. She had always striven to try and take extra care of these patients, for she was dedicated enough of a healer to understand that there is a great deal of emotional shock when one must have a limb amputated. Where part of you once was, living, blood pulsing through live tissue, there is just blank space.
Seeing her husband on the other side of the bars, knowing exactly what lay ahead of her, she knew that she felt the same way. While she might be whole of body, her name, her life here in Berlin, and above all, her husband had just been torn from her. Instead of someone with any understanding, she was now controlled by these heartless automatons who were jabbering calmly at her and expected her to understand. Understand she did: she understood that she was lost, irretrievably lost, that her life as Angela Lind was over, and what lay ahead was probably full of pain and misery. But where there had been as happy a life as she could have ever hoped for…now, there was just blank space.
On the other side of the bars, Hannibal Lecter stood for a heartbeat or two. His face worked For the third time in his life, this was happening to him again. They were taking her from him. Taking from him what was rightfully his. Time and space seemed to spin and cartwheel in the scant bits of a second. It was Lithuania in 1944, and the deserters were pulling Mischa out of his grip, slamming his arm and throwing him back into the barn. It was Chesapeake in 1998, and Clarice Starling was pulling herself out of his grip, her pretty face twisting: "Not in a thousand years."
It was Berlin in 2002, and they were ripping his wife from him. They seemed inhuman, semi-human, somehow. Clever automata, just as the electronic baby lying on the sidewalk of Unter den Linden. And there was something vaguely insectoid in how they seized her, arms slithering around her body to seek control. Dr. Lecter felt a pitch of nausea at the sight of it. Their faces were blank; they had no idea what they were doing to her.
Now there was a handcuff on her left wrist, and his blood boiled at the sight of it. The cuff was a Clejuso, more oval and seemingly more artistic than the Peerless and Smith and Wesson handcuffs that the American authorities had clapped on him when his hobbies came to light. And it was handcuffs that he had been able to get out of, his first steps towards freedom in Memphis so many years ago. But on his wife, who spent her days saving the lives and health of others, it was an obscenity, every bit as grotesque and horrible as Mischa's milk teeth in the stool pit had been.
The look on her face reminded him of the other children in the barn. At some point, the human mind can only take so much before shutting down, and that point had to be near. His heart beat once. Her mouth opened.
Erin Lander looked into her husband's face. Faintly, in the part of her mind that was still aware of what was happening, she knew he must be thinking of times past. Mischa, his sister, probably, also torn from him by monstrous men. Or Starling, perhaps. Clarice Starling, who had wrenched herself from him and stood with those men of her own accord. His face was sculpted in lines of rage and fury. For a moment she thought he meant to vault – or perhaps tear apart – the fence and fight the agents holding her. But there were too many; she knew that even as they held her and forced her arms behind her back. All he would accomplish would be to be caught himself. If she had to be captured, that was simple fact at this point. But better that he remain free, so that her own capture might mean something.
"Run!" she shrieked, in English. "Run, Hannibal! For the love of God, run! You can't save me! Run!"
She was right, of course. Hannibal Lecter could not kill seven FBI agents himself. He could not save her, but he would not forsake her. Not now.
Anger coursed through his veins as he turned to flee. Watching them shackle her and take her away like a common criminal was more than he could bear. So he turned and he ran, his fury and his pain fueling his legs, pounding and pounding as he ran. Angry lines shaped his face. It would not end here.