Author's note: Well, what can I say…Susana Alvarez Lecter and Lisa Starling were just too much fun to let them retire. So here we go. There'll be plenty of killing, oh yeah, but we're also going to try and delve into the minds of our heroines a bit too. But here we go, and it starts on a surprise note…
It was a tony area of town. Expensive townhouses, right near the beach and the Atlantic Ocean, sat casually behind the guardhouse separating the development from the rest of the world. Luxury cars were parked in the garages. It was a bright, sunny day, and the temperature hovered at ninety degrees. Outside, it seemed like a perfect day, the sort of day for the beach, Frisbees, and swimming. In the great square of the common area of the townhouse community, well-off children laughed and shrieked and played. Their parents watched dutifully from behind Ray-Ban sunglasses and Polo shirts.
Inside the van, however, it was simply hot and stuffy. A large block of dry ice puffed steam and vapor that seemed vaguely threatening. It was all that served to keep the temperature at merely uncomfortable down from stifling. The six people inside the van were focused on a particular townhouse.
Lisa Starling, Special Agent of the FBI, sat calmly in the van. She had a headache. The air in the van was hot and dry, enough to drive someone mad rather quickly. They had been in the van for hours. She peered through a periscope that was attached to the van's roof vent. The glare off the freshly laid black asphalt reflected back into the periscope and made her eyes throb. A thin sheen of sweat coated her upper face. The skin around her eyes was hot where the rubber eyepiece of the periscope made contact with her skin. She scowled in displeasure. Using the periscope always made her feel a bit like Captain Nemo. Plus the rubber was hot and made the flesh around her eyes sweat.
Honestly, she thought, I thought I'd put in my time here. Lisa worked at Quantico, in Behavioral Sciences. She was a profiler, not a street agent. She had already done the street-arrest thing. The last time she'd done it she'd been injured. For a moment, she wondered if she ought to be here: if the few years down in the air-conditioned comfort of Quantico had made her weak. Still, there was a reason she was here, and she couldn't help but admit that she was excited to be part of this collar.
And she'd worked for it. They had scanty intel, but Lisa had finally pinpointed their target here. Everything was right – the money, the class, all the best. Now came sweet vindication. Maybe another salary grade, God knew she could use it. When Quincy had called her into his office and sent her down to be on the arrest team, she had been pleased and delighted. Too bad he didn't mention that it meant spending hours in a ninety-degree van with five other people.
She pulled her head away from the periscope and rubbed her eyes tiredly. She grabbed the thin material of her T-shirt and pulled it away from her sweaty body, trying vainly to wave away from of the heat. She had already shed as much clothing as modesty would allow. If she had to stay in here much further, she thought, her standards of modesty were about to take a radical change.
There was a bottle of mineral water balanced between her thighs and she grabbed it. The insufferable heat in the van had rendered it unpleasantly warm, but she drank thirstily from it anyway. It was good on her parched tongue. She swished it around in her mouth to try and wet it down and then swallowed it.
"I think that's her," the agent sitting behind the wheel said. Lisa sat up and manned the periscope again. Sure enough, there was a car approaching the townhouse. A black Jaguar XJ-6, gleaming in the bright sunlight. It pulled up in front of the townhouse. Lisa tensed and reached for the Glock on her belt. Although it had swiftly become a misery of hot metal against her hip, she'd kept it on all this time. She focused the periscope on the car, trying to keep it low enough so it wouldn't be noticed.
The door to the Jaguar opened. A foot in an elegant, high-heeled shoe came out and planted itself firmly on the pavement. The woman whose foot it was unfolded herself from the Jag and closed the door. She wore an elegant but light dress that swirled around her ankles. The Jaguar's door closed silently. She pulled her dark black hair away from the nape of her neck and strode towards the door of the townhouse. With one hand, she fumbled for her keys in the black Coach purse hung over her shoulder. Lisa felt a wire of tension wrap twice around her gut and press in. Unconsciously, she touched the top of her chest. Under her fingers, separated only by the thin cotton of her T-shirt was an old, faded scar. A bullet wound.
"That's her," the agent said. Another agent next to Lisa opened the sliding door to the van. It was showtime.
Six agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation jumped out of the van. They covered the hundred yards between the van and the woman in record time. The woman turned, her eyes widening and her hand diving deeper into the purse.
The agents were upon the woman quickly. In a manner that was both quick and brutal, they forced her to the ground. Four agents grabbed their assigned limb and held her down. A fifth squatted by her back and helped to hold her down. The woman's purse was knocked from her hand and thrown several feet away. Lisa ran up from her position at the end of the line, her left hand clutching her handcuffs. The agent holding the woman's right hand forced it over to where Lisa could get it, and she locked one cuff around it. Then the agent holding the woman's left arm did the same, and Lisa did it again. All very quick, sanitary, and neat.
Their prey cuffed, the agents allowed her to stand up. She held her shoulders back and her head up imperiously, dignified despite her shackles. She said nothing. Lisa strode around to face the woman. She stared wordlessly into her eyes for a few moments. The hair was different, along with the eyes, but that was basic – hair dye and contact lenses. But the face was the same, the face that had haunted Lisa's dreams for the past few years. Lisa flipped open the leather case containing her ID.
"Lisa Starling, FBI," she told the woman. "You have the right to remain silent. If you give up this right, anything you say can be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney, and to have that attorney present during questioning. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed to you at no cost."
The woman stared back at her. Her lips quirked in an ironic smile, as if this was all very amusing,
"Do you understand your rights as I have read them to you?" Lisa asked. Her superiors had made it quite obvious to her: this arrest was to go by the book. Previous attempts had gone horribly wrong, and they did not want any technicalities for their target to wiggle through.
Susana Alvarez Lecter smiled again and shook her head to keep her dyed hair out of her face.
"Why, Cousin Lisa," she said calmly. "How nice to see you. You could have called, you know. And yes, Lisa, I do understand my rahts."
Lisa smiled back coldly. She allowed herself one deviation from procedure.
"I suppose I could have," she allowed, "but I like the personal touch sometimes." Her face hardened and she adopted the mien of the by-the-book FBI agent again. She adjusted her sweaty T-shirt and drew herself up proudly.
"Susana Alvarez," she said coolly, "you are under arrest. The charge is seventeen counts of murder of a federal officer."
