Chapter Thirty Six – Victor
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Mendez woke to the sound of size-eleven brogues, slamming into the concrete floor. He screwed his forehead. He hadn't drank since breakfast – his head hurt and his throat was dry. The shoes were coming from the west end of the block. Not dinner then. Mendez coughed, roughly, rubbing his face with sleep-clumsy hands.
"All right,"
It was the fat guard. Mendez knew their voices pretty well by now.
"Number 304, Mendez, Get y'r ass up!"
He rolled over, knowing only too well what would happen to him if he refused. His knees cracked ominously as he stood, stretching out tired muscles and stiff joints. Not quite awake, Mendez felt a little confused. What time was it? He had fallen asleep some time after breakfast, but had woken for lunch. There had been a lot of noise earlier, but he had pushed back into the warmth of sleep and ignored it.
Mendez rubbed his eyes again and tried to gather his bearings. Surely it was before two... But, then, the light coming through the window was low and orange. The sun set early up here, in the North, but not that early. Had he slept right into the afternoon?
He spent most of his days asleep now – fourteen, sixteen hours at a time. Neither prison meals, nor listening to the other inmates enjoying their hours' exercise time, held any interest for him. All he wanted was to be alone with his thoughts, to dream of better days and familiar places; balmy evenings and the cool of sheets against his and his lovers' skin.
"C'mon!"
The door's well-oiled bolt slammed open, its metal bars reverberating with the impact. His minder seemed annoyed and he wasn't the gentlest at the best of times. Mendez stood still and compliant.
"Visitor," the fat guard grunted. "We're taking you down to interview."
"Who?" His throat was so dry from sleep that it came out as a croak.
"Agent Starling. Get moving."
Mendez's chest tightened, dislike bubbling up from where it had been fermenting, within. There was something about Agent Starling that he just did not trust – and it was not, simply, a distrust of the FBI, who had wrongly incarcerated him here. There had always been something about Starling that Mendez had found unnerving. She seemed to be holding something back. Her entire being was always held taut, as if she were waiting to strike. Like a cat, Mendez thought. Like one of the strays that used to hang around his neighbourhood when he was a kid. They skulked in the shadows, waiting to seize opportunities he had not even seen yet. Cats with sharpened claws and hungry eyes; those with kittens were especially dangerous. Mendez had been scratched more than once, for getting too near.
He was still unsure what Starling wanted from him. At first, her involvement in his conviction had been minimal. Mendez knew that she had been partnered with Agent Benedict Vale as a favour – the agents had joked about it in his presence. The first time he had seen Starling, she had been running papers to Vale from headquarters – more of a glorified secretary than an FBI agent. She must have resented that, after her earlier career. (Mendez had taken the time to investigate Starling's previous adventures with the Feds and knew she was far from unqualified).
When she had first interviewed him, she had voiced the possibility that he was innocent. Mendez had overheard the two Agents talking in the side room, as he was led away in shackles. His heart had leapt with hope. But then she had changed her tune. Almost overnight, she became his most fervent opposition. She provided mounds evidence for the prosecution, even taking the stand on several occasions to testify for the profile.
He knew her story, of course. (There was little to do in the supermax wing but talk, and his neighbours' favourite topics were each other's sadistic crimes). He knew that Starling was a rape victim. It had been all over the papers, dragged about in all its sordid detail. He knew she was a victim, in fact, of the strange and silent man who was lodged a few cell doors down. Hannibal "the cannibal" Lecter.
Mendez had little knowledge of Lecter's previous capture and escape. He had been a teenager in Mexico at the time. American current events had interested him little – besides baseball, which he and his cousins had watched avidly on their neighbour's cable TV. Since his incarceration, however, Mendez had learned all about the cannibal. The guards and his fellow prisoners were only too happy to fill the hours with gossip and speculation, as well as the occasional fact. For the past few days – with all his psychological evaluations going on – the main topic of conversation had been the good Doctor.
Despite his innate distrust of Starling, Mendez was still capable of pity for the woman. She had suffered a lot, during her life; most of it because of one man's sick obsession. No one, in Mendez's opinion, should have to go through what Clarice Starling had. Abducted, held hostage, raped, psychologically tortured and released, only to find herself pregnant with the monsters child. (Mendez wondered whether the papers knew yet... he had only found out earlier that evening. The coloured woman – an Agent also – had shouted it at Lecter, during their heated discussion through the bars). Still, he did not relish another meeting with her.
He thought he had seen the last of the FBI. He was convicted and sentenced. What more did they want of him?
Mendez shifted uncomfortably. The door of his cell was ready to open. The fat guard stepped forwards, motioning for him to turn around and place his hands through the bars. A second guard was loitering just behind him. Mendez found it amusing that there were two guards sent to control him. He had to be a foot shorter and half their girth, with had no experience of combat. Turning, he slid his hands through the bars, side by side.
"Hurry up boy."
Mendez took a step backwards and winced as they cuffed him, a little too enthusiastically. He hated when they called him 'boy'.
"Take him down. I'll follow on with MACE."
Completely unnecessary, thought Mendez. He wasn't dumb enough to try escape.
Apart from the dozens of armed security guards in the complex, Mendez knew that all the doors were remote controlled by keycards and codes. Even if, by some miracle, he was able to take on the two guards, the computer system would lock him down, far before he made it to any exit. In a previous life – before incarceration and the USA, before Feds and Senator Woodley – Mendez had worked for a security company as a computer programmer. He designed systems just like these. He designed them to be impenetrable.
There was no way out of the MCAC alive.
The fat guard led him, with the younger man following. As the older guard yanked him unceremoniously through the doorframe, Roe looked slightly apologetic. Out of the two of them, Mendez preferred to be handled by Roe. There was less hatred in him, less ingrained superiority. He supposed those things must come with time. Give him a couple years, thought Mendez.
Starling was waiting for him in the interrogation room, poring over papers. She didn't look up when he was brought in. The guard cuffed his shackles to a steel ring on the opposite side of the table and shackled his feet in place. The familiar weight of metal holding him down, Mendez relinquished control and let his seat be shoved in. It hurt, but he knew better than to complain.
"Evening, ma'am," the younger guard, Roe, greeted her. "Need any company?"
The Agent looked up and gave him a quick smile – Mendez noticed it didn't reach her eyes.
"No thanks, Jason. I'll be jus' fine. If you could possibly close the door on y'r way out? What we've gotta talk about is supposed to confidential and all that." She rolled her eyes. "Legal shit."
Mendez wondered briefly if he should ask to have a lawyer present, then decided against it. Best not to antagonise anyone. A lawyer meant a wait and a wait meant pissed-off guards. Pissed-off guards meant no meals and rough handling. Besides, Mendez was already down for the death penalty sin recurso. No appeal, no quarter, no mercy. He was getting the needle. In three months, or so, he would be injected with a 250mg of sodium thiopental and his life would belong to the Maryland penitentiary system. No amount of lawyers could help him now.
His Gabriella would be ashamed of him to give up so easily, but Mendez was tired. He was done fighting. Against men such as Senator Kade Woodley, he never stood a chance anyway.
The guards left the room while the Agent continued to shuffle papers. She didn't look up at Mendez, even after the door slammed close. Every few seconds, he noticed, she would glance over towards the camera, in the top left corner of the room, then down again.
"So, what do you want for me?"
Not quite the right words. English had always been a second language to Mendez.
Starling did not notice, nor did she reply.
He tried again.
"A signed confession? Perhaps I'll confess to some of your other open cases, senorita... is that good?"
There was no reason to be nice anymore. Starling thought him a rapist and a murderer – the world thought him a rapist and a murderer – why behave any differently? He had no reputation left to protect.
"Please give me two seconds, sir. I'll be with you shortly." Starling glanced up again, at the camera, then down to her papers. Flipping one over, she signed her name on the last line. Clipping them between two plastic sheets (no paper clips, no staples), she laid them down on the table between and checked her watch.
She seemed so cold, so detached. Perhaps, Mendez thought, he had read her wrong at their first interview. Perhaps, he had imagined her petitioning his innocence. Perhaps it was all the last, vain hope of a desperate man. The woman sitting before him now didn't seem to care about finding the truth. She wasn't even bothering to speak to him.
Starling glanced up again, at the camera. Irked by her interest in it, rather than him, Mendez followed her gaze. The small red light on the side blinked... blinked again... then remained off. He turned his head slowly back around.
"So this is 'that' kind of interview, then?"
His tone was bitter. He knew the drill. When the police turned off the cameras and mikes, noses were broken and deals were brokered. As Starling was a woman, he suspected it was the latter. The Agent turned her attention, at last, to him.
"This, Mr Mendez, is an entirely different kind of interview from any you have ever had. And I'd listen carefully, to what I'm 'bout to propose. It might work out to your advantage."
Mendez snorted.
"You want a confession? Why? You don't need it. Your judge has already looked to me and told me I am guilty. They call me a dead man walking, Agent Starling. What more can you possibly want to do to me?"
"I don't want to do anything you, Mendez. What I'm proposing isn't a deal for a conviction. This is off the books."
"So you want me to tell you some things about my crimes, that makes you look good, and me look extra guilty? You're offering me something back – extra meals, bedding, something like that. That's why you turn the camera off, right?" Mendez folded his hands angrily. "Well I am sorry, senorita. I am not going to play your game."
"I turned the camera off," Starling spoke softly, but with authority, "because what I am about to say to you is treason."
Mendez blinked. He almost expected five other agents to jump out from hiding places around the room and shout 'surprise'! But none came.
Starling continued, her voice serious.
"I turned the camera off because I value my life and wish to keep my freedom."
Mendez felt his face shift is confusion. He didn't understand. Did she have evidence, in Gabriella's case, that she wasn't supposed to tell him? Did she know who killed her? And what was so terrible in this truth, that it could condemn her life imprisonment?
"I don't understand." He stammered.
Starling swallowed and, for a moment, her cool exterior faded away. It revealed eyes filled with worry. Whatever she was about to tell him held great importance; not just for him, but for her. She was not here simply for justice. This was personal.
"Listen, I don't have much time to fully explain the situation, but I'll do my best. You're going to have to trust me a little."
Mendez, who didn't quite feel he should 'have' to do anything yet, watched her silently.
Starling glanced over at the clock.
"Okay, in about a minute's time, one of the guards in the viewing booth, with have to relieve the guard up on the block, for break. At that time, I will pass you these final appeal papers across the table. Hidden between the last two pages is a small magnetic strip. I need you to slide it free and hide it in the hem of your sleeve, without them seeing. Do you understand?"
Mendez stared, blankly.
"Do you understand?" Starling repeated, her voice hard.
Confused, Mendez nodded. He could scarcely manage anything else. The whole situation was surreal. What was she passing him? And why? Was it evidence, perhaps?
Starling began to shuffle the papers, pointing at different lines and looking up at him each time.
"Just try an' look like we're talking about these, okay?"
"What are they?"
"Appeal papers. The Judge'll dismiss them without a second glance – he used to golf with Senator Woodley's daddy – but they're a perfect cover for this conversation."
"And what is the conversation? How do you get the cameras to turn off?"
"I asked the guards a favour, so I could do this."
Without warning or preamble, Starling reached across the table and slapped Mendez hard across one cheek. It caught him so much by surprise that he cried out in shock. His muscles had been relaxed, so the impact had sent his jaw far to the side. Mendez ducked his head to his hands, cradling his mouth. It stung. Starling had quite an arm on her, for a petite woman.
"Sorry 'bout that. It was my excuse to be in here, alone, with the cameras and mikes off. I told them I had personal investment in this case and that I'd been dying to do that for weeks... I had to make it look realistic."
"Y' did." Mendez mumbled, through the saliva that was accumulating in his mouth as a response to the injury.
"Sorry." She said again, sounding distinctly non-sorry, in Mendez's opinion. "Had to be done."
Flipping open the paper, she grabbed a pen from inside her pocket and circled two of the lines.
"Keep looking at the paper."
Mendez complied. The blood was rushing to his head and making his jaw throb. The urge to look over at the mirrored glass was almost overpowering, but he forced his eyes to stay on the paper.
"Do you find who really killed Gabriella?" he asked, eyes never leaving the tip of Starling's pen.
"I've got evidence, but at the moment it's circumstantial. Alone, it won't stand up in court or prove your innocence. Ironically," she sighed, "the only way of doing that is to get you out of here."
"But you said the judge won't listen to this appeal paper."
Starling looked exasperated.
"Mr Mendez, I don't have the faintest intention of appealing for your case."
"Then..."
"Here's the deal, Mendez. In three weeks, a situation is going to present itself. Now this situation is gonna happen, with or without you, but it'll go a lot smoother – and work out better for you – if you comply."
"Comply how?"
"I'll explain while you're signing." Starling made a show of removing the cap from the pen, before throwing it down on front of Mendez. Folding her arms, she surreptitiously checked her watch. "The guards are changing in about ten seconds."
Mendez wondered how Starling's charade was playing out, from the other side of the mirrored glass. He hoped it looked convincing, but was sure no one had ever looked this confused over signing appeal papers before.
"Okay," Starling placed her hand on the paper, and slowly pushed it across the table. "Take these from me, and flip the page over. Use it as cover to take the strip."
"Now?"
"Do it."
"What does the strip do?"
"Later." Starling hissed.
Mendez took the papers, and played them through his fingers. He didn't have to feign confusion, at all the lines and footnotes. He was confused. He was confused, shocked, and exhilarated. His heart hadn't beaten this fast in weeks. In fact, his heart hadn't even beaten this fast when he had been sentenced to death. At the chance to bring Gabriella's true killer to justice and acquit himself of the heinous crimes set against his name, something had sparked back to life inside of Mendez.
The magnetic strip – a plastic feeling thing, no bigger than that on a credit card – was obvious between the last two sheets. He slipped it out easily and deftly dropped it down his wrist, into the hollow of his sleeve. It was more difficult than he had imagined. The shackles constricted the sleeve, and it took quite a bit of manoeuvring to get it fully inside.
"Scratch your arm."
"What?"
"To disguise the movement... just do it." Starling hissed.
He did.
"Now point at the page, pretend to ask me something."
Mendez pointed at the line on the paper.
"Agent Starling, senorita?"
"Yes?"
"What sort of situation is going to... present itself?"
"The sort which finds you standing on the outside of these walls, rather than on the inside."
Mendez couldn't help the surprise from showing on his face.
"Is this, what do you call it..? Am I being set up?" Was the FBI trying to see if they could add attempted escape to his list of inditements?
"No," Starling shook her head. "This isn't a set up."
Mendez met her eyes.
"I put the cameras off, remember?" Starling swallowed, visibly. "That's illegal. I'm as culpable as you are, from here on in. ...Possibly more so." She added, quietly.
Her face was worried. A crease had formed across her forehead.
"I don't get this," Mendez sighed, shaking his head. "Why do you help me?"
No FBI agent was this hell-bent on justice. Appeals, help in court, testimony, yes... but not breaking a man out of a federal prison. Agent Starling was risking life in jail – or worse. This was treason.
"Why do you help me?" he asked again.
She looked hard at him, before replying.
"Because I made a promise to someone and I intend to keep it."
He started to ask who, but Starling just shook her head. The agent looked down to the appeal papers that Mendez was still holding.
"Sign."
"Are they real?"
"Yes."
"Do the guards, do they know?"
"Don't look at the glass!" Starling snapped.
Mendez turned his head back to the paper.
"No, they don't know." Starling spoke quietly. "I'm working alone."
Mendez scribbled his name on the lines, trying hard to keep his handwriting legible, despite the adrenaline surging through his system.
"How did you know I was not guilty?"
"It just didn't sit right. Your interview didn't match your profile. I thought your story deserved a second look." Starling glanced up at the clock. "So, I checked your family history and found some things that didn't match up."
"Que?"
"Your English, while good, is stilted. But, your file says you have lived in California since you were eight..."
Mendez smiled wryly, at his hands.
"None of the other agents seem to notice – thought I was just another wetback who never bothered to learn de Inglés."
"My first real clue was your supposed driving license photo. You do look a lot like your cousin, but he has two moles on his left cheek that you don't. It was a close thing, I nearly missed it. I checked with medical records. There was nothing about a mole being removed."
"Ok, so how do you know who I am for real?"
"In cases of identity fraud, we always check family first. Ianto Mendez has only one male relative close enough in age and appearance to use his passport. I did some research and it turned out that this cousin, Victor, grew up in the same small town that Gabriella Woodley grew up in." Starling fixed him with an intense stare. "The FBI can request all sorts of things – including old high school yearbooks. I did some digging, called a few alumni, and learned that one Victor Mendez dated Gabriella Woodley, during high school."
"The plot gets thicker."
"Indeed, it does..."
Starling was watching him raptly, and Mendez felt the urge to explain.
"She left to find work, to California, USA." he said softly. "I had nothing to keep us alive on. No money, no job. We lost each other, over the distance. Many years later, she came back for the funeral of her mother. She was a wife of a rich senator, but still we fell in love, all over again."
"And you followed her to her home, in a different country; risking imprisonment by using your cousin's identity and visa. You gave up your reasonably well-paid job as a computer programmer, for that of a gardener, just to be near her. Now, that's either obsession, or love..." Starling breathed out deeply. "Not that I'm entirely sure those two are mutually exclusive."
"I would never hurt her, Senorita Starling, she was my girl."
A pause.
"Listen," Starling leaned against the table, face intent. "Once you're out of this place and we can talk freely, I will show you everything I've found and how it connects to the death of Gabriella Woodley."
"You know who killed her?" his voice was desperate, but he had to know.
Starling nodded.
"I think so. And, with your help, I think we can find proof."
His heart leapt.
"Then you need to get me out of here. This can't wait – we need to find them!"
Starling watched him for a moment, human enough to feel guilt at what she was about to say.
"I'm afraid you have to do something for me, first."
"…What?" Mendez felt his hopes sink slightly.
"What?" he repeated. "You put me in here, even though you know I am innocent, and then you hold me ransom? This is some sort of game?"
"No!" Starling spat, looking affronted. "I was never going to be able to free you out through the courts. Woodley's lawyers would have ripped us both to shreds." The Agent folded her arms. "But, while I was trying to get information for your defence, I learned a bit about your background in computer programming. I realised I could use your incarceration to our mutual advantage."
Mendez felt his frustration boiling over. Was she on his side or not? What was her agenda?
"What do you mean by this mutual advantage?"
"I give you the tools to get out and you do one small thing for me."
Starling's eyes as hard and cold as ice chips. Mendez looked back and forth, then gave a tentative nod. If he had a chance to get free and bring Gabriella's killer to justice, then he would seize it - whatever he had to do.
"What I've given you is a magnetic strip," Starling explained. "This strip can be placed over the contact points on your cell door so that, even if your door is thrown manually, it still registers as 'closed' on the system's electronic alarm system. Now, in five minutes, when you are returned to your cage, I am going to slip you a keycard which will allow you to open that cell door manually. But... you've got to resist the temptation to use either."
Mendez became aware that he was sitting with his jaw hanging open. He closed it and tried to look less suspicious.
"Not yet, anyway." Starling continued. "To pull this off, we need a precise set of conditions."
"When?"
"In three weeks' time, on December the twenty-third. I've looked over personnel details and manifests and the twenty-third is when there are fewest guards per prisoners. Plus, scramble-time for the SWAT team will be slowed by the Christmas traffic."
Mendez exhaled deeply. The thought of escape was making him dizzy with anticipation.
"But here's our problem..." Starling fixed him in her gaze, pulling him back to reality. "You may have the skills to handle the security system, but you won't be able to get out of here alone. However, I can't be the one to help you. If I'm going to help find the rest of the evidence and exonerate you from the murder of Gabriella Woodley, I can't be implicated in your escape. There can't even be a shadow of a doubt. "
She unfolded her arms and leant on the table.
"I've planned a route for your escape, from the prison blueprints, but I don't have time to tell you them in detail. I'd need thirty minutes to do that. So…" Starling sighed heavily, "we're going to need help."
"Help?"
A double knock on the doorframe prompted Starling to check her watch again.
"Okay, Mendez, that knock is Roe telling me that I have five minutes left. Are you with me so far?"
"You have a strip and a card – with I will break out. But I need help…" Mendez shook his head. He had never been so confused in his life. "I thought you worked alone. Who will help?"
"Mr Mendez," Starling met his gaze earnestly. "I'm gonna have to ask you to trust me. Can you do that?"
Mendez paused, and then forced a nod.
"Okay, Agent Starling."
The silence lasted almost ten seconds. Starling appeared to be holding her breath. Then, at long last, she spoke.
"I need you to listen very carefully, because what you remember from these next few minutes will determine whether you ever wake up a free man again. If you follow the plan I am about to describe to you, there's a good chance that both of you will get out alive."
The sinking feeling in Mendez' stomach grew a little bit stronger.
"What do you mean... both of us?"
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