The sun is barely lighting up the sky and morning is new. The day's birth is not far off. Susana steps from the shower and towels herself off. Then she takes a moment or two to observe herself in the mirror. There is no promise attached to today; the leaden weight of her father's condition weighs heavy on her. She did not sleep well or long last night.
What happens now? She knows what he wants. The butler has a bag packed. Pajamas, toiletries, things like that. She will bring it to him, and sit with him, and after that she doesn't know what she is going to do. She steps into her bedroom and thinks. What now? The question will not go away.
She takes a moment to decide what to wear. Jeans and a sort of dressy blouse. That's all she can deal with now. Dressing up is not to her favor; she did it as a little girl, but she doesn't like it now.
The butler is waiting in the hall when she exits her bedroom. He nods politely at her approach.
"Madam, will you want breakfast before you go?"
She sighs. The feeling of duty is strong. Your father is lying in a cardiac care unit and you want to slop up breakfast? Yet she knows she should eat. He would want her to eat, too. No amount of self-denial will help him.
"Yes, thank you," she answers calmly.
"What would you like, madam? I will have the cook fix you whatever you wish."
She stops and stares. She feels funny telling him what to do. A girl in jeans cannot boss around a man in tails. It just doesn't work.
"Eggs...bacon...some orange juice," she says vaguely.
"How would madam like her eggs?" the butler asks.
Madam wants to know why you have to talk to me in the third person.
"Scrambled," she says, and makes a helpless gesture. Can't he leave her alone? But he does, simply nodding.
"Of course, madam," he says, and then he is gone.
Her father's servants have always maintained both very high morale and an iron discipline that would put a Prussian field officer to shame. By the time she gets downstairs she can smell the spicy fragrance of sausage cooking. The butler is setting a single place with a white china plate that stares at her like an unseeing eye. He glances in her direction without making eye contact, an odd skill he has mastered. Susana finds it somewhat disquieting.
"Coffee, madam?"
She nods and lets out a sigh. The butler leaves the room, surprising silent in his formal attire, and returns with a carafe of coffee. Silently he pours it and arranges sugar in it for her. She blinks for a moment: does he remember how she likes her coffee? It seems so.
"Madam, there is a bag packed for your father," the butler says smoothly. "Shall I have Ramon prepare the limousine?
Susana eyes him for a moment and thinks. Prepare the limousine? What preparing does he need to do? Turn the key and the engine starts. Done deal.
In thinking about it, she doesn't want to be chauffeured to the hospital. Driving herself might help. She's tired of leaving her fate in the hands of others, even the dutiful servants that work for her father. Being pampered and babied is nice, to an extent, but she is tired of it. Other people decide if her father will live or die. Other people feed her and wash her clothes. She can drive herself to the hospital.
Besides, she is curious to see what the Jag can do.
"No," she says after a moment. "Have him bring the Jaguar around. Leave the keys in it."
The butler nods, any disapproval hidden behind his proper mask. "Of course, madam."
It doesn't take her long to finish the meal. The eggs are good and the bacon crispy, the way she likes it. All the same, she isn't terribly hungry. When she is done, she stands up and heads out to the driveway. The Jaguar is already there. A leather grip is on the front seat, packed and ready. The engine is idling.
Susana gets in the car, settles herself behind the wheel, and pauses. The chauffeur appears from seemingly nowhere to close her door politely. She stares at him, startled, and then flexes her hands on the wheel. The Jaguar's engine steps up a beat as she revs the accelerator once before dropping it into drive.
She shouldn't feel the sense of foreboding that she does. Her father is all right; the hospital would have called if he wasn't. She has pajamas for him and other things he will want, and so everything will be...well, maybe not fine, but OK. Right now OK will have to do.
Martin Page's 'In the House of Stone and Light' is playing on the Jag's stereo, and it is a pleasant enough background. Better to think of that. The lyrics make her think of the house of stone and darkness where her father was once held and she has to force herself to stop thinking about it.
She pulls out and turns down the street. For perhaps a quarter of a mile there are only the same tall houses she is used to. Further down it is different, though. There are people gathered around in vans by one side. Susana turns her head and looks at them curiously. They are standing around with some sort of purpose; they aren't just sitting there. A little knot of four people is going to to knock on the door of Señor Perez's house. She stares at them for a moment more in idle curiosity . Then she realizes what is happening, and she turns pale and slams on the gas.
...
Fina-fucking-ly.
That unpleasant aphorism occurs to Clarice Starling as a caravan of police cars and vans proceeds up the stately Mariscal Lopez Avenue, where the best mansions in Asunciòn stand like fortresses against the slow devolution of time. They have a list. And it's a short one, too.
Five old men have moved onto this street since Dr. Lecter was last seen. The FBI and Paraguayan authorities have divided up their forces into three strike teams. First at one end of the street, then the other. With a bit of luck, Dr. Lecter will be captured and Susana will be saved shortly.
The Paraguayan equivalent to the HRT is decent, Clarice thinks. Each house will be quietly surrounded and all points of egress cut off. Then a plainclothes squad of four agents will knock on the door. She finds it sardonically amusing; odds are they will have a few former South American strongmen in their net. On that, she doesn't care. The South Americans can take care of their own matters. What matters to her is her daughter.
Five old men. Five houses. Three strike teams. The numbers are simple. They will take three houses at once at the far end of the street. A skeleton crew will be keeping an eye on the other two houses with binoculars. If they see signs of flight, they will swoop down and get 'em. Dr. Lecter can run and get caught. Or he can cower in his basement and they'll find him eventually.
There is nothing so pleasing for a hunter as the knowledge that all their plans will soon come to fruition. That satisfaction is one Clarice can already taste. After all the pain and suffering he has caused her, both in his initial claiming of her and the recent theft of Susana, justice will be done.
Clarice pauses and lets those words play through her head again, just for her own satisfaction. Justice will be done.
She watches the first teams set up. They will behave calmly, right up until they get inside. The fact that there will be snipers surrounding each house doesn't need to be publicized. If the man of the house resembles Dr. Lecter, or if a girl resembling Susana is spotted, then everything will get a lot uglier a lot quicker.
The first team knocks on their door. The second team does too. Clarice watches from the van. Anticipation makes her muscles tense. Action is just around the corner. Her daughter is close. She knows it.
The first team disappears inside its mansion. There is an earpiece on the shelf of the van and Clarice sticks it in her ear. Voices in English and Spanish chatter back and forth to each other in terse metallic tones. The owner of the first house does not seem like a likely, unless Dr. Lecter has shrunk several inches since Clarice last knew him. Dammit.
A black Jaguar cruises up the street, and Clarice turns to look at it. The cops may flag it down. On the other hand, they don't want to tip their hand. She tries to concentrate. The Jag is a nice one; as a car buff Clarice has to give it a once-over. XKR coupe. Nice one. Supercharged. Someone likes performance.
The driver is a young woman. Probably some rich man's mistress, Clarice thinks. In profile she looks tired behind the tinted window. She turns and glances at Clarice. It takes one more second for things to click. Clarice stares at her daughter for a moment, cold recognition filling her.
Mother and daughter stare at each other from five feet away, only the window between them. Clarice's jaw drops. For a moment she is frozen with shock.
She cannot see Susana's eye color with the tinted windows, but that is her daughter's face. Perfect shock and surprise are painted on her features almost as assuredly as they are on Clarice's. Her daughter's lips make a round O.
Clarice glances up and over the car to see. The other agents have seen the car, but are they going to stop it? She doesn't know. For a second, two, three, sound will not come to her voice.
"Susana...baby....," Clarice says, the sound barely more than a squeak. Her daughter's eyes remain on hers. Is she going to stop the car? For a moment more Clarice hopes she might, then she thinks to scream to the others to stop the Jag. A snatch of music escapes the cabin of the car, entering her consciousness crazily...I will not rest until I lay down my head...in the house of stone and light....
But before she can grab the radio and transmit, the Jaguar booms forward. It has been built with care to provide excellent performance, and when the XKR takes off it reminds Clarice of not so much as a car as a small jet or perhaps a bullet. It is supercharged, built for performance, and it has been lovingly maintained by Dr. Lecter.
There is one cop meandering into the Jag's path, but self-preservation kicks in when the Jaguar rockets forward. Clarice grabs the radio even as the Jaguar flees like a hunted predator. Jesus Christ, look at that thing go, she thinks. The Jaguar rockets down to the end of the street and turns right.
"Stop that Jaguar!" she bawls into the mike. "That's her! That's Susana! That's our target!"
A glance over at the ignition indicates the van's keys aren't in it. Fuck fuck fuck. All the same, the Jaguar would blow the doors off a crate like this anyway. Clarice opens the door of the van and spills out onto the asphalt.
A smaller police car has already begun to pursue the fleeing black car, but Clarice can tell from the whine of the tinny engine that it's not gonna cut it. The car is one of those compact jobbies they sometimes give patrol cops to ride around in. The Jag can outrun it in second gear, probably.. Goddam police forces with cheap cars. She runs over to a car that has a snowball's chance in hell of getting the job done: one of the cars the Paraguayans must've bought from the US or something. A Caprice with a police interceptor engine, a big old V-8.
The Paraguayan cop behind the wheel is surprised to be expelled, but Clarice expels him with a snapped fuera, necesito el auto. It isn't until his ass is on the street and hers is behind the wheelsand she smiles and adds por favor, gracias.
She isn't thinking right. I have to get her and make her understand. She'll be all right. Jesus, I just saw her. She was right fucking here!
Clarice guns the ignition and slams the car into drive. The tires squeal as she hits the gas. She doesn't know the roads here in Paraguay. She doesn't know the area or where the hell Susana is going. But Susana probably doesn't know the city that well either.
All the same, she has no choice. She guns the engine and the Caprice roars back pleasingly, eating up ground. Clarice tightens her hands on the wheel. The radio chatters at her in Spanish and she ignores it. When it yells at her in American English she ignores that too. Bowman can suck up and deal. Her mission is clear.
She will catch her daughter.
She will catch her daughter because she must.
Clarice races to the end of the street and swerves right.