Clarice is livid.

The cavalry had arrived, all right, far too late to do any good. They had inventoried and investigated. Dr. Lecter's beloved Jaguar now calls a Paraguayan impound yard home. A team of FBI technicians, specially flown down, are going over it now. Soon it will be loaded onto a plane and brought back to the US.

The police had shown up to find her hammering on the door, circling the house and seeking a way inside. It had been futile. Eventually they had knocked down the door and gained entry, but by then it was useless. All they had was an empty house, an identity of Dr. Lecter's that she knew was useless, and a few of Susana's hairs that had been found on the basement floor.

The tunnel was new. But all they could do was catalog and study and add to a database somewhere. They were no closer to recovering her daughter. In fact, everything they had accomplished was now zeroed out. They were back to square one.

Dr. Lecter had vanished, and he had taken Susana with him.

Again.

To let her mind play over the sight of her daughter in Dr. Lecter's Jaguar is painful. The look upon Susana's face had not been happiness. It had been shock and fear. The look a thousand bad guys had given her when the FBI came calling unexpectedly. Her own daughter had regarded her as the enemy.

It is much easier to be livid. It is better to be livid. She can be the consummate professional, furious over how badly this operation went – one of their primary targets slipped out right in front of them! That is much easier than being the mother of an estranged daughter. Was it only a few weeks ago that Susana was at home, and everything was fine? It seems like centuries ago.

Now, she is in a borrowed office at the main police station in Asunciòn, bent over a map of Paraguay. She must figure out where to look next. Dr. Lecter would almost assuredly flee the country. Whenever law enforcement has come close to tracking him down, that is what he has always done. He fled the United States shortly after his escape from Memphis. He fled Florence when Pazzi tracked him down. He fled Buenos Aires when Clarice awoke. He will flee Paraguay now.

It makes her feel better to think that way. The doctor is cunning and sly, but he is not without his own patterns, and he is not so hard to predict as he might like to think.

The airports have been checked, but Clarice doesn't think that was it. He did not know they were coming. In fact, Dr. Lecter was in a bad way himself, according to his staff. He'd been in the hospital for a heart attack. Odd to think that the other was human, after all.

Yet he isn't in the hospital anymore. That isn't a bad thing, either. It puts pressure on him, and anything that puts pressure on him is good for Clarice. She can't let herself think about him being human too much. She can show him much oil and kindness when he is in custody, along with the best medical care that the US Medical Center for Federal Prisoners has to offer. Until then, he is her prey.

If Dr. Lecter left Paraguay, and Clarice thinks he did, he did so over land. If Dr. Lecter left Paraguay over land, then he had three choices: Argentina, Bolivia, or Brazil. The map makes one choice glaringly clear: Asunciòn is hard on the border with Argentina. He could've hopped the border easily.

Or maybe that's too obvious. Maybe he was expecting that. Maybe now, he and Susana are in a car in the rural regions of Paraguay, perhaps making a break for Bolivia. Brazil she can rule out. Susana is a bright kid, but Clarice doesn't think she can learn to speak Brazilian Portuguese like a native in a couple of weeks.

But she can speak Rioplatense Spanish like a native, because she used to be one.

Clarice Starling locks her grief and sadness in a box and lets her anger fuel her. Her finger stabs down on the map. Buenos Aires? Possibly. In such a situation Dr. Lecter would want to go somewhere he knew. But he also has to know that there is an FBI presence in Buenos Aires.

Even so, she will check there. Is there anyplace else he might go in Argentina? She closes her eyes. Where else did he like? She pushes aside the unpleasantry of the memories. Yes. They had a beach house – a freaking beach mansion – in Mar del Plata. That's one other place to check up on him. The third choice she remembers is Bariloche. They'd had a house on Lago Moreno. He had always liked the mountains and the lake.

Her finger stabs down on the sites on the map. Her voice and mind are grim as she speaks, breaking the empty air in the room.

"I can find you," she says, her voice trembling. "I can find you yet, you cemetery mink."

....


The view is breathtaking, Dr. Lecter thinks.

For eight years, he dwelled in a basement cell, hungering for a view. When he regained his freedom, it was a view that he sought – the lavish architecture of Florence; the simple pleasures of the Chesapeake shore. Here in this house on Lago Moreno, the view is equally intoxicating. When Clarice was still with him, he owned a home in this area. After her departure, he had purchased another under an identity she had not known about. The grounds are large and manicured, the way he has always liked them. On one side of the house is the lake; on the other the mountains of the cordillera. The property has a dock, but the doctor has no boat to take advantage of it. But the view...ahh, the view is as good as he could ask for.

Susana had expected to return to Buenos Aires, the bustling capital of Argentina that Dr. Lecter had loved better than any other. He would have enjoyed the opportunity to do so, personally. All the same, age has mellowed the doctor in certain respects. He knows full well that his former home will be crawling with FBI. At fifty or sixty, he might have been self-confident enough to ease back into the capital, relying on his instincts to allow him to hide out right under the noses of his enemies. At eighty, with a daughter who does not have the razor-sharp instincts of a four-decade fugitive, he is not so bold.

Besides, he can hide here. Will Clarice remember this? She may. He has learned the hard way that she can surprise him.

He has taken some measures to hide his whereabouts. The house is rented in an alternate identity of Susana's; one a few years older. The Buick that carried them over the border was abandoned shortly thereafter. Dr. Lecter had another dropsite with clothes and identity papers and plenty of cash in Argentine pesos just over the border, and with that they were able to purchase a battered Peugeot. It is too plebeian to really be to his liking, but it was serviceable enough to get them to Lago Moreno.

He sits out on his rented deck, a glass of wine at his side. It is a bit inferior to his usual tastes, but the wine store they found does not meet his rarified tastes. All the same, the Bariloche area does tend to draw the wealthy who live in Buenos Aires, and the wine is not bad by any stretch of the imagination.

In this moment, he knows peace. He has slipped his pursuers just as he has so many times before. This is the first time he has done so with someone; most of the time he has been alone. It was harder to flee with a companion. Then again, the entire reason he had for setting this into motion was that he did not want to be alone.

Dr. Lecter takes a long sip of the wine, lets it rest on his tongue for a moment, and closes his eyes. The water is quite attractive. Beyond it, the mountains. His eyes trace over the jagged peaks, comparing them to the memories he has and storing them away for future reference. In this moment he has peace and tranquility.

He remembers coming here when Susana was a child of four. She had enjoyed the water then. She had shrieked and laughed and splashed. Normally, he had thought such childish acts somewhat gauche, but even then he had learned that his own daughter occupied a different space in his own mind and so there were different rules for her.

The sliding door behind him rasps open. Susana is back from shopping; she insisted on better clothing than the nun's habit. He had given her some money and told her to have a good time. It had occurred to him that his daughter could, if so she chose, drive back to Paraguay and give herself up to the authorities – to her mother, in other words.

All the same, he had been partially curious himself. He had remolded Clarice so that she would choose to stay with him. He had been unable to remold Susana as easily as he had thought, and he had been loath to move to the harshest methods with his own flesh and blood. Then, of course, the matter of his heart attack had temporarily forced her to abandon the issue.

She has not. Nothing gives the doctor reason to believe she is doing anything but staying with him voluntarily. Does she sense his weakness? Perhaps she can. He certainly can.

Even a week ago, he was able to muster much more physical force than he can now. His remarkable strength – pound for pound strong as an ant's – had never fled him. But it has now. A week ago, he could have grappled a normal man to the floor and stood a better than average chance of prevailing. Not now. His heart has been damaged, and with it his strength. Samson's hair has been cut.

He takes a moment to eye his daughter. She is wearing jeans and a cotton blouse. Her shoes are absurdly chunky. This displeases him: he far preferred women in elegant, feminine clothing, and this extended even to footwear. Yet he does not want to spoil the moment over small things.

And in truth, he cannot force her to comply with his wishes now. He has no drugs. He does not have the strength to force an injection on her even if he did. He cannot hypnotize her. For now, sympathy for him is the only card he has left to play.

"How...how was shopping?" he asks.

Susana smiles at him and shrugs. "Fine, I guess," she says. "I picked up a few outfits. Just enough to make sure I have clothes to wear. I also picked you up some clothes."

Dr. Lecter raises an eyebrow. "How did you know my sizes?" he asks.

"From what was labeled on your priest getup," Susana answers readily. "Plus, I just took my best guess. It'll have to do, unless you have another house up your sleeve."

"I see," Dr. Lecter says. "Well, what sizes did you purchase?" The numbers he receives are his own. He nods a bit, pleased by her wit, and gestures at the vast expanse of his view.

"Do you remember this?" he asks.

Susana nods slowly. "Yes," she says. "You liked it most of all. I remember skiing. You insisted on buying me skis and a ski suit, and Mom thought it was silly because I would outgrow it. And hiking in the summer, I remember that. But summer is backwards here."

Dr. Lecter chuckles and nods; doubtlessly the past years in America have accustomed her to winter in December and summer in June, rather than vice versa. To him, it seems unnatural. He has lived so long in South America that it has become his own view.

"Do you like it here?"

"The view is beautiful," Susana says. "It's just like I remember." She stops then, and her tone changes. "I...I would really like you to go to the hospital," she says.

Dr. Lecter sips the wine again and shakes his head. "I cannot," he says, and his tone is both simple and final.

"We can admit you under another name," Susana suggests. "Medical stuff is confidential, isn't it? I...," she stops. "You look kind of pale. Not yourself. You need drugs, and rest, and doctors--,"

Dr. Lecter holds up a hand to cut her off. For a moment he thinks of Prospero and Miranda, of The Tempest. Miranda had been charmingly naïve. He had thought her more experienced.

"I can rest here, as I can anywhere else," Dr. Lecter says firmly. "Drugs...if we get the opportunity, I can obtain drugs in my own way in a more untraceable manner. I assure you that the FBI will find out about my condition, and I assure you they will be looking for a man seeking cardiac care."

She does not reply to him, but looks concerned. Dr. Lecter eyes her calmly. How much does she know?

He had not checked out of the hospital; his doctors would have advised him strongly against it. He had attempted to put the best face on things, but he is as capable as they are of reading a medical chart. His heart had suffered grave damage, and he does not have much more time at all. In a way it is ironic: during his entire life he scoffed at the medical establishment. Yet now, he needs their intervention.

Argentina is not far enough for the FBI's purposes. They will eventually track him across the border. He needs an airport. What international airports are nearby? Of course they will be watching the airports in Buenos Aires and Asunciòn. Where else can he go?

Is there anywhere else he can go? Or has the fickle hand of fate which saved him so many times finally dealt him a losing hand?

In observing his daughter, he believes that there is more of the tender heart that existed under Clarice Starling's armor than there is of his own cold exterior. No, she cannot know the truth. She will fall apart.

Perhaps there is something more, something he has not thought of. Perhaps he can slip his pursuers as he has so many times before. Nothing comes to him now, but that does not mean a few days here may not give him some idea.

And if not...if this finally is the end...is this such a bad place to die? Dr. Lecter thinks it is not. This was a place he has loved, after all. Some of his happiest memories have been here. Susana as a young girl, Clarice as a happy wife; this has been a good place.

And the view is breathtaking.