A lucky break has happened Clarice's way. It's about time, too. The Argentine border patrol remembered a priest and a nun crossing the border shortly after Dr. Lecter and Susana escaped. The border patrol had remembered that both of them had strange maroon eyes. Clever, she has to give him that. Not clever enough.
She'd suspected Buenos Aires, but she had her doubts. It is a big city and he knows it well. On the other hand, there are already FBI agents there, and the Asunciòn task force is packing up shop and heading to Argentina. That leaves two possibilities: Mar del Plata, where they had a beach house, and Bariloche. She's willing to bet it's Bariloche.
Memories flood Clarice's brain. Susana as a little girl, wearing a bulky but cute ski outfit. She'd thought buying a child her own skis was ridiculous; she'd outgrow them quickly. He had thought it was amusing and cute. Dr. Lecter calmly standing in front of the picture window of the home they'd owned on Lago Moreno, taking in the view with a glass of wine and a pleased mien. A hike along the mountain trails: Dr. Lecter surprisingly natty in well-made hiking boots and L.L. Bean pants; Susana a bundle of energy scrambling along the trail, her own voice rising to her ears: Susana Alvarez, you stay back here with us.
The memories are disturbing because of their very normality. Had she once been part of a happy family with Dr. Lecter? Of course not. The entire bedrock of that life had been corrupted by her brainwashing. The same brainwashing that she fears Susana is undergoing. It might've looked happy on the outside, but underneath lay something unspeakable.
Yet, as the car she is in drives towards Bariloche, she finds herself wondering. What will Dr. Lecter say when the cuffs are finally locked on him again after all these years? Will he be cold and mocking, as he was half a life ago? Or will there be something like those years in which he played a loving husband and father?
She dismisses the thoughts to consider her daughter. Her daughter needs her. Her daughter cannot end up under Dr. Lecter's spell. It won't end that way. It can't end that way. Clarice hasn't fought since her awakening to raise the girl and see to it she has everything she needs for that to be the final result.
On the other hand, she knows a few things now. Susana has been affected by her captor enough to refuse to return voluntarily. Knowing that makes it easier;she can plan for it and pad the emotional blow. For the time being, Susana will need to be treated like a cult victim. It's not her fault. She'll need to be closely watched and deprogrammed. It's possible that she'll need further attention. Someone in Behavioral Sciences has suggested a good psychiatric hospital in Maryland that's very good with troubled teens. As usual, someone knows someone there, and they have informally agreed to admit Susana once she is successfully rescued and repatriated.
It won't be easy. But she knows it's coming, and that helps. All the same, it's the 'successfully rescued and repatriated' part that she has to work on now. If her luck holds out a little bit longer....
Lago Moreno is where Clarice has supposed they would go. He's been there before. He likes the expansive nature there: the water, the mountains. The view. After all those years incarcerated on the other side of the world, Lago Moreno was the view Dr. Lecter coveted.
Agents have already begun to seek out their prey in the mountains. Will they get lucky? She sure as shit hopes so. Above everything is the hope of reunification with her daughter. That is what all this is about. That is what this has always been about. Even the capture of Dr. Lecter, the crown jewel of criminal fugitives, is secondary to that. Clarice Starling wants her own lamb safe and sound.
As the car jolts on the rutted country road, her mind is already churning. Where would he go? Have they gotten a list of recent arrivals to the areas? Rentals, that's the ticket. Dr. Lecter prefers to rent his hideaways. It's easier on a short-term basis to rent, that's for sure.
The radio chatters in its queerly metallic tone. "Base, this is team two. We have a possible sighting of RACECAR."
RACECAR. The operation's code name for Susana; a bit of wry humor after she blew past the team like a race car driver. Clarice didn't think it was funny then. She doesn't think it's funny now, either, but she dismisses it. She leans forward, her eyes widening. Her nostrils flare, even though there is nothing to smell in this car other than sweat and old vinyl. Her heart begins to race.
"Any sign of FISHER?" That's Dr. Lecter; in a nod to his cleverness. His code name is in honor of Bobby Fischer, the chess grandmaster. Clarice thinks for a moment about Dr. Lecter and chess; he had taught her to play. Was he a grandmaster? She didn't know, but he was pretty damn good.
"Negative."
Clarice leans forwards. "Where the hell is that coming from?" she asks the driver. "What's their twenty?" The mike is too damn for for her to reach from the back.
The guy riding shotgun asks for her; it isn't far away. Clarice doesn't need to ask; the driver turns the wheel and the atmosphere in the car shifts. Clarice bites at her lip. She doesn't want to be a nag, but all the same, she does. Is it her? Are they stopping her? Where is she? Is she safe? Stop her and get me over there quick..
The mike chatters again, but in Spanish. That's OK; she can understand Spanish just fine. It's a local policeman, offering to make the stop. The car in question is a Peugeot that's seen better days, and Clarice frowns at that. That's not his speed. Susana doesn't care, though; her car at home is a twenty-year-old Civic.
There is a sense of purpose here in the car that wasn't here before the announcement. Is some street cop going to bring down Dr. Lecter on a stroke of dumb luck? Such things happen: after years of searching, it was a 21-year-old rookie cop who brought in Eric Rudolph.
According to the radio, the stop is taking place up in the mountains, on a small mountain road. It isn't too far away, though. The tension presses in on Clarice, tickling her stomach. She can taste an electric tickle in the back of her throat.
According to the cop's report, Susana—the suspect—no, wait, the possible-- pulls over without argument, which isn't like Susana. Then again, she may realize that while she could outrun the cops in a Jaguar, she ain't gonna do it in a rustbucket Peugeot.
Seconds pass like ponderous centuries. Clarice can see it in her mind's eye. The cop walking up to the car. Carnet y registraciòn, por favor. The cop studying the young woman behind the wheel for a moment or two, trying to compare her to the picture in his patrol car without making her unduly suspicious. Although if it is her daughter, she already will be. Other cars will be unobtrusively slithering to the scene just in case Susana decides to cut and run.
Clarice tenses. She can feel the urge and desire in her stomach. Let it be her. Please. Let it be her. I need this.
The radio crackles to life. "Name is Linda Minetti," it says. "The ID checks out, but I think it's her. She has maroon eyes. Shall I detain her?"
"Hell yes," Clarice mutters, straining forward. The tension in the car kicks up a notch, and the engine roars into a lower gear as the driver stomps the pedal. All the same, it is far too slow for her liking. The scenery is bucolic, and Clarice finds herself staring around at it, fidgeting nervously.
Is this it? Where is Dr. Lecter? He can't be far. But all the same, Susana will be safe. In her arms again, as it should be. Her need will at long last be fulfilled.
It seems somehow prosaic and small. After all this – after Clarice has crossed half the world – it comes to an end on a quiet mountain road. When you come down to it, it's not unlike the mountain region in which Clarice grew up. The mountains are her home. Montani semper liberi.
The car takes a curve, and there it is. A police car, and beyond it a battered Peugeot. Other police cars are parked around it, here to watch the successful recovery of Clarice's only daughter. A knot of uniforms and suits are gathered in a small clearing perhaps twenty feet away from the cars. Clarice's stomach lurches as the car pulls to a stop. The emergency brake rasps and the door opens.
Her knees tremble as she steps from the car. What happens now? Will Susana be glad to see her? Brainwashed into resentment? Silent? Her stomach is electric with tension as she approaches. The knot of men moves aside as she comes closer, parting like the Red Sea to allow the reunion.
And there it is, after all this time and distance: Susana is sitting on the ground, staring at nothing, her hands cuffed behind her back. Clarice stops for a moment and stares: they put handcuffs on her daughter as if she was a common criminal? Then she pushes forward, running to her daughter's side, and crouches on the grass.
Susana's eyes skate across hers for a moment and then go back down to the ground. She tenses as Clarice comes near, perhaps expecting to be struck or yelled at. Clarice simply holds her daughter close. The rare joy of having her daughter in her arms again courses through her. Whatever comes next is unimportant. Little details. Susana is safe again, and that is all that matters. Tears come to Clarice's closed lids, and for a few moments she simply enjoys her daughter's presence.
Then she reaches for her handcuff key. Susana doesn't need to be manacled, for Christ's sake. The handcuffs drop off into the grass like an unpleasant detail. Then she moves back and holds her daughter's arms.
Susana looks confused and lost, like a thousand other arrestees over the years. She doesn't seem to grasp exactly what has happened, as if she has had a monstrous shock. That's how it usually is: an arrestee is usually trying to figure out what the hell lies ahead of them. But Susana isn't an arrestee. She won't go to jail. Clarice will help her.
"Baby," Clarice says. "Honey, what the hell were you doing? Are you all right?"
"I guess," Susana says, her tone faint and lost.
"It'll all be okay," Clarice says soothingly. "I know, you're confused, but I've missed you so much, and now we'll go home, and we'll get you through this, and I'll help you, Susana, I'll be there with you, you don't have to do this alone--,"
Lloyd Bowman's hand is unobtrusive on her shoulder and his voice circumspect in her ear, as if she hasn't been rambling like a hysterical soccer mom. "Clarice? What can she tell us about FISHER?"
Susana stares at the Asian man as if he is an alien. She says nothing. Clarice blinks for a moment, tries to gain control of herself, and swallows. It's very likely that Susana will lie to protect him.
"Susana," Clarice whispers. "Where...where is your father? Where's Dr. Lecter?"
Susana lets out a shuddering breath and looks down at the ground again.
Clarice leans forward, her blue eyes probing her daughter's face, her hand on her daughter's shoulder. "Now Susana, we know he had a heart attack. I promise you... I swear to you...he'll get medical care. We can take care of him, too, you know. Now just tell me where he is. We'll put the cuffs on him and take him right to a hospital. He won't have any legal troubles until he's on his feet. We're civilized people, you know that."
Susana Alvarez lets out another shuddering sob and brings up her hands, cramming the heels of her hands into her eyes. She doesn't say anything. She doesn't have to. Clarice' brain reconfigures, she looks at her daughter, and she sees, and that is all she needs.
Susana is wearing a blue chambray workshirt, blue jeans, and work boots. All are dirty. On her wrist is a Rolex. A man's Rolex. Clarice can read the words Oyster Perpetual Datejust on its face. In the open collar of her workshirt are two rings suspended on a gold chain around her neck. Seeing the rings sends a chill through Clarice Starling's brain.
One ring bears a stone and the words Johns Hopkins University, 1957. Long before Susana was born; before Clarice was born, for that matter. But the place and the date are as easily identifiable to Clarice Starling, who has studied Hannibal Lecter for years. It was on a warm summer day in 1957 that the nineteen-year-old prodigy Hannibal Lecter graduated from Johns Hopkins University, going on immediately to the medical school there.
The other is a man's wedding band. Simple, gold, and unadorned. It is much like any man's wedding band on the fingers of a million different men. But Clarice recognizes this one.
The world seems to spin for Clarice Starling, even squatting on the ground as she is. Her knees feel a million miles away. Behind her, she can hear voices of policemen: What's in the car? Any weapons? No. There's a sheet, a pair of work gloves...and a shovel.
"Oh God," Clarice Starling says, unsure of what else she can say. "Susana...is he...did he...,"
Susana's eyes touch her own, pained and stunned. Clarice has seen that expression before, too, on the wives turned widows and children turned orphans. Tears well in her eyes, and Clarice finds answering tears welling in her own, although what they are for is not totally clear. Susana's lips move and break.
"He...he had a heart attack in Asunciòn," she begins, and her voice is faint and papery. "And then...then he got us across the border, here. He spent last night looking out at the view...the water and the mountains. He said that in the morning...in the morning we would double back and try to get back to Paraguay and see if we could make it to Bolivia. If we could, then he would check into a hospital there and we could fly out."
Clarice can't answer. Her mind is whirling, and it occurs to her exactly what has happened; she has hunted down her daughter's father to the point where he could run no more. This...no, she never wanted this. She wanted her daughter back. Susana will have to understand that. But now, she realizes, mother and daughter share an unhappier bond.
"That's what he said we would do," Susana continues. "He had Bolivian money and we could have gotten by, as long as we could cross into Paraguay. It would've been easy. But...but his heart must've been damaged...more than he ever told me. We had dinner and then we went to bed. He told me I ought to dream of Bolivia. In the morning, I went in to see him."
She shudders. "I woke up early so we could head back and make Bolivia before the end of the night...but...when I went in there--," her voice hitches and labors and thickens. She stops for a moment, and the police around her take a respectful step back. This is not something they want to deal with. It is probably the least favorite job of any policeman.
Clarice is crying openly herself. It isn't merely sympathy with her daughter, although that is certainly there. It is something else, something deeper: despite all the man's evil, she had lived with him for eleven years, and he had given her a daughter.
Susana finishes the sentence after taking a moment to compose herself.
"But when I went in his bedroom," she begins anew, "he had...," she stops and shakes her head. "He had gone on already...to whatever dreams there are."