Clarice Starling twitched when she heard the gunshots. They seemed to have come from below her. Too quick after each other to be a revolver, she thought. Automatic. Gotta be. And the Skinner wasn't budging. Or even moving. Still at the same Mexican standoff.
She heard the door open and glanced over quickly. Be Hannibal, be Hannibal. I don't want to have to take out someone else. It would leave her open – for just a few seconds, but still it would leave her open. Her gun remained trained on the doorway between the kitchen and the living room.
She saw the face of her husband and raised her left index finger to her face in a shhh gesture. Dr. Lecter nodded, and glanced over at the kitchen. He pointed. Just on the other side of the wall. Clarice nodded and grinned. Showtime.
She crept slowly forward. Dr. Lecter waited and watched quietly, spotting her as she went. She flattened her back against the wall and prepared herself mentally. Spin, point the gun, then yell for him to drop it. No, wait. That was back at the Academy. She could just shoot him now. Clarice brought up her pistol and took a deep breath.
Count of three, she thought. One…two…thr-
Suddenly, there was a rush of motion as the Skinner, realizing he was trapped, turned tail and ran. He charged past her in the doorway. For just a moment, his big body was perfectly silhouetted in the hallway. Had Clarice's gun been pointing the right way, she could have shot him in the back. Perfect shot, took 'em right down, although on the cheap side. Didn't matter.
Damn! Clarice thought. Still, she knew where he was and could worry about getting him later. Her priority, after all, was her daughter. Dr. Lecter came up to her. Although he had never been trained in police matters, he knew enough to keep it brief.
"Stay here," he suggested. "I believe Susana is down in the basement."
"Why?"
"The file. Small chunks of stone found on the victims. Indicates they were kept somewhere with a stone floor."
Clarice nodded. "OK."
"Once I'm back, call the authorities."
"Do you have a gun?"
He shook his head.
Clarice's mouth kinked. She knew him though. He would go down anyway. He would have gone down to the basement completely unarmed, if it meant Susana was there.
"Cover my back," he said, and turned. The door to the basement stairs yawed open.
…
Susana sat on the basement floor as steps echoed down the basement stairs. She had pressed herself into a dark corner of the basement, where the Skinner might not see her. Her back was against the wall. It offered her some support as well as the ability to keep her head up. She could see shoes now. Black leather oxfords. They looked inexpensive, though – her father would have sniffed at shoes like those. She raised the gun and waited.
The figure was halfway down the stairs. Susana realized that it was not her father and not her mother. It wasn't a cop either. They would have announced their presence. With those choices stricken, her choice was simple, so she made it.
Susana fired two rounds at the figure's knees. Her first shot was a bit low, but still hit in the figure's left calf. Her second shot went right where she wanted it, into the right kneecap. Her mother had taught her that this was a disabling shot. Often, the victim could never walk again.
The figure let out a pained scream and tumbled the rest of the way down the stairs. It was a man, wearing a dark overcoat. He sat up and moaned, examining the wounds in his legs. Susana recognized him with no surprise. It was Dr. Ramon Higuara.
She couldn't speak yet. Her cheeks and tongue were still numb. She squeezed the pistol hard and aimed it directly between Dr. Higuara's eyes.
His head swiveled and he noticed her. Incredibly, he smiled. He raised his hands to show he was unarmed.
"Susana?" he said. "Susana Alvarez?"
Susana could neither acknowledge him with a nod or a word. She kept the gun trained on him. He rolled over so that he was sitting on the floor on her level.
"Susana, did you shoot me?" he asked. His voice was pained, but calm. "You didn't have to do that. I'm not going to hurt you." He peered closer at her and noticed that she did not respond to him.
"What happened to your face?" He smiled another pained smile and put his hands on the floor to try and scootch forward towards her. "Let me see that. I'm a doctor, you know. Let me help you."
His voice was so calm. So rational and open. She wanted to believe him.
But she couldn't. So she answered him the only way she could. A third bullet boomed to strike in the drywall behind him. Susana pointed at him in a gesture that perfectly conveyed her thoughts: That was a warning.
A look of terror crossed Dr. Higuara's face. He recoiled against the wall himself. Then he looked at her in shock.
"Susana….you don't think I did that to you, do you? I didn't. I swear to God, Susana."
The drugs were beginning to slacken in their effect. She could move her face a bit and make expressions. Intelligible speech was still beyond her, though.
Pleadingly, Dr. Higuara continued.
"The police came to see me today, Susana. They wanted to know about prescriptions in my name that were for this address. I came here to check it out, Susana. I found…this." He observed her wide eyes, the gun pointed at him wavering slightly, and tried to look as innocent as he could.
"Susana, I didn't have anything to do with this. I swear to you. I would never hurt you or anyone else. I'm a doctor. We can't. You know that, your father's a doctor."
The gun did not move.
"Please, Susana. Don't shoot me. You wouldn't shoot an innocent man, would you?"
From the look on her face, she did not consider him an innocent man, or was too worked up to care.
"All right." He pressed himself against the wall. "I can help you, Susana. Put down that gun, and let me look at your face. I won't hurt you. I promise."
Susana looked at him. He had a smear of dirt above his eye from when he had fallen. His eyes were wide. Fear radiated from them. The legs of his slacks were darkening with blood. She decided he didn't look like Antonio Bandero anymore.
Then both of them looked up at the stairs at the same time.
Someone else was coming down.
…
The Skinner crouched in his bedroom, trying to figure out what the hell to do next. That catamount with the pistol was now in control of most of his house. All he had left was this one single room. Even his trophies were out in the living room. He shook with rage, thinking how they would end up in some police locker. The poor souls of his departed slaves. They would have no more ability to gaze on Him.
He would get them back. Get them all back. They were His by right. He snarled. But that wouldn't deal with the armed bitch, the one with the huge cannon. Then the Skinner stopped and thought.
He had gotten only a momentary glance at her. But now that he had a moment to think, it occurred to him. The armed woman had to be Starling. If Susana was her daughter, it made sense. The books he had read had told him a great deal about Clarice Starling's killer instinct. She differed from him only in that her killing was sanctioned, he thought. That was why he had wanted to spare Susana – a soul like hers was bred for killing from killers.
But now she would be taken from him. No, he decided. He was the Skinner. More and Greater than a man. He had once been one, but now he was More. No mere human, no matter how experienced, would stop Him. He had a mission from Fate, after all.
The Skinner opened his bedroom door. Rage gave him strength and filled his limbs. Knowledge of His own invulnerability spread through him as he walked down the hall to the living room. He would kill Starling and take his trophies. Then go down and finish the job on Susana. It was too bad, but she would make a wonderful trophy.
As the Skinner stepped into his living room, he did not see Clarice Starling. He glanced back and forth imperiously. His lips split in a grin, exposing his yellowed teeth. She had run before His might, of course. He stepped to his trophy case and opened it, allowing His subjects to see Him in all His glory. He spread His arms wide.
Behind him, Clarice Starling rose from where she had hidden herself behind the couch. She fired twice, into his back. The Skinner dropped his weapon and fell in a heap. The helmet fell off and rolled in a short circle.
Clarice approached him cautiously. Her head tilted in unconscious imitation of her husband. She knew him somewhere. But from where? Hannibal's work…Oh, wait.
"The goddam janitor?" she asked in English.
It was. The damn janitor from the medical school. For a moment, she almost had to laugh All this time BAPD had been looking for a doctor. But the janitor had keys to the whole damned building, had been there for years. Probably knew more than most of the students.
Pablo the janitor glared up at Clarice in utter hatred and defeat.
"Do it," he spat in Spanish. "You don't have the guts."
"You think so?" Clarice answered, and double-tapped another two slugs in his head. She dismissed the dying killer without another thought. She intended to join her husband in his search for her daughter. But then she glanced over at the Skinner's computer and saw the wallpaper.
Slowly, in shock, Clarice Starling took in the picture of her daughter stabbing another girl to death. Her eyes blinked. She turned back to the Skinner, meaning to ask him, but he could give her no answers. Now she knew why Susana had refused to call the police.
Doesn't matter. She's still my baby. We'll worry about this later. Get her out now.
Clarice sat down at the computer and reviewed it quickly. What she was about to do was something she had always wanted to do as an officer. Something she would never have heard the end of had she ever done it. Now, she could.
She typed two words that had not changed since computers first came around.
FORMAT C:
ALL DATA ON NON-REMOVABLE DRIVE C: WILL BE LOST! The computer implored her, as if begging for a last-minute reprieve.
The computer wouldn't understand YOU GOT THAT RIGHT, BABE, so Clarice Starling simply typed Y. Having received its orders, the computer busily set itself to the task of formatting its hard drive. Starling turned to the basement stairs. Once that was done, she would either repartition the drive or just shoot the damn thing. But now it was time to get Susana.
…
"Susana," Dr. Higuara croaked, "someone's coming. You don't want to shoot me in front of someone, do you?"
Susana did not reply. The gun remained centered on him. Between the sights was the bridge of Dr. Higuara's nose. But her eyes were cast up to the stairs.
Dr. Hannibal Lecter walked slowly down the stairs. He stopped once he recognized his colleague and daughter. He didn't need to be told what had happened.
"Alonso, thank God. Do something about your daughter, please." Dr. Higuara begged.
"Ramon," Dr. Lecter said simply, stepping over Dr. Higuara's mangled leg as if it was a distasteful bit of garbage.
"Please, Alonso. I didn't do anything to her. She's mad."
"Please yourself, Ramon. Allow me a moment with my daughter, will you please, hmmm?" Dr. Lecter raised an eyebrow at his coworker. He then turned his back on the wounded man and walked up to his daughter. He squatted down beside her.
"Susana," he said gently. Her eyes flicked to him, but she did not speak. She touched her left hand to her own cheek, then to his face. He spoke English, so that Dr. Higuara could not eavesdrop.
"Susana, do you mean to shoot Dr. Higuara?"
Her eyes touched his again. She did not reply. Dr. Lecter tilted his head and studied her curiously. Emotionally induced trauma shock? He put his finger gently on her neck and felt her pulse. Normal. No, that wasn't it.
"Susana? Are you going to kill Dr. Higuara?"
She turned her head and looked at him. Her face was slack. Curious. He had believed her to be stronger than that. But wait. Something wasn't right. She was responding to him, just not verbally. The pistol, however, never moved off Dr. Higuara's nose.
Finally, she shrugged her shoulders.
"Can you speak, Susana?" His voice was calm and gentle, just as it had been when he was a practicing psychiatrist. Margot Verger would have recognized it.
Her head moved back and forth infinitesimally. No.
"Can you understand me?"
Her head moved up and down, ever so faintly.
Then he remembered. Muscle relaxants injected into the victims. Probably into the face, to paralyze the facial muscles. He believed they had been conscious when skinned. An interesting idea, he thought.
He wanted to ask her why she wanted to kill Dr. Higuara, but she could not answer that question. And anyway, he could figure out why. She believed Dr. Higuara to be the Skinner, or possibly a helper of the Skinner.
"Why did you come here?" Dr. Lecter asked Dr. Higuara calmly.
"The police said there were records of my prescribing injectable muscle relaxants to someone at this address," Dr. Higuara panted. "You saw. When the police came to the school. Alonso, I swear to you I had nothing to do with it. Someone must have stolen my prescription pad. Please. I'm telling you the truth."
Dr. Lecter switched back to English and addressed his daughter.
"Susana, you're bleeding quite badly. I want to get that cut checked out and stitched up. Your mother is calling the authorities. They'll be here soon."
That rocked her. Dr. Lecter could see her shoulders rack and tremble. For just a moment, the gun moved off Dr. Higuara.
"Don't worry about the authorities," Dr. Lecter said. "If you've done something you don't want them to see, it's all right. You were forced to."
He could tell she was still terrified. She stretched out her arms to take up the shock of recoil and began hyperventilating. Dr. Lecter patted his daughter's shoulder and smiled.
"Susana, dear, if you want to kill Dr. Higuara, you may. I will let you. But you don't have much time." He locked eyes with his daughter and nodded once to underscore his statement.
"Now, either shoot him now, or give me the gun," Dr. Lecter said firmly.
"What are you saying?" asked Dr. Higuara desperately. Dr. Lecter smiled at him calmingly but did not reply. The man's own fault for not learning English.
"Susana," he said to get his daughter's attention, "either give me the gun, or do it now."
She brought the gun in closer to her. Dr. Lecter thought she might hand it to him.
"Give me the gun," he repeated softly. In a louder, firmer voice, he continued, "or do it now."
She trembled. Dr. Lecter knew what was going on in her head. It was one thing, perhaps, to kill in self-defense. But to kill a wounded man in front of you begging for his life…that was another thing entirely.
"Do it now, Susana," he said gently. "It's all right. Papa's here."
She looked at him again with a look of lunatic innocence on her face. It reminded Dr. Lecter of when she had been much younger, imploring him to keep the monsters out from under her bed.
Monsters. It had been once said that whoever fought monsters should beware lest he become one himself. Dr. Lecter knew better. After all, the best way to defend against a monster was to be one himself. It had worked for him for years.
"Susana," he said in a tone that was gentle, patient, yet brooked no disobedience at all, "do what you must."
Susana raised the gun, shut her eyes, and swallowed.
The report of the gun was deafening in the concrete space.
Dr. Lecter rose and walked across to the gun closet he had spied coming down. He opened it, looked inside, and came out with a small revolver that had been tucked back in a corner. He walked over to Dr. Higuara's corpse and placed the gun gently down by the dead man's hand. Self-defense, pure and simple. His poor little daughter, who had endured a week of torture and mayhem, had no choice but to fire in defense of her own life.
When he returned to Susana, he reached out his hand for the gun. She let him take it from her with no reaction. Dr. Lecter slid his arms under his daughter and lifted her carefully. He walked her up the stairs, to where Clarice Starling awaited over the corpse of the Skinner. She ran to her bloodied daughter and took a moment to look her over.
Then she looked at her husband.
"What was that gunshot down there?" she asked.
"There was another one," he said gently. "He was armed, too."
In the distance, they could hear approaching sirens.