Author's note: This chapter was a while in coming, but here it is. Chief Quincy alters lines from President George W. Bush's speech of September 21, 2001 to suit his situation. I was conflicted about using this speech, (regardless of your opinion of President Bush, I think the speech itself will take its place in history), but ultimately, I felt that it would certainly be applicable given what happened in Chapter 10.
The Cadillac was heading south on the QEW. It was tastefully appointed. Gray leather seats, real wood dashboard, and electronic gauges informing the driver of whatever he might want to know. Behind the wheel was a white-haired man in an expensive suit. His name was Roger Patterson, and he was quite pleased with how things were going.
Roger Patterson was a lawyer, a man of image. The expensive suit and expensive car might have given you the idea that he was a successful man, a man of privilege. The attractive blonde sitting in the passenger seat would have furthered this idea. In fact, Roger Patterson was simply another personal-injury lawyer in Virginia Beach, practicing out of a down-at-the-heels office suite. His advertisements on late-night TV implored those who had been injured to call him, so that he might hammer for them every dime they were due.
In short, Roger Patterson was a legal prostitute. Money was his god and always had been. So when Susana Alvarez Lecter had contacted him, he did not care a whit what she had done or what she was. She paid him well and he did what she wanted. He didn't know why she had wanted the Castillo chick bailed out of jail, nor why she would want her trucked up to Toronto. He knew it was a violation of Ana's bail agreement and had been the minute he crossed the Virginia state line. The unlovely truth about Roger Patterson was that he did not care. Ana wasn't paying him, Susana was. Well, he thought, not quite. Mrs. E. Rosenberg of New York, New York had hired and paid him. And since he was a lawyer, any dealings with his client were strictly confidential. Made for a nice moneymaking machine.
It was true, he thought as he drove, that he could be accused of aiding and abetting an escapee, but the odds of that happening were minimal. Susana Alvarez Lecter was a fugitive; E. Rosenberg was not. In order to get him for anything at all, they had to prove he knew, and fortunately Susana was a much smarter client than most. Her ID in the name of Bonnie Brown Heady was impeccable, and her appearance was nothing like the mugshot that was taped under the desk of every Customs office in the country.
He stole a glance over at her now. She perched on his passenger seat calmly, not at all bothered by the sight of the immigration booths drawing closer. She was dressed in a short, tight little dress, which made for pleasant eye candy while he drove. A blonde wig was bobby-pinned to her head, and cheek pads wedged into her cheeks altered the lines of her face. Her makeup was deliberately provocative. She crossed her legs high and waggled the high-heeled pump on her foot, glancing over at him as he eyed her. Sunglasses masked her eyes.
Ahead lay the Customs booths for those re-entering the United States. The flags of many nations flapped in the breeze atop the row of tired booths. Trucks and cars parked in line, each waiting their turn to trundle forward and submit to the gaze and few questions of a US Customs officer. Roger pulled over to the right and got in line. It moved quickly.
Brilliant, he thought. It wasn't the first time Roger Patterson had played around the edges of the law. It was the first time he'd ever illegally transported a fugitive into the U.S. He drew upon the depths of his legal education and thought. Aiding and abetting a known fugitive. Knowingly violating Ana's bail conditions. Bringing Ana up into Canada and bringing Susana back. But then he thought about the numbered bank account in the Caymans that would release his money once he had her down in Virginia, and it all seemed all right.
Susana Alvarez Lecter's plan to re-enter the US was simple. If the authorities were using her original mugshot, they'd be looking for a single Hispanic woman. If Cousin Lisa had corrected them on that little issue, they might be able to have corrected pictures out. But in any case they'd be looking for a woman by herself.
When she checked herself in the mirror, she found her outfit and look to be ruefully amusing. Susana had been raised in Argentina, where it was quite common for younger women to dress provocatively. She had never made a habit of it. But now she was. She grinned in the mirror and a blonde hootchie grinned back at her.
But Susana thought it would do. Customs here would take one look at the car, one look at Patterson, and one look at her. They would think trophy wife, probably just married at the Falls rather than armed fugitive. And Susana was armed: the big, pink, gaudy purse by her feet contained the pistol she had borrowed from Lt. McNeely. Once they were actually up to the booths, it was all academic anyway. If anything happened, she figured Patterson would lose his nerve. He was a moneygrubber, not a warrior. She'd simply shoot him, ram her way over the seat, get the doorhandle, dump his body and drive. These agents were not accustomed to defending themselves, even if armed. Her experience told her that she could probably drop two or three of them before anyone got their thumbs out of their butts enough to get a shot at her.
But that wouldn't be necessary, she hoped. She smiled at herself in the mirror, trying to adopt the vacuous look of an airhead. A 22-year-old receptionist who had been hired for her looks and promoted to second wife after the boss dumped his wife and kids for her. It took a bit of work to mold her usual cold, triumphant smile into the proper moronic grin. And this pink lipstick was absolutely too much, she would scrub it off once she'd gotten past Customs.
She rolled around the three-carat diamond ring on her finger. It was heavy, and she wasn't used to the weight of it at all. Thank God it was on her left hand – she'd never be able to shoot straight with that on her gun hand. And it was ostentatious and showy. In poor taste. Internally she ached for being across the damn border, so she'd be able to take it off. The shoes and dress had to go too.
The car in front of them had been cleared to re-enter the US, and Patterson rolled the Cadillac up to the booth. He stopped. Susana tensed. The Customs guard seemed bored. He looked them over and paid no attention to them.
"Nationalities?" he asked, as he did several hundred times a day.
"US," Roger said.
The guard leaned in and looked at Susana. "Ma'am?"
"US," she assured him. Her right hand crept towards the gaudy purse and she got her hand on the gun.
"How long were you in Canada for?" the guard continued.
She'd prepped Patterson on this, and he came through. "Two weeks," he said.
Susana smiled vacuously and looked at the guard over the rims of her sunglasses. Her left hand stole out and touched Patterson's thigh. "We got marr-ied," she cooed. "At the Falls, it was just beautiful."
"Congrats," the guard said disinterestedly. "Did you buy anything while in Canada?"
"Nope," Patterson said, blushing as Susana stroked his leg. This was as she had intended. Then he remembered his line. "Well, a hundred bucks or so in souvenirs."
"Have a nice day," the guard said, waving them in.
Susana let out a sigh as they proceeded back into the US on Route 104.
"See, that wasn't so bad," Patterson said. "Though I think you're nuts to come back here."
That was the good thing about Roger Patterson, Susana thought. He only acted when he had to. Alone, it was all straight dealing. But she couldn't be sure of that. It was entirely possible that Patterson might sell her to the FBI once he had the chance. But she had planned for that.
"I have my reasons," Susana said archly. "Hey, can you stop at a rest stop when one comes up? I have to use the ladies' room."
Patterson grinned. "Sure," he said.
So they drove a short distance to the New York Thruway and picked it up going east, towards Rochester. Susana kicked off her shoes as they drove. She didn't talk a lot until they left Buffalo. There were several miles of highway, and then the rest stop came into view. Patterson pulled off without being asked. Feeling unpleasantly exposed in the short dress, Susana headed into the building with the awful pink purse in hand.
In the ladies' room, she used the bathroom, checked her makeup, and reached into her purse. From it, she extracted a short length of black cord with a plastic ball attached to each end. This had to go neatly. No mess. The Harpy wouldn't work.
When she got back to the car, she clambered into the back seat. She supposed he got an eyeful with this damn short skirt, but it didn't matter. He eyed her in the mirror curiously.
"I want to get out of these pantyhose," she explained.
"How come you didn't do it in there?" he queried.
"Because I want to get on the road," she explained, and kicked off her shoes. "Drive." He got an embarrassed little grin on his face, as if this was something to get excited about. Susana had to roll her eyes. Men. Wear a minidress and stockings and their brains shorted out.
The backseat of the Cadillac was quite roomy, and it was easy enough to get the cord out. Susana slid over behind him and slipped the cord around his throat. She braced one knee against the wide seat and pulled hard. She had good leverage and it paid off.
Roger Patterson went from being vaguely excited to realizing his death in about twenty seconds. He grabbed the tight garrotte and tried to pull it off. That was good, Susana didn't want him laying on the horn. It didn't take long for his struggles to flag. Susana eased off the pressure once she was sure he was dead. She was miffed to discover a run in her pantyhose. Damn. Those were Evan-Piccone.
She wriggled out of them and reached forward for the release on the passenger seat. It wasn't easy to haul Patterson's body into the back, but she got him in. Thankfully, the Caddy had tinted windows and no one was watching.
Once she had him on the floor of the back seat, she slid out of the car and opened the trunk. It was stuffed full of her purchases in Toronto, and she selected a bag from Chanel, her Coach purse, and a plastic bag from a Toronto knife shop. Then back into the back seat, where she changed out of the minidress into a more conservative suit and more comfortable shoes. The Harpy she had bought to replace the one they'd taken from her when she was arrested went on her waistband. Then into the front seat, where she started the car and left the rest stop.
She knew she would have to ditch the car, but that could wait until she hit New York City – probably the best place for a car to disappear on the Eastern Seaboard, and replacing it would be easy. As she drove, she slowly began picking the bobby pins out of her hair. By the time she hit Rochester, the wig had come loose and she tossed it to the passenger seat.
Slowly, she began retracing her route south. Part of her thought this was not a good idea. That was where she had escaped from and where the heat would be hottest. But there was something else. She still had some work to do here, and she wanted to be around. Luke had done very well at accomplishing the first phase of his mission, but the second phase would be much harder. They would be on their guard.
…
The station was busy. Police officer manhandled suspects into the holding cells. People buzzed back and forth with papers. Phones rang. Women cried. Voices raised in a cacophonous din. In short, it was like every other metropolitan police station on the face of the planet. Lisa Starling was sitting at a commandeered desk. She was reviewing some of the reports from the crime scene and faxing them down to Quantico.
The crime was completely bizarre and completely un-Susana. Susana could mutilate her victims, she knew that, but usually didn't. Susana had never targeted young women in her life. Other than their being on the Lecter fan club list (and what kind of psychopath would start a Lecter fan club online, Lisa couldn't help but think), there was no reason at all for Susana to go after them. And if she wanted to go after people who discussed her father online, she'd have to kill them at the rate of four hundred a day if she wanted to finish by the time she was eighty.
So Lisa was still stuck where she had been before: trying to figure out what the hell Susana had been doing and where she might be. The first question she still had no real idea on. It seemed like Susana was copycatting someone else's style, but that didn't seem like something she would do. It was puzzling as all hell. The second, Lisa had a bit more of an idea on. She believed Susana would leave town, but she wasn't sure if Susana would have left town immediately after the killings. That would have been the smart thing to do, but then again, Susana was obviously feeling confident enough that she had called Lisa in the first place.
She was perusing hotel check-in lists, trying to see where Susana might have wriggled in. Some research on the Internet had told her that the only women ever executed by the federal government were Mary Surratt, Ethel Rosenberg, and Bonnie Heady. Susana had checked into the Four Seasons under the name of Mary Surratt. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out who the 'Mrs. Rosenberg' who had gotten Ana out of jail was. Somehow, she did not think her cousin willing to give up the game quite so readily. If there was two, there had to be a third. Susana would not play this game if she wasn't going to finish it.
So she was looking over hotel check-in lists, her eyes going blurry, and then there it was. Le Royal Meridien King Edward. Bonnie Brown Heady had checked in the day of the murders. She grinned as she saw it and circled it. She reached across the desk for the phone.
As her hand came down on the receiver, another hand came down and grasped her wrist. She looked up with a gasp. The hand was attached to a tall man in a RCMP uniform. He looked at her expressionlessly.
"Are you Agent Starling from the FBI?" he asked.
"Yes…why?" Lisa replied.
"You have to come with me," he explained.
"Just a minute," Lisa said. "I might have something here--,"
The Mountie sighed. "I'm afraid not, Agent Starling. Your boss called."
Lisa's brow furrowed. "My boss?"
His eyes looked up as he tried to remember. "Section Chief Don Quincy," he said. "I need you to get your stuff and come with me."
Lisa put down the paper and gave him a blank look. "Is there a problem?"
He nodded. "Well, it's nothing you've done and I'm not allowed to say anything more. But you're officially in protective custody as of now."
Lisa raised an eyebrow at him. "Protective custody? Is this a joke?"
"I wish it was, Agent Starling," he said tensely. "My orders are to get you to the airport and get you on a plane back to the U.S." He beckoned. "So I need you to come with me. Now."
"All right," Lisa said, her mind spinning. Protective custody? Being shipped back to the US now? "Have I done something wrong?"
He shook his head. But he was insistent, so Lisa went along with him. She had just enough time to say goodbye to the sergeant and pass along her tip that Susana might be at the King Edward. Then the Mountie brought her out to his car.
"Can I at least call Quantico and see what this is about?" she asked, more fiercely than she had intended.
The Mountie raised his hands peaceably. "Course you can," he said. "You're not under arrest, Agent Starling. It's protective."
Lisa got out her phone and called Behavioral Sciences. The secretary was quite friendly and helpful, but only confirmed what the Mountie had told her. Plus a little more.
"Well yes, Agent Starling," she said. "Chief Quincy has ordered you back to the US immediately, and the RCMP is supposed to keep you protected until you're on the plane. Federal marshals will be there to meet you and will bring you to Quantico."
Lisa's knees weakened. "What the hell is going on?" she asked. "Am I under arrest or something?"
The secretary's voice lowered. "Agent Starling, I'm not supposed to tell you this…but there were some murders last night."
Lisa's eyes widened as she pressed the phone closer. "In the FBI? Who was it? Am I a suspect or something?"
"Oh no," the secretary said, "you're not a suspect. But Chief Quincy wants all profilers back in Quantico now, and we're going to make arrangements for security."
The drive to the airport and flight seemed to go very quickly. Lisa barely had time to get her stuff from the hotel and check in. The Mountie waited with her until they boarded the plane. Lisa herself sat there, trying to figure out what it could be. Murders? Those were commonplace; after all, Behavioral Sciences' main job was tracking murderers. Had someone targeted a profiler?
Those questions ran through her mind as she waited in the terminal and then on the tarmac, waiting for the plane to take off. She had no answers. She racked her brain, trying to figure out why this might have happened and what was going on.
When her plane landed, she saw two large, burly federal marshals waiting for her at the gate. They were quite polite, and explained to her their job was to see that she returned to Quantico safely. They didn't talk much, explaining that she would be briefed at an emergency meeting at Behavioral Sciences. Lisa was whisked back to the building in which she worked. Then down to the basement where Behavioral Sciences held court.
She entered the meeting room and saw seven other people seated around the table. Six of them she knew: they were the other profilers of Behavioral Sciences. The seventh was an impossibly old man she did not recognize. He looked at her with rheumy, ancient eyes behind thick glasses. She smiled once mechanically at him and glanced around. Was this it? There were people missing.
Chief Quincy entered the room and strode to the front of the room. He took a moment or two to gather himself. He seemed quite rattled: his jaw trembled and his hands shook. He looked like he had aged twenty years in the day she had been away. Slowly, he took a deep breath and began.
"I'm sure most of you have heard already, but I'll say this again for those of us who haven't," he began. "Last night, Behavioral Sciences was targeted in a manner no one has ever done to us before. Four of our fellow agents…," he stopped and took a deep breath. "Four of our fellow agents were brutally murdered last night over a four-hour period. Andrew Witt, David Warner, Laura Thompson, and Chris Suttler. Local police and FBI are investigating." He shook a bit in rage and his eyes turned angry.
"Whether or not this has to do with any current cases," and his eyes touched Lisa's. The same name echoed in both their brains without being said, the thought skipping across the basement air from brain to brain. "is as of yet unknown. But we will not let this stop us. We will find the persons responsible for this act of cowardice and we will see them prosecuted to the full extent of the law."
The bottom fell out of Lisa Starling's stomach, and an icy blankness entered in its place. Four people dead? Four profilers dead? Never, never had such a thing happened before. Not even Hannibal Lecter had ever declared war on Behavioral Sciences.
"While we are searching out the person or persons responsible for this," Quincy continued, "we will not be cowed. We will serve the memory of the profilers we lost by continuing forward. Everyone will work their cases and we will continue to do what we're doing. I have assigned three people to work this case exclusively. If you were not assigned, do not take that as an insult. We have our job to do, and we will do it honorably."
He sighed, and Lisa saw unshed tears gleaming in his eyes.
"Effective immediately, every agent in Behavioral Sciences will be shadowed by bodyguards. At home, or at work. Some will be federal marshals. Some will be agents of our own Hostage Rescue Team. One of the things I have always loved about being a law enforcement officer is this: we stick by our own. Local authorities have pledged their support to ensure that whoever did this cannot strike again."
"Obviously, with four of our profilers out, we will need help. Sitting here next to me," he said, indicating the old man, "is a man many of you have heard of. He is a legend in Behavioral Sciences. He was tracking killers since before some of you were born. I am honored that he has come to help out in our darkest hour. Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to introduce a great profiler and a great man to you all: Will Graham."
A certain amount of gasping went up around the table. Lisa tried to keep from gawking. Will Graham? She had heard of him, of course, but he had been retired almost twenty-five years before she had been born. She hadn't known he was still alive. The old man smiled tersely and nodded. Yes, looking at him, she could see the scars on the craggy, wrinkled face. He studied her back for a moment and his eyes flicked to the next agent seated next to her. Old yes, but not dead.
"I'd like to quote from a speech, if I could, given in another dark time. Our department has been put on notice. We're not immune from attack. But the hour is coming in which we will act, and you will make us proud. We will not tire. We will not falter and we will not fail."
"That's all, people. Starling, I'd like you to meet with Graham when you get a chance. We have a killer to catch. We'll get him."
The meeting broke up. Slowly, people shuffled out of the meeting room as if leaving a funeral. Lisa sat in the chair still, stunned and shocked by the news. Chief Quincy looked down at her sadly.
"Was it Susana?" she asked immediately.
Chief Quincy shrugged. "We don't know yet. That depends partially on what you tell us."
Will Graham looked her over calmly and then extended a gnarled, shaking hand. "Pleased to meet you, Agent Starling," he wheezed in a papery voice. "I understand you're the department's…Lecter expert."
"Pleased to meet you," Lisa said, blushing. "I guess I am, yes." She knew perfectly well what Susana's father had done to Will Graham more than half a century ago. Somewhere under that old suit was the scar from where Dr. Hannibal Lecter had tried to gut Will Graham long before either she or Susana walked the earth.
"I know what you're thinking," Will said. "And I'm ninety. And I can't anymore and my joints ache. But my mind's about as sharp as it ever was. Now let's go down to your office and you tell me about Susana Alvarez. Or as some might call her," he paused. This was clearly hard for him to say, but he did. His breath sucked in sharply in what might have been a sob.
"Tell me about Dr. Lecter."