Author's note: OK, so wait a minute...vivisecting an old man is OK, but Lisa getting the tongue gets universal disgust?
It was done, finally. It hadn't taken as long as Susana had allowed. After all, what she had to work with was pretty good raw material. She'd sewn Lisa up and bandaged the wounds. There still was the stink of ammonia in the air, but all she could do about that was open the window. But overall, Susana was pleased.
The cart that Luke had used as part of his aide disguise had little real medical equipment on it, but there was something Susana planned to use. She slid it out now. It was a large plastic case. It was quite heavy, and the bed under Lisa settled when Susana put it next to her. Lisa was still motionless. The drug still held her in its grip.
She attached a plastic hose to the tube she had inserted in Lisa's throat and twiddled with the dials. A mechanical hiss came from the case. Susana checked the dials. Lisa was getting plenty of air. The pump forced air into her throat and made her chest rise mechanically. Susana noted this with a satisfied look and nodded once absently. She glanced over at Luke, who was buttoning up the uniform of the dead HRT guard. He was amused that the guard's last name stenciled on the BDU jacket was the same as his own.
"Help me get her clothes off," Susana said.
From her mute, helpless position on the bed, Lisa Starling did not care at all for the sound of that. Her face was swathed in bandages. She had no idea what Susana had done to her, but it hadn't hurt. The anesthestics had seen to that. But now her face was mummified, her eyes covered.
Uh oh…no, Susana, don't. You've never done anything like this before. Please.
Susana reached down and pulled off Lisa's shoes and socks. She slipped her own feet into the shoes experimentally. They were a bit loose, but not too bad. Then she unbuttoned Lisa's pants and pulled them neatly off her legs. For his part, Luke began to unbutton Lisa's blouse. The feel of his hands on her body made her heart begin to pound with fear. The machine attached to her ear beeped faster in unison with it.
Helplessly, she felt Luke pull one arm free from its sleeve, then the other. She lay in her underwear atop the bed. She couldn't tell if either of them were watching. She felt unpleasantly like a piece of meat on the butcher's slab, a metaphor which was uncomfortably close to home.
Then a finger touched her leg just above the knee and ran up her thigh. Her flesh pimpled into goosebumps. It was him, she could tell. Susana was down by her feet. Her pulse raced and she could feel her mouth go dry.
Oh God Susana, don't let him do this to me. I don't know what you did to my face, but isn't that enough? Christ Almighty, are you that angry at me for catching you?
If there was a God, He heard her.
"Yes, it's a leg," she heard Susana say in a prim and displeased tone. "We have them too, you know. Now keep an eye on the window while I get changed and get ready."
Had weeping with gratitude been a possibility, Lisa would have done it when she heard Luke's retreating footsteps. She could hear the rustle of cloth. Then the rasp of the bedsheet being pulled up to cover her. Oh thank you God.
A sharp, metallic bang startled her. A gunshot? No, too quiet. But something. Then an indescribably wet, weird sound that made her want to shiver.
Susana was getting ready.
…
Laura Miehns swallowed.
They'd found the van, not far from the nursing home. The local PD had them now, pulled over, wondering what they were stopped for. The HRT had picked her up and was driving her there to make an identification. The local boys had said there were only two people in the car, and Laura had a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. If Susana Alvarez Lecter had already dumped Lisa's body, she would regret it.
There it was, up the street, a cruiser parked behind it with its lights going. Laura got out of the Crown Vic as the agent behind the wheel pulled up behind the local cruiser. She waved.
"Laura Miehns, FBI," she said. "I'm the one who put the APB out on this car."
The local police officer nodded. "Well, they're not armed," he said calmly. That surprised Agent Miehns. Susana Alvarez Lecter would know better than to go unarmed; her freedom depending on it. "Their ID checks out, too." That was hardly a surprise: Susana put the same faith in fake ID's that her father had.
She glanced in the driver's side window. A tall blonde man occupied the minivan's driver's seat. Next to him sat a red-haired woman who gave the agent a nervous look.
"Look, I don't know what we've done," the man said, "but is this going to take much longer? We have to pick up our babysitter."
Laura Miehns studied the man's face for a moment. That could tell her nothing. She looked into the woman's eyes for longer. It didn't look like Susana at all. But it might be a disguise. She was approximately the right height and weight.
"Ma'am," Agent Miehns asked, "would you step out of the car, please?"
The woman looked surprised. "Have I done something wrong? Can someone tell me what is going on here?"
"It's in regard to a kidnapping, ma'am," Laura replied. "Could you please step out of the car?"
The woman complied. Agent Miehns walked around to the other side to size up the woman. Standing, she was able to notice it right off. The woman was at least five foot seven. Her prey was five foot four. She asked the woman for ID and scanned it perfunctorily. Then she turned to the deputy.
"Turns out to have been a false alarm," she said politely to the policeman. "Someone deliberately gave us a false license plate. Send 'em on their way."
As she headed back to her car, the smile ran from her face. She got in the passenger side and looked at her driver. Her cheeks burned as she realized what had just happened.
"Get us back to Will Graham's place, now," she said.
The drive was quick, and made quicker by the red light mounted on the dashboard. Laura Miehns ran up the four flights of stairs after instructing her driver to call for backup and ambulances. Somehow, whenever Susana Alvarez was concerned, ambulances were necessary. In the fourth-floor hall, she drew her weapon and prepared herself.
The door yielded on the first kick. It hadn't even been dead-bolted. For a moment, Laura Miehns was wary. A trap, perhaps? Susana had done that before.
Then she saw Will Graham moaning on the table and Lisa Starling still and silent on the floor. She advanced forward and checked the scene. Satisfied that no one was going to pop out and shoot at her, she examined the situation quickly. It was grisly.
Will Graham's face was a bloody mess. He was breathing, but barely. Blood had begun to pool on his face from the several slashes Susana had carved in it. His stomach was carved open like a pumpkin, reminding Laura Miehns of the animals hit by cars she had tried to save. But he squeezed her hand when she took his, and his pulse was there. Weak and thready, but there.
"Hang on, Mr. Graham," she whispered. "Help's on the way."
Lisa was worse. Above the collar of her blouse simply no longer resembled a face. One eye was popped out of its socket, lying half on the socket and half on her forehead. The other eye simply appeared to no longer exist. Blood was everywhere, along with ragged tissue. It appeared that Lisa Starling's very face had been vivisected and shorn off her skull. But from the bloody hole that had replaced Lisa's mouth, breath issued in a wheezing gasp. She was breathing on her own.
"Aw Jeez!" Laura Miehns said, and squatted by her charge. Guilt and anger played a shadow war across her face. If only she had been a minute faster and not gotten caught by the goddam train. If only she'd demanded the old biddy open the door. If only Susana Alvarez had just gotten out of the goddam country when she could and not done this.
"Lisa," she said urgently. "Lisa, it's Agent Miehns. You're gonna be all right. Can you hear me?"
Lisa's hand squeezed her own in response. Agent Miehns winced a bit, surprised how strong the grip was. Lisa's nails dug into her hand. But even that was good. Strength was good. She continued talking to Lisa, trying to keep her up and going.
"G…Graham," the word came from the ruin of Lisa Starling's face, a bloody bubble forming on her lips.
"He's alive. The ambulances are on route. Both of you are gonna make it. You want me to check on him?"
Lisa squeezed her hand once, then deliberately opened it.
She checked on Graham. He seemed to be still alive, but in bad shape. Laura smiled down at him tightly.
"C'mon, Mr. Graham," she said. "You're gonna make it. You know you are. You're in this for the long haul."
Will didn't look like he would make it: he was beginning to tremble. But his lips curved into a bloody rictus of a smile. "I…I'm not in the long haul for much," he husked.
She checked on Lisa again. Lisa seemed to be unchanged. As Laura Miehns spoke to her, she was staring at nothing, concentrating on trying to talk Lisa through this. Then her eyes focused, looking down the hall at the bedroom door. Something wasn't right about it. She cocked her head and looked at it further.
There it was. The door was closed, but there was no knob on the outside. That wasn't right – she'd seen Graham's. Someone had knocked the doorknob off of Mrs. Moore's bedroom door. Laura Miehns's eyes narrowed.
Carefully, she took out her cell phone and called into HRT again. The secretary helpfully got a radio link going, so she was able to communicate with everyone at once. They'd round up all the BSU people they were protecting. When she spoke, her tone was quiet and controlled. She did not want anyone to overhear her.
"I'm in the apartment now…seems like they took over the one next to Graham's. The bedroom door is closed and the knob is knocked off. I think Sweet Susie is in the bedroom, possibly planning to go out the window. I want HRT in here now, with snipers, although if she tries to rappel out she'll be a sitting duck against the side of the building. Starling and Graham are stable, but they're hurt…where the hell are my ambulances? I want at least three snipers outside, somewhere safe where we're not going to hit any of the residents. We need to evacuate the building if we can. Well…wait. Get an extraction team in here, maybe we can take her down with a show of force."
She thought for a moment about the last time that had been tried against Susana Alvarez and shuddered. Well, there wasn't anything she could blow up in the bedroom. Hopefully.
"I want a door-banger team up here, plus people to back them up. Where the hell are you people?" she hissed. There were no sirens approaching. Was that because they wanted to be stealthy, or were they just not here yet? It was nerve-racking.
Her hand fastened down on Lisa's. There was no answering squeeze. Quickly, she checked Lisa's pulse and was relieved to find it strong. In Lisa's state, unconsciousness might be a blessing. She hoped like hell they could save Starling's eyes. Staring into the ruin of Lisa Starling's face doubled her determination to put the cuffs on Susana Alvarez Lecter. Whether or not Susana would survive to be brought back to jail was something Laura Miehns would have to decide later.
Finally, finally, there was a ruckus on the stairs and she could hear the squeak and rattle of gurneys. Several armed HRT agents ran in the room and secured the apartment, leaving only the bedroom door. One of them carried an extra MP5 and a radio which he gave to her. It made her feel much better. two squads of paramedics. One took Lisa, the other took Graham. As they carefully strapped Lisa Starling to the stretcher, her arms and legs began to flail. The ruin of her head rocked back and forth.
"This one's seizing," the EMT guy said.
"Get them out of here, now," Laura Miehns ordered. She was torn. Part of her wanted to go with Lisa. Lisa was, after all, her responsibility. But there was also a very dangerous killer behind that door, and Laura Miehns was the only current member of the HRT who had ever dealt with Susana Alvarez and lived to tell the tale. Duty vs. duty, never an easy conflict.
Lisa would be safe and she would check in with her later. Besides, the younger woman was almost assuredly going to be in surgery. With a lump in her throat, Laura Miehns decided to stay with her team. She wanted to see Susana's face.
The EMT's did their job admirably: they knew they were in a danger zone. They did what all emergency medical technicians are supposed to do in a dangerous situation. They slid an airway down Lisa's throat, put a pressure bandage over the ruin of her face, and pulled their victim out of the line of fire. Graham's gurney rattled after it, seemingly in hot pursuit.
The team moved into position. Three with the heavy weight used to batter down doors in front of it, crouching low. The rest behind them. From the radio, Agent Miehns knew that the outside of the building was covered. If Susana tried to flee through the window, there would be at least three bullets in her by the time she hit the ground. More if Miehns authorized it.
She glanced out a window and saw Lisa and Graham being loaded into ambulances parked outside. An HRT man hopped up into Lisa's ambulance. She squinted to see who it was. She buzzed in on the radio. Everyone was accounted for.
Oh, wait…Taylor. Taylor, who she'd assigned to guard Graham. If he thought going to the hospital was going to get him out of trouble for letting all this happen, he had another thing coming. But Laura Miehns decided that kicking Agent Taylor's ass could wait until Susana was captured. First capture Sweet Susie, then check in on Lisa, and station herself at her door, then inform Agent Taylor that he would be looking at a career in pizza delivery or perhaps the Cops in Shops program.
The ambulances departed, their lights and sirens wailing. Surprise was no longer an issue. The men and women of the HRT looked to their commander. Each in their position, each a cog in a well-oiled machine awaiting the word.
"Go," Laura Miehns ordered.
The weight coming down on the interior door splintered and shattered it almost as soon as it hit. With a groan, the door swung open drunkenly, as if to ask what it had done to deserve such force. The three agents stepped back, aimed their weapons, and let the entry squad take over with their cover available. Laura Miehns went in behind them. She cast her eyes around the room and gasped.
Belinda Moore had been a fervent Catholic, and her bedroom sported a heavy wooden five-foot cross with a carved Jesus on it. Jesus was no longer visible. This was because there was a bound woman hanging from the cross covering Jesus's wooden body. Laura looked at the woman tied to the cross. She was naked except for a black bra and panties. Her face was heavily bandaged. At her feet, a man wrapped only in a sheet knelt as if to worship her. He was tied to a stool to keep him up. A simple examination revealed he was quite dead. It was hard to look at his face: like Lisa had been, his face was horribly mutilated. Purple traumatized flesh abounded everywhere.
What the hell? Laura Miehns thought.
The woman's head rose slowly as she heard them enter.
"FBI," Agent Miehns said. "You're safe. Identify yourself."
The woman coughed. Her voice was dry and cracked. It seemed like a pained croak. She did not seem to know there was a faceless dead man kneeling at her feet or several live men with guns staring at her tied to the cross. "Miehns…it's me…Starling.. Agent ID…B504435213. Get me down…Susana…did something to my face."
Laura Miehns stopped dead and froze. That was Starling's ID number, all right. But then…wait a minute…the ambulance…and hadn't Hannibal Lecter escaped in Memphis this way? She sat down hard on the floor as she realized what had just happened.
"Get her down," she said dazedly.
She got me again.
…
The ambulance attendants were busy chatting back and forth. The patient was stable. The seizure had not recurred. Pulse and BP were good too. This one would live. But those facial wounds – they'd been able to see the one enucleated eye, but couldn't find the other one at all. The cop just sat in the front, near the driver, and kept out of the way. That was for the best.
But they were relaxing as one of them was talking to the doctors coming in.
"Yeah, this is a female, age ….mid-late twenties, maybe early thirties. Facial lacerations…heck, I've never seen stuff like this before. Some psycho really tore her up."
The patient's hands slid out from under her waistband and undid the strap across her chest easily. Then the pressure bandage over her face, and finally the suffocating layer of Agent Taylor's skin off her own. Then, with no small pleasure, she pulled the tube out of her throat. Honestly. Who had taught him how to intubate patients? Roto-Rooter?
The first EMT noticed she was awake and reached out. "Agent Starling, please don't do that," he said calmly.
Susana Alvarez Lecter pulled her feet free of the strap across her calves. She looked at him and pulled the blonde wig off her head. She tossed it to him gently. She raised her bloody eyebrows at him.
"Catch!" she said.
He caught the wig on pure reflex. It gave her enough time to slip her Harpy from the back of Lisa's slacks and sprint a step or two closer to him. Then the blade was up, ripping and slashing. His intestines spilled out in a ropy mass. That would make it much more inconvenient to walk in the back of the ambulance, but it would have to do.
Then the second was easier, a quick savage shot across the throat. The ambulance suddenly slowed. Susana put her hands against the sides and braced herself. Carefully it pulled over into the breakdown lane. Then the body of the driver was being shoved back her, a wide slash from Luke's Harpy across his throat. She took it and carefully arranged it on the gurney. She poked her head up front and saw Luke Taylor seated behind the wheel, pulling the ambulance back into traffic.
"Where to, ma'am?" he asked, grinning.
"The airport, if you please," she said. "We're doing this right, remember?"