Buenos Aires was a vast, teeming city. Noise and traffic were as endemic to it as Boston or Washington, DC, two other cities that Susana Alvarez Lecter had lived in. But here was different. It was the toniest area of the city, where the very rich lived and played. The Alvarez mansion hovered next to others, set well back on its lot. Susana had spent her girlhood here, raised by loving parents. Here she had known safety. Here was home.
The topmost floor of the mansion was dark and quiet. Susana had deliberately dimmed the lights and ordered the servants to stay out unless she told them to be there. The guest room had been made into a sickroom of sorts, with an IV stand and Susana's medical equipment. The province of Buenos Aires had been pleased to issue her a medical license, and it was no more difficult for her to obtain what she needed to care for Luke than buying soap would have been. Her family's connections and money meant that it would be simple to get Luke whatever medical treatment Susana could not provide. But that was for later.
The servants were curious about the young man Susana had brought home. He did not appear to speak Spanish. They noted the bandages, the limping manner in which he walked. But the iron discipline Dr. Lecter had instilled in them so many years ago held true; they did not ask Miss Susana what he was doing there, they merely traded knowing glances and wondered.
Luke Taylor lay in the bed, his eyes growing less confused as time went on. Susana was monitoring his condition with the greatest of care. When his eyes finally swam into focus and met hers, she smiled tiredly.
"Where am I?" he asked.
"My home," Susana said gently. "In Buenos Aires."
Luke seemed surprised, but that was to be expected. One was usually disoriented and confused to learn that one has been taken five thousand miles from one's point of origin while one was asleep. All things considered, Susana thought, he took it rather well.
"What happened?" he asked and blinked at her owlishly. "My stomach…it hurts."
"You were shot," Susana said simply. "I got the bullet out and got you down here. You'll probably need surgery. But I can handle that."
Luke took that in. Argentina. The Promised Land. He had been taken early. He had not even been required to help her take out all the witches of the dark ones. He knew what had happened. It was the wavesheaf, those worthy souls promoted to heaven even before the 144,000 faithful the Scriptures had spoken of. The true heretics, who had martyred so many that their own path to heaven was assured.
I am…delivered. Delivered from evil, Luke Taylor thought. Truly, he had been rewarded. For was Susana not here, by him, caring for him in his hour of need? Was this not proof positive that he was chosen? He tugged up the hem of the loose T shirt Susana had put on him and examined his stomach. A bandage covered his sutures. Sutures she had put there. It hurt, but he was quite able to tolerate the pain.
He tried to sit up. Susana put a hand on his arm. She looked at him with concern.
"Stay down," she urged. "You need to rest."
Luke nodded and lay back. He did not like how weak and dependent he felt. Then it occurred to him that this must be how Susana had felt that first night. Weakened and worried, wondering if the authorities were coming…but warm and safe. It was hardly something to deny.
"What about the dark ones?" he asked.
Susana shrugged. "Thousands of miles away," she said indifferently. "They won't know we're here. We switched planes in Nicaragua, then again in Brazil, then again in Montevideo. And here…this is my turf, not theirs." She grinned. "We didn't land in Buenos Aires. We landed in a little border town and then chartered another flight here." She chuckled. "It's all right, Luke. Don't worry about the authorities."
"But…they'll learn we're here, and then all they have to do is get us," Luke said.
Susana snorted. "You give them too much credit," she said. "They have to know we're here before they can even ask for our extradition. And trust me, Luke…the Argentine authorities will find a million reasons to blow them off." Her head tilted and she adopted a pedantic air.
"They don't want me to leave," she explained. "Even in the worst case, they wouldn't send me north unless the US dropped their demands for my death. And it's far from the worst case. You see, Luke, the Argentine government has never been very good with money. Fortunately, my father was." She smiled sadly, her eyes misted with memory.
Luke seemed not to get it. Susana decided to spell it out for him; he wasn't totally recovered yet.
"A few million invested years ago in Argentine bonds, denominated in US dollars, for one." Susana explained. "If they sent me north, I'd have to cash in those bonds to pay for my legal defense. And they know that. So it's either try and come up with several million in US dollars that they simply don't have, or shrug their shoulders at the FBI and say, 'Well, she's not here, if she shows up we'll arrest her', and play innocent, and then I stay free and they don't have to pay up. Which do you think they'll do?" She smiled. "And there are other, smaller things, but they add up. Investments in local businesses and factories. A lot of Argentines work for me and don't realize it. Plus, the Alvarez family has always been generous sponsors to the police benevolent funds…the legal associations…the charities and agencies that help out those who toil in the legal system." She smiled. "Besides, I can tie up the legal system in knots, if I absolutely have to. I can afford the best attorneys, and I can afford to drag things out. And the US government was so hasty to bring me to trial that they forgot a few things, each of which I can pick over in court to my heart's content. This country didn't extradite Alberto Astiz, they won't extradite me either." She shook her head slowly. Luke did not know who Alberto Astiz was, but decided not to ask. Perhaps he was a heretic, too. "Don't worry about the authorities, Luke. They don't even know you're here. I'll need to take some ID photos later. But that can wait."
She gave him another shot and then turned to leave. Luke saw exhaustion in her step and felt vaguely guilty. Part of him would always have difficulty grasping the idea that a woman would want to be with him, let alone exhaust herself for him. He lay back against the cool sheets and sighed, staring up at the baroque ceiling.
…
Lisa Starling was bored. Her keepers were loath to allow their charges outside. There were books to read and TV to watch in the dayroom of the crude safe block they had created, but she could only take so much TV and was not in the mood to read.
Two days of this and she was already ready to climb the walls. The worst part was not knowing. Not knowing where Susana was. Not knowing what came next. Information came down stingily to the prisoners of Behavioral Science. Lisa had thought they were going to let them at least get some work done, but she had turned out to be wrong on that. They had kept them all in the same little block for the first few days. Morale was low amongst the survivors of Behavioral Science, and Lisa was wondering if she could arrange a mutiny against their guards. At the least they could demand better food and some out time. Even prisoners got better treatment than this; they got to file habeus corpus writs.
One of the HRT personnel was heading towards her, with envelopes in hand. Lisa sat up.
"Mail call," the agent grinned, and handed Lisa the envelopes. Her mail. Joy. A few bills, and her checkbook was at home. It might as well be in Siberia. Laura Miehns had given into her more paranoid side and kept Lisa captive here in the basement at Quantico.
Car payment. Mortgage. Some advertisements. And then a plain envelope made of fine creamy paper. Lisa stared at her name and address written carefully in girlish script and then turned it over. The envelope was not glued shut, but instead sealed with a bright red wax seal.
Lisa's blood chilled as she saw it. She had studied Susana's history, and she knew perfectly well that Susana's grandfather – Hannibal Lecter's father – had been a count. The Lecter family had a coat of arms, and it was this coat of arms that stamped the seal of the envelope. Hannibal Lecter himself had never cared terribly much that he was born noble; his daughter gloried in it. She let out a swallow and took the letter out. She knew that she ought to go to Forensics with it, but she had to see what Susana had written. Carefully, with the tail of her shirt covering her fingers, she slid the fine vellum sheets from the envelope and scanned the letter.
Dear Lisa,
By now, you and the rest of the survivors of Behavioral Science are doubtlessly holed up in protective custody in Quantico, or perhaps some military base farther away where they believe I will not go. I must congratulate your superiors in the FBI – they have finally realized just how much damage I can do, even if they have locked the barn door after the horses have been murdered. Now I'm sure that as you examined the crime-scene photographs, as you attended the funerals, you looked up to the sky and asked yourself why. Why, why, why, whyever did this happen to such nice people?
I shall answer that question for you, dear Lisa, as I know it burns on your mind.
But first, I know you will bring this letter to your superiors in the FBI and the Department of Justice, so I should like to address them first. Perhaps they'll catch this letter before you see it, but I trust they will let you see it – it is after all addressed to you. Whichever it is, I must say this to the FBI and to the U.S. District Attorney who intended to prosecute me. Thank you, gentlemen. I'm sure you're surprised to hear that, but I do thank you. I thank you for seeking the death penalty against me, and for the overly harsh security regime you imposed on me while I was incarcerated. While I was in your power, it worked to your advantage. Now that I am free, it works to my favor. In the unlikely event I am ever apprehended again, it ensures that most civilized countries will be loath to return me to your clutches. An extradition hearing will be a leisurely affair, giving me plenty of time in which to plan my escape and remain free.
Now Lisa, I'm sure it galls you to hear it, but in your heart you know it is true. You might like to think of this as good versus evil – you, the good, tracking down me, the evil, and bringing me to face justice. But this was hardly how it was, and frankly, Lisa, your concept of good and evil is rather skewed.
You would agree, I think, that someone whose life is threatened by others has the right to kill in self-defense. According to your own records, you have, occasionally, killed yourself. Did that feel good, Lisa? Is that where this bloodlust started? I assure you, from the point of view of the person being threatened, it makes no difference whether or not the people threatening your life carry around little plastic cards identifying themselves as agents of the FBI and employees of the Department of Justice. Frankly, I am surprised you don't have more problems in the various death rows that your country possesses. What sort of skewed insanity is it that makes you think someone will simply hang their head and allow you to kill them without so much as a peep?
But wait, I hear you say, it is different, a fair trial, judges, and all that nonsense. And nonsense it was, Lisa, at least in my case. Allow me to acquaint you with the oath you took when you first trotted across a stage and accepted your very first FBI credentials: to protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. I suppose I'm sort of both. But in that very law you swore to protect, I will remind you, there are limits placed upon your own behaviors and actions.
Is a USDA entitled to file charges that he knows to be false?
Does the FBI have the right to lie in court?
Does the FBI have the right to withhold evidence that it does not wish to hand over?
You know the answers already, do you not?
The reason this affair went the way it did was because your side failed to realize what it was. It was not law enforcement, Lisa; the FBI's own actions negated that. Your side intended to kill me by fair means or foul. But rather than dirty your hands, you tried to do it in court, where someone else would take care of the details of snuffing out my life. Then when I escaped, it was only the towering arrogance of the FBI to assume that I would not or could not strike back. You assumed this was law enforcement, that I would flee, leaving the full strength of your department to pursue me. Law enforcement? This ceased to be law enforcement the moment the FBI knowingly denied its own duty. This was war, and you did not realize it until it was too late. You may call it murder, Lisa, but let us face the facts. If your agency is trying to kill me, Lisa, I have the right to act in self-defense. And so I did.
Why, you have doubtlessly cried. And there is your answer. I had given up killing, Lisa, I was settled into a comfortable life and was working. Left alone, I should have never harmed another soul. And even now, I've saved more people than I've killed. You may blame me, but you are more complicit than you think. Had you left me alone and let bygones be bygones, Will Graham and eight of your profilers would be alive today. I came out of retirement to defend my own life and my own freedom.
I'm sure you think it awfully hypocritical of me, a killer in my own right, to protest my own killing. Nothing is further from the truth, Lisa. If one of my victims had the strength or inner fortitude to kill me, then so be it – too bad for me. So far, they have been sheep, and done what I wanted, or those who have fought did not win. But to expect me not to fight back – to expect that I would hang my head and be a good little lamb to the slaughter– that is arrogant and stupid, and it is a lesson that you've learned to your bitter sorrow.
I am leaving now, Lisa, I will not be back to the United States again for a while. And trust me, if I want to return, I shall. I did notice before I left that I have followed my father to the prestigious ranks of the Ten Most-Wanted List. I have heard that there are father-son combinations, but I believe that he and I constitute the only father-daughter combination extant. Dean's list at Harvard Med School and FBI's Ten-Most Wanted list – whatever I do, I end up at the top.
By the way, I did notice your shrine to me in the second bedroom of your rather dull condominium. Quite the obsessive, are you not? Are you not, in a way, pleased that I am free? After all, Lisa Starling, your knowledge of me is only valuable when I am at large. I shall send you something to finish it off, something in the family for a bit of time. My mother possessed an add-a-bead necklace. Apparently this was popular in the years before our birth. It has little value other than sentimental. You see, when they first met, Papa told her to get some loose, drilled tiger eyes and string them alternately with the beads. This would be more tasteful than the norm. I wore this briefly as a teenager, and so I will send it along to you to help complete your collection.
I do owe you congratulations as a worthy adversary, if for only this – your bullet did more to protect the few remaining profilers than all the bored, unprofessional guards of the HRT and local police forces. They slowed me down not a whit. Your shooting my accomplice has caused me to declare my job done here, and so I have left. He is not dead, however, but he'll need some more medical care. Excellent work, Lisa, although I can repair it. It'll be painful and lengthy though. Does that make you feel better? After all, you have your own painful and lengthy repairs to your department to make. And that makes me feel better.
I wish you well, Lisa, and I can even forgive your own ethical lapse against me. You are, after all, all too human. And it is only natural that you go along with your gang – standing up for what is right even when it applies to the opponent is hard indeed. Now I'm sure you are itching to take those handcuffs off your wall (which I would suggest anyway, Lisa; men will think you're a pervert) and snap them onto my wrists. You can forget that, my dear cousin. But I promise you this, and you know I do not lie. You will see my face again.
Susana Alvarez Lecter, MD
The letter proved to be Lisa's ticket out of protective custody. Showing it to the guards got her taken out of the basement and up into a meeting room. They wanted her take on the letter. The evidence people were mad that she had taken the letter out, but Lisa did not really care. She was more troubled by the accusations Susana had leveled. And she still didn't have the faintest idea how she figured into it. No matter how she racked her brain, she could not remember having done anything – or not done something she was supposed to – that Susana might be referring to.
A few hours later, Lisa Starling was sitting at a conference table on the upper levels of Quantico. She felt a mean sort of satisfaction, almost as if she had gotten out of jail. That wasn't too far off from what had actually transpired. Behavioral Science personnel were under heavy guard.
She glanced around the table at the people around her. At the head of the table was John Morton, the new head of Behavioral Sciences. He'd been around for about ten years. Lisa had a passing acquaintance with him but did not know him well. Aaron Kilbourne, the US District Attorney who had been assigned to prosecute Susana. A few people from the evidence and legal departments. The other people at the meeting she did not recognize. A copy of the letter was up on an overhead projector.
"So, Agent Starling," Morton said, "tell us what you think of the letter."
Lisa thought for a long moment before answering. "Well," she began, "on the surface, it's a letter to me, explaining her actions. She, um, she isn't crazy, not any way we recognize someone as being crazy. This could be a paranoid delusion, but she's showed no signs of anything like that -- she was able to plan and pull off the murders of eight Behavioral Science personnel, she's not mentally ill. The fingerprint on the envelope – she wanted to be sure we knew who it came from. That was deliberate."
"She brags that we're not going to get her back even if she is arrested again, and on that she's probably right, at least as long as we keep the death penalty. My guess is that she's going back home to Argentina, and our extradition treaty with them says that they can refuse to send her back as long as she's facing death. We'd have to drop that demand before we got her, but that's your call, Mr. Kilbourne."
She looked at Kilbourne steadily. "She feels that the FBI wronged her somehow, that's pretty obvious. In the phone call she was vague about it and hung up. That's probably because she'd either already sent the letter or was writing it. She's more specific here. She says the FBI withheld evidence and lied in court on her. She also singles out the US District Attorney for filing charges he knew were false." She gave Kilbourne a direct look. "I think it's a little late in the game for pointing fingers, but I would like to ask you if you know what she means, Mr. Kilbourne."
Kilbourne shrugged. "The 17 charges of murder, we know what those are about," he said calmly. "Those aren't bogus."
Lisa had expected this. She nodded with resignation. Kilbourne's next words knocked the wind out of her.
"As far as the Mapp and…um, well, Starling charges….well, hell. What did you want me to do? I was stuck." He leaned forward and jabbed a finger in the direction of the evidence people. "Stuck because of you guys."
Lisa's jaw dropped. Mapp? Her? What the hell? Thunderstruck, she could simply ask, "Mapp?"
Kilbourne nodded. "I charged her with killing Mapp and trying to shoot you. Don't look at me like that, Starling, I had to. You guys down in the evidence labs were jerking me around."
Lisa closed her mouth. Opened it again. Swallowed.
"You charged her with Mapp and shooting me?" she asked again. Her voice sounded more in control to her. "But…but…we know Mapp shot me. Forensics proved that."
Kilbourne sighed. "Don't get all Girl Scout on me, Starling. I never would have been in the position of having to do it if you FBI guys had been on top of your game. You guys down in evidence were the ones who were jerking us around on the evidence." One of the evidence people looked consternated but said nothing.
Lisa cleared her throat. "What do you mean, jerking you around on the evidence?"
He seemed slightly exasperated. "All right, fine. Her attorneys put in a request for the tapes from the factory bust, all the reports, everything. You fine law enforcement people here didn't want to give it to them. They did everything they could to stonewall them. Now I know they don't require that FBI agents be lawyers anymore, so I'll clue you into a little piece of criminal law. The government has to turn over evidence, be it exculpatory or not. You can't say no. It doesn't matter whether or not you want to hand it over, you have to." He speared the FBI personnel with him with an angry glance.
"Almost two months of this fun game. FBI agents swore in court that they didn't have any tapes, any reports, that you just packed up the dead agents and went home. Did you morons think the judge was going to believe that? I delayed and danced and did everything I could do. Finally the judge said that was it – the FBI had a week to turn over the evidence or he was declaring a mistrial, tossing out the charges, and sending her home. We could've tried deporting her, but that wouldn't have worked, cause she would've voluntarily departed the country and vanished like smoke." He glared around the room angrily. "I had to do something, Starling. Unless you wanted her on the street. So I filed the charges and hoped for the best. And I felt like shit "
Lisa Starling sat there, stunned. Half the mystery solved right there. Dear God, Susana had been right. And while she could understand why Kilbourne had done what he had, but as it was, Susana was on the street, had vanished like smoke, and had voluntarily departed the country. And God knew how many people had died at her hands. To add to the fun, Susana thought Lisa personally responsible. It made perfect sense; Susana had doubtlessly thought Lisa planned to testify against her, sit in the chair and state that she, Special Agent Lisa Starling, watched Susana Alvarez Lecter murder Ardelia Mapp and then attempt to murder her.
No, she thought. I wouldn't have. Never.
"So," she said, turning her attention to the evidence techs, "why didn't you give her attorneys what she wanted?" Better to get on track, any track, rather than sit in free-floating shock.
The head of the FBI's evidence section shifted uncomfortably. "We had every intent of complying with the court's order," he said, and it was obvious that he was lying. "We had to try and restore the tapes. They were badly damaged in the explosion. All you can hear is five seconds of tape. Nothing from Team 1, only when the second and third teams found them. One of them says 'Get her, we gotta get her,' and then another voice says 'She won't leave her alive', and then it cuts off into static."
Lisa Starling closed her eyes and thought. No wonder. Susana could have taken those tapes and then claimed that the FBI was trying to kill her. In that situation, her decision to blow up the building made perfect sense. Might sway a jury, might not. It would depend.
"Well, thank you, gentlemen," Lisa said slowly. "We've now given Susana Alvarez a ton of ammunition to fight extradition with. We may never see her behind American bars now. But we still have to try." She looked over at Morton. "I want to go to Argentina to look for her," she said directly.
Morton shook his head. "No way," he said. "Why would she go there? She'll know we're looking for her there."
"She plays it conservative when she has to," Lisa riposted. "There, she's got money, connections, everything she needs to lay low for a while. And her accomplice is shot."
"If he gets in her way, she'll kill him herself," Morton said. "And no way are you going to Argentina, Starling. You're a target."
Lisa considered. Susana would probably kill her accomplice if the choices were going back to prison or killing him. That she could see. But Susana had scrupled at killing her twice now, preferring to shame her instead. Would she really kill an ally once he was no longer useful? Lisa thought not; Morton was thinking of Susana as pure evil, and that she was not.
"She's had the opportunity to kill me twice," Lisa pointed out, not without pain. "She didn't. And I can find her down there. I know I can. I'm the best source of Lecter information we've got."
"All the more reason to keep you here," Morton rejoined. "Let someone else do the collar, someone less at risk. The answer's no, Starling."
She leaned forward in her chair. "But she'll only be in Argentina for a while," she implored. "As soon as her accomplice is back on his feet, boom, she's out of there, maybe with him, maybe not. And we'll be back at square one."
Morton shook his head. "I'll put agents onto it," he said calmly. "We'll do what we can. But you're staying here, Starling. That's all there is to it."
Lisa sighed. "All right," she said, knowing that she wasn't going anywhere as long as they were keeping her here.
But they got two breaks later that day: the pilot who had flown Susana to Nicaragua had been found. It had been easy; the FAA had flagged the plane the moment it went off its scheduled course to El Paso. As soon as the pilot landed, they had him, and he identified Susana as the woman whom he had flown. The second was that the fingerprint on the envelope, as well as the writing, was positively identified as that of Susana Alvarez Lecter. The need for protective custody was called off, and the profilers released to their homes.
Lisa Starling sat that night in her home office, staring at the pictures of Susana on the walls and of the handcuffs mounted on the plaque. In her hands she held Susana's prison records from Alexandria. Sixty-two days Susana had spent in custody. A sentence more appropriate for minor theft or vandalism. It came out to about two or three days in jail for each victim, less if you added in the murders Susana had committed since her escape. And the odds of getting her back behind bars were much longer now than they had ever been. In the name of justice, the authorities had nobly shot themselves in the foot.
Even catching Susana would be a long shot. It had taken them years to find Susana living right under their noses. She would not make the same mistake again. Lisa leaned back in her computer chair and sighed, thinking of Susana Alvarez Lecter free and having a good time as she made her way through the world, either working somewhere with excellent papers, or possibly simply kicking back and enjoying life, playing the wealthy heiress she actually was.
Lisa sighed. She knew Susana would head for Argentina; if only for the sake of her accomplice. Argentina was her hidey hole. Canada might have been a choice, but Canada would be as hot for Susana as the US was, now that she had horribly mutilated a few of their citizens. And if Susana couldn't have the high life of Toronto anymore, she wouldn't want to go. On her own, Susana might have fled anywhere. South America, Lisa supposed, somewhere where Americans weren't particularly liked and rich women who spoke Spanish fluently were. But she wasn't. Unless her accomplice – and Lisa was almost positive it was Luke Taylor, who had been missing for a few weeks now – was dead, Susana would care for him. That would require surgery, possibly, and Susana would want it done where she could do it quietly.
Lisa slammed her fist on the desk in frustration. Someone had to do something. From what it seemed, it was almost like the FBI was admitting loss. Was that it? Were they deliberately dithering so that Susana would get away and the whole thing would be swept under the rug? Did they want the whole situation forgotten?
It seemed so, damnably so. The FBI would prefer to let Susana get away rather than admit their prior ethical lapse. A new trial for Susana would be a circus; it would all come out. The hidden evidence, the unethical behavior, all of it. Over the next few days, Lisa asked a few times what agents were being assigned to the Lecter investigation. Each time, she was told that hadn't been done yet. Be patient, a new Lecter task force would be formed and she would be part of it.
At the end of the week, Lisa Starling went in to see her new boss. She sat down in the chair and sighed.
"I'd like to know if I could take some time off," she said calmly.
John Morton stared at her calmly. "Time off? We need every profiler we can get."
"I know," Lisa admitted. "It's just…these past few weeks have been hell. I have leave coming to me. I'd like to take it."
Morton studied her emotionlessly from behind his desk. Don Quincy's things were still in the office. Some were boxed up, some were not.
"Well, Starling, I'll let you have a week. We've got interviews for new profilers anyway, nothing is gonna happen for the next week anyway."
"Thank you, sir," she whispered.
"And if you're thinking of going after her…don't. We'll disavow any knowledge of your actions. You know that, right?"
You bet I do, she thought, but someone's got to do what is right.
"Yes, I know," she said. She handed him the leave form and he signed it. Lisa Starling left Quantico and headed for home. On the way, she stopped in at a travel agency, where she picked up her tickets. A direct flight, with one stopover. It had cost her a lung to get on such short notice, but that was the breaks. She would leave in the evening, Washington, DC to Buenos Aires.