Lisa Starling edged along the hallway, her heart pounding. Here was the monster's lair. It was quite fancy, she saw. But all the art and all the furniture and all the silk wallpaper in the world could not hide the fact that two killers dwelled here. Her pistol was up and out, covering everything in front of her. Her heart was pounding. Part of her screamed that this was insane: she had no backup, she had no legal authority to be here. Susana knew this house like the back of her hand; Lisa knew nothing about the house at all. But she was here, and she would finish this.

She edged along the hallway. She could still hear the TV. Tilting her head, she could also hear a grunt and springs creak. She closed her eyes and thought for a moment. Couch. Someone lying on the couch, watching TV. Was it Susana? Probably not. Lisa knew her cousin's tastes pretty well, and she doubted that Susana Alvarez Lecter would be interested in religious TV shows.

That left her accomplice. Luke Taylor. Martyrer and tonguer of helpless FBI agents. It made perfect sense for him to be lying on the couch, and to be watching an English-language televangelist show. Lisa remembered him hovering over her, half the world away, thought of his red tongue slipping into her mouth, and shuddered. Her hand tightened on the butt of her Glock. But he was wounded. She would give him a chance to surrender peaceably.

The couch springs groaned again. She heard a male voice speak out.

"Susana? Is that you?"

That was him, all right. The guy who had dragged her back into a bedroom and toyed with her while she was helpless. Lisa's stomach clenched at the memory. She said nothing, simply edged a few more steps down the hallway. Ahead was the room he was in. She could see partially into the room through the open doorway; the TV was on. A big, wide-screen Sony. Somehow she was not surprised. A man in a robe and a long beard was on the screen, talking about Jesus and the apostles or something like that. Despite herself, Lisa grinned: the guy looked like an old-time monk. But she was more concerned with the guy she couldn't see.

She heard the sounds of someone getting off a couch and standing and retreated a few steps, waiting. Her pulse beat in her ears.

…

Luke Taylor lay watching the TV program he had found. Susana's home offered the very best cable package available in Argentina. There were all the premium channels: HBO, Cinemax, Starz. There were plenty of English-language channels available. A few had even been porn channels and that offended him. Susana had thought it was hilarious and told him he didn't have to watch them. But at last he had found what he wanted. Brother Zeno's Spiritual Hour. He was still slightly annoyed with Susana for her sacrilege in the church, but that was fading. He had to forgive her, after all. In time, she would profess faith. He knew she would.

He heard something: a soft step along the hallway. He glanced around curiously. It wouldn't have been one of the servants: they would have no reason to hide. They would have either gone past him quietly or asked him if he needed something. That left Susana. He had thought she was upstairs puttering around doing something else, but perhaps she had come down. Yes, perhaps come to apologize for her blasphemy and pray with him.

Or it might even be something else, he thought, and stood up from the couch he had been lying on. He reached for his cane and took a few hesitant steps forward.

"Susana?" he called. "Is that you?"

No reply came. Luke's eyes narrowed. A sinner, perhaps. One of the dark ones. He walked out into the hallway, determined to see who it was. He saw a figure, roughly Susana's height. The light behind her silhouetted her, but he knew immediately it was not his bride to be. Susana had no reason to walk around her own home with a pistol held up in front of her.

"Freeze!" the figure demanded in English. "FBI. You're under arrest."

Luke recognized the sinner's voice immediately. Lisa Starling. Susana's cousin, and one of the witches of Behavioral Science. Somehow she had tracked them down here. For just a moment he was frightened, but he knew what he had to do. It was so written in the Bible: Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.

He grasped the black, gold-handled cane Susana had given him and revealed its surprise. The handle twisted neatly to the left and came loose in his hand with a metallic click. From the wooden shaft he withdrew a glittering surgical-steel blade perhaps eighteen inches long. He took two large, quick steps towards her. That hurt his stomach, but still he had to try.

"Drop it!" Lisa commanded, her stomach turning a big loop-the-loop as the crazed killer approached her with his blade. The idea that she might be returning to the FBI in a pine box occurred to her, and she tightened her grip on the gun. "Turn around, put your hands on your head! I'll shoot you!"

Luke Taylor didn't think she would. The Lord protected his servants. Susana might be angry at him for doing this, but in time she would come to understand. And besides, he was the man of the house now. And was it not written that the wife should obey the husband? He took another two quick steps forward, closing in so that her advantage with the pistol was neutralized. It hurt, but he knew his duty. The witch would die. He would make it quick. His wife to be would appreciate that, once she realized that Lisa had to be martyred. For their good, and for her own. She would profess faith at the end, and be saved. The blade gleamed as he brought it up and thrust it at Lisa Starling's soft stomach.

…

The sunlight came in through the window in her mother's office, but Susana paid it little attention. She had been looking through her mother's paperwork, trying to decide what to do with the charities her mother favored. Maria Alvarez had always been a great supporter of charities. For the woman once known as Clarice Starling, it was a way to help, a way to save the lambs.

But for her daughter, it was a way of being tracked by the FBI and therefore had to go. It was true that Susana had only sacrificed sixty-two days of her life in prison. But it was also true that the powers that be wanted to put her back there for the rest of her life, and it was also true she would do whatever was in her power to avoid going back. Nine people had lost their lives so that Susana Alvarez Lecter could remain free. If she had to, she would shed more blood without a second thought. Cutting off the Red Cross and Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo was nothing to her. They'd get by; they always had.

It was then, assembling the paperwork that indicated her mother's lifetime dedication to saving the lambs, that Susana Alvarez noticed the portrait on the far side of the wall. The portrait itself was of herself and her father. She was small in the picture, approximately five or six, sitting on his lap. She'd seen the portrait many times before. But this time she noticed the unobtrusive hinges on the side of the knurled wood frame.

Susana crossed the room and touched the painting. It opened like a door, revealing a hidden safe behind it. Intrigued, Susana tilted her head and stared at the combination lock. Good British make, it looked like. She could always have it drilled open – the house was hers – but it would be more fun to try and crack it herself.

She tried her mother's birthday. That did not work. Neither did her father's birthdate or her own. Susana let out a hmmph. Then she looked back at the portrait, of herself and her father. Was that it?

She spun the dial to nineteen, then thirty-eight, then twenty, then four. Papa's birth year, then her own. The safe clicked. Susana moved the lever down again and it went all the way down this time. She grinned. How very fitting in a way: Clarice Starling, an orphan, had always cared very deeply for the family she grew to have in later life.

Then a noise from downstairs caught her attention. A man's voice: Luke calling for her. What did he want, anyway? He had his TV monk, he ought to be happier than a clam for the time being. Then a woman's voice spoke and Susana's blood chilled. She knew who that was. Her current family.

On her mother's desk was a 9mm pistol. Susana grabbed it and checked it. It was locked and loaded. She cocked the pistol and ran downstairs.

…

Lisa Starling cried out as the psycho's sword pressed into her stomach. It felt icy cold. There was a nauseating pressure, like a thumb over an eye, and she could feel the horrid invasion of the blade sinking a few inches into her body. She took two fumbling steps back. She could feel her own blood flowing onto the tail of her shirt and the waistband of her pants where he had stabbed her. She aimed the Glock directly at him.

"Drop it," she said, her lips barely mouthing the words. Her wound robbed her voice of strength, and she knew what she had to do. Luke Taylor advanced on her, his lips curving in a cruel smile as he prepared to finish her off.

"Do you believe in God, Agent Starl--," he started.

Luke Taylor was a man driven by his own personal demons, and he had fused religion into his own experiences, redefining a creed of peace and love to suit his own twisted ends. But he was quite sincere and he was profoundly devout in his own way. He did believe in his God, and he believed in the Holy Trinity.

So it was somehow quite fitting that what ended his life there, in the Lecter mansion in Buenos Aires, was three bullets fired in rapid succession from Lisa Starling's Glock. A small deadly Trinity of death. Two of the bullets found their mark in his head. The first shattered the wide bone of his forehead and entered his brain, putting to rest once and forever the visions of martyrs and heretics that had driven him. The second hit lower, between his nose and upper lip. The third pierced his heart, which had already begun to beat erratically as the signal from the brain had been interrupted by two pieces of lead tearing through it.

Luke collapsed to the floor facedown without another word. He had died intending to save his Susana from the dark witch who had hunted them down to their Promised Land. He had meant, up to the very last, to slay the witch, as his faith demanded that he do. He had known Lisa was armed and faced her down anyway. It would have been fair to say that he had died for his faith. In fact, one might say that Luke Taylor was a martyr himself.

Lisa Starling took another step back, her ears ringing from the triple report of the Glock. She heard footsteps thundering towards her and spun around, the Glock aimed in front of her. A silhouette in the hallway approached her cautiously. With the light behind the figure, it seemed almost her duplicate. The muzzle of a 9mm Beretta was aimed at her just as the muzzle of her Glock was pointed at the figure.

"Susana," Lisa said.

"Lisa," the figure returned, stepping a bit closer. Lisa made out her cousin's features. Susana's eyes slid from her cousin to the figure on the floor. An expression of shock and surprise crossed her face for just a moment before closing up.

"You shot a wounded man?" Susana asked incredulously. "Lisa Starling, I'm amazed."

"He was armed," Lisa said. "I gave him a chance to surrender. I'll give you one too. Drop your weapons and put your hands on your head. You're under arrest." Her hand trembled on the Glock. Her heart raced.

Susana's lips curved into a smile, forgetting Luke for the moment. A cold chill spilled over Lisa's limbs as she remembered that both Lecters perè and fils had been described as sociopaths. Did Susana honestly not care that Lisa had just killed her boyfriend? It seemed so. Or perhaps, more likely, she was dismissing it to deal with the situation here and now.

"No," Susana said simply, and laughed. "You're not a cop here, Cousin Lisa. You're not even a citizen. This is Argentina, not America."

"I have a warrant for your arrest, and--," Lisa began.

Susana's gun barked once. Lisa screamed despite herself. Next to Lisa's head, a bullet hole now marked the wall.

"That was a warning, not a miss," Susana grinned, and Lisa believed her. "Now, now, dear cousin. You know better. The law you claim to uphold so dearly does not allow you to march into my house and take me out in handcuffs. But I'll tell you what, Lisa, I'm feeling generous. Put down your gun, and go home. Fly away back to America, Lisa Starling, and I'll let you go."

"Like hell," Lisa retorted. Back in Alexandria, she had been intimidated by Susana even when she was in chains. Now, with a pistol in her hand and seemingly nary a care in the world, she was even more intimidating. Fear tasted coppery on Lisa's tongue, like weak battery acid.

Another figure came in behind Susana and chattered something in Spanish. Lisa's muzzle swung to and fro. Her heart raced. Her fingers were cramping on the grip of her gun. She realized now just how alone she was.

"Oh, calm down, Lisa," Susana said patronizingly. "That's just my maid." Then she answered the maid back in Spanish. Lisa's clumsy castellano did not permit her to comprehend what was said.

The maid vanished, and Lisa aimed her gun again at her cousin. Susana seemed not at all concerned that Lisa's Glock was pointed directly at her chest. The muzzle of her Beretta wavered not at all from Lisa's nose. Neither woman moved.

"You do realize what a Mexican standoff this is, Lisa, don't you?" Susana asked. "And you kept the hair brown. I'm touched, really, I am. The perfect image of my dear mother."

"Susana, this is it," Lisa said. "The other agents will be here any minute." The reminder of how easily Susana had captured her before made her tremble further. Some brave FBI agent she made. But she kept the gun pointed at her cousin and wondered what the hell she was going to do now to see this through.

Susana chuckled. "I doubt that," she said mildly. "You're here alone, Lisa. Came down here on leave, did you not?"

Lisa shook her head. "There's a task force assembled to get you. Drop the gun, Susana, it's over."

"If there were," Susana said, a cutting smile on her face, "there would be a few hundred Gendarmaria surrounding my house, and I'd have heard about it long beforehand, Lisa." She shook her head slowly. "Face it, Lisa…you did this out of school, didn't you? I don't have to do what you say." Incredibly, she stuck out her tongue at her cousin like a small girl. "Pbbbbth."

Suddenly, there were several uniformed police officers running into the hallway, with shouts in Spanish. Susana turned around calmly. Lisa grinned victoriously. Makes sense. In a ritzy area like this they show up quick. Didn't think of that, did you, Susana?

"Policìa!" one of them said. "Caiga su arma."

Astonishingly, Susana complied. She turned around, her hands in the air.

"Buenos dìas,", she said to the officer who had spoken. "Soy Dr. Alvarez, y este es mi casa. Ella matò a mi amigo, allà."

Lisa reached in her back pocket for the creased copy of Susana's arrest warrant. They could be the ones to take her in. "Do any of you speak English?" she asked. "I'm Agent Lisa Starling of the FBI." She took out her ID and waved it in her cramping left hand. "That is Susana Alvarez, and I have a warrant from the Eastern District Federal Court of Virginia for her arrest."

The policemen's guns were still aimed at her.

"Caiga la pistola," the one who had spoken repeated.

"Drop your weapon, Lisa," Susana Alvarez Lecter said helpfully. "I think they mean it, too."

Lisa knew when she was outmatched. Still, something in her quivered to put down her weapon. This was way too easy. Susana had simply put down her weapon and was being completely cooperative. The woman had killed nine people just to make sure the FBI could not track her. There was no way she was going to cooperate with going back just for the Buenos Aires police.

But the fact of the matter was, they were going to shoot her if she didn't put down the gun, and from their point of view it made perfect sense. So she bent down and carefully placed the Glock on the floor and reached for her ID and the warrant again.

Another cop came forward , his gun still out. His left hand was extended to take the ID and warrant.

"I speak…some English," he said haltingly. "You are…FBI?"

Lisa nodded. "I have a warrant for her arrest," she said. "She is wanted in the United States. Arrestela, por favor?"

The cops all seemed quite amused at her Spanish. That was fine. So long as Susana ended up in a cell, they could laugh all they wanted. Whatever happened next did not matter. Extradition hearings, dropping the death penalty, that was all fluff. Susana was going back to jail, back on trial, and back to the United States.

The cop looked at the limp body of Luke Taylor on the floor, blood pooling around his shattered skull on the expensive carpet. "You…you shoot him?" he asked.

"Yes," Lisa said. "In self defense. He attacked me." That reminded her of her wound, and she glanced down at her stomach. The lower half of her shirt and the waistband of her pants was sodden with blood. Once she saw it, her knees got a bit weak.

Susana was talking to another policeman. She seemed completely at peace. Lisa wondered what was going on. She couldn't make out the Spanish they were speaking, but the cop was being quite respectful to her, referring to her as Dr. Alvarez. She caught a comment about Susana's parents.

The policeman took the warrant and studied it. He brought it over to Susana.

"Aquì es un autorización para su detención, Dr. Alvarez," the cop who had talked to Lisa said calmly.

"Haga usted lo que tiene que hacer," Susana answered back. Lisa could understand that sentence. Do what you have to.

The policeman nodded, sighed, and took out his handcuffs. He took his prey's arm and fastened them onto her wrists. She seemed slightly shocked, but let him put the cuffs on her without complaint. He then took his radio and called down for a female officer to actually take their arrestee into custody.

Lisa Starling felt suddenly sick to her stomach. Susana's eyes flashed angrily at her. She pressed her lips together and shook her head. For a moment, Lisa thought she saw tears in her cousin's eyes and almost gawped. Susana's hands clenched the arrest warrant behind her back. One of the cops said something in Spanish. Susana replied back angrily and then switched to English. When she spoke again, her voice was calm, but businesslike. But Lisa could tell she was rattled, and controlling herself with effort. Her voice was husky and she did not make eye contact with her cousin. Lisa herself felt only a strange sort of emptiness. After all she had been through…it came down to this.

"Lisa Starling," Susana translated, "you are under arrest for murder."

Then the police hustled Lisa out the door to the waiting cruiser. The car door slammed shut. Lisa stared blankly at her through the window, unable to understand how she had been outplayed. Poor girl, did she think police everywhere were as incorruptible as she was? Susana watched them go, her face sculpted in hard lines. She handed the arrest warrant the policeman had given her to her maid.

"Burn this," she said tightly.