Author's note: Here we are, the real, honest-to-God end of the story. But there's one thing more – remember way back when, Chapter 16? When everyone was so grossed out from the Infamous Tongue Scene™? Well, something else was occurring then….
Also, thanks to Screaming Lamb for helping with French names.
Lisa Starling got off the plane and headed quickly for the baggage claim. She was tired. It had been a very long flight. Hours trapped in a 747. But finally, she was here. A few things remained. She had to get her bag, then pick up a cab. Then…well, then she knew what she had to do.
It had been seven months since she had flown back from Argentina. The FBI had accepted her back without much issue, as Susana had thought they would. Behavioral Sciences needed profilers, and the feeling of the FBI was that two months in a foreign prison was itself harsh enough punishment for Lisa's having disobeyed her boss's direction not to go to Argentina. Other than a verbal reprimand, she received no real punishment. And there were still killers out there to track, and great need of the skills possessed by Lisa Starling. She had gone back to her life much as she had left it.
The FBI had rebuilt its Behavioral Sciences department as best it could. No, nothing could quite put back what Susana Alvarez Lecter had set asunder, but the people working there now were just as determined, just as smart. And the experience would come in time. In the meanwhile, Lisa Starling had been promoted as well. Five months after Lisa had been released from an Argentine prison, John Morton had died in his bed of a heart attack. His death had been quite peaceful, and Behavioral Sciences was glad in a morbid way for that. A death not by violence. This was appreciated by the beleaguered veterans of Behavioral Sciences, who had seen their department almost ripped apart by Susana's private war.
But for all that, they had proved eminently incapable of tracking down the perpetrator. Susana Alvarez Lecter had vanished like smoke. The current belief among the FBI was that Susana was holed up somewhere in South America, paying off the government of some country to hide her. Argentina vociferously denied that the citizen the US wanted most was within its borders, and those in the Buenos Aires social circles that Alonso and Maria Alvarez had moved in knew nothing of their daughter. Likewise, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Brazil turned up nothing. The search went on, but nothing had come of it.
They were trying, of course, but even Deputy Chief Lisa Starling was unable to come up with much. Her promotion had pleased her. Privately, the deputy chief found it ironic that she now occupied the position that Peter DeGraff had once occupied. Even better, she was a young woman, and the man currently occupying the position of Section Chief would be retiring in the next five years. Lisa was patient; she could wait. Better to take the opportunity to serve as deputy chief, learn how to run the department as well as profile. When it came time, she would run Behavioral Sciences for the next twenty years, so long as she kept her nose clean.
Occasionally Lisa Starling would wonder what would happen if Susana Alvarez Lecter was ever caught. Memories of a tiny Argentine prison cell tormented her. But so far, things were calm, and her cousin had made things easy for her. There was no trace of Susana Alvarez Lecter to be found. Just as Hannibal Lecter had disappeared into the night after flying to Rio so many years ago, Susana had disappeared from her Buenos Aires mansion.
Tracking the Lecter fortune was right out. Hannibal Lecter had kept his money in a complex net of false identities and foreign banks. His daughter had made some adjustments to that web, and her vast personal fortune remained untraceable and incalculable. Careful sifting had turned up the Argentine investments that Dr. Lecter pere and fils had purchased, but Deputy Chief Starling could have told anyone who asked about that. Dr. Lecter had made those investments to quietly discourage the Argentine government from handing him over should he be caught, not to provide for his family or to hide his money. It was no more than a drop in the bucket, a red herring, and finding it meant nothing. But she let her co-workers run over it, excited, missing the forest of the Lecter fortune for the single tree they could find.
A week ago, an unsigned letter had arrived at Lisa's Alexandria condominium. It had contained only a telephone number to call. When Lisa had called it, she had reached a DC travel agent who informed her cheerily that she had a flight reservation and hotel reservation in Lisa's name. So Lisa had taken some leave and gone forth.
To here. Bern, Switzerland. Switzerland had always been neutral ground. Somehow, that was fitting. Here, on this neutral patch of ground, she could quietly meet and deal with her cousin. This had to be big. Susana had told her cousin she would likely never see her again at the Buenos Aires airport, and she wouldn't have broken that idly. Was she in danger of capture? Lisa's private nightmare was some dumb cop getting lucky and arresting Susana. Her freedom hung in the balance. If Susana was caught again, the world would become a much more miserable place for Lisa Starling.
But so far, things had been calm. Lisa cleared Customs after promising not to seek employment in Switzerland, just in case the small, neutral state decided to set up its own Behavioral Sciences department and wanted profilers. A cab brought her to her hotel, which in turn brought her to the suite in her name. Paid in advance, the concierge told her, with filet mignon from room service added in to boot. After the long flight and airline food, it was most welcome.
At the hotel, Lisa Starling sat and waited, not sure what she was waiting for. The time difference between Virginia and Switzerland was throwing her off. So she went to sleep extremely early, for her.
In the morning, she awoke to the sound of the telephone burring. It took a moment or two before she realized what it was. She grabbed the phone.
"Starling," she said, slurry with sleep.
A man's voice spoke in accented English. That surprised her.
"Starling, hello. Someone you know wants to speak with you. There will be a limousine at the lobby in twenty minutes. Be on it, please."
"What is this about?" Lisa asked. Her only reply was the dull moan of the dial tone.
Her curiosity was still not sated, so Lisa Starling showered and dressed. Walking down to the lobby, she noted several bellhops ready to assist her however she might need. She ignored them and continued outside. Parked outside the hotel was indeed a black stretch limousine. The driver stood by the door expectantly. In one hand he held a small sign reading STARLING lettered neatly in black marker. She approached him expectantly and cleared her throat.
"I'm Starling," she said.
"Ah, yes. Please do get in, ma'am," the driver said calmly. His voice was strongly accented.
Stepping into the limousine reminded her strongly of her last day in Argentina. Not for the first time, she wondered what the hell Susana had planned. Was this another stab in the back? No, that made hardly any sense. No reason to fly Lisa across the Atlantic to bust her. If that was Susana's goal, she could simply make a phone call from anywhere in the world and Lisa would be behind bars. But that made no sense; Lisa had left her be.
The limousine purred into traffic smoothly, cutting across the road with great skill.
"Do you know where we're going?" Lisa asked.
"A clinic," the driver answered. "It won't take long."
That made her wonder. Was Susana sick? Dying? It made hardly any sense. The driver wouldn't know much. She fidgeted in the luxurious back seat of the limo, waiting to get some answers.
Perhaps twenty minutes later, the limousine pulled up in front of a gleaming white building three stories high. Lisa Starling eyed it carefully. The driver scurried around, obedient servitor, to open her door. He made no move to accompany her into the clinic. Carefully, with some misgivings probing her gut, Lisa entered. It was a private clinic, pretty ritzy. Nurses in starched white uniforms pushed patients in silk dressing gowns here and there. An order of calm reigned over the place, unlike the chaotic large hospitals Lisa had known.
Lisa approached the desk and suddenly realized that she had no idea what name Susana was currently using. The receptionist behind the desk, a pretty young girl with severely plucked eyebrows, smiled helpfully as Lisa approached. She said something in a language Lisa didn't understand.
"Excuse me," Lisa said quietly. "Do you speak English?"
"Yes, ma'am, I do," the receptionist said. "May I help you?"
"I'm here to see…," Lisa thought. Couldn't be that hard. "Susana Alvarez?"
The receptionist consulted her computer and arched a brow in puzzlement. "I'm sorry," she said, her Swiss accent strong. "I have no one by that name here. One moment…there is a Suzanne Altier in room 340, is that who you mean?"
"I'm not sure," Lisa said, realizing how dumb she must look. "I'm here for my cousin, I just flew in from the States, and I'm kind of jet-lagged. I'm sorry."
"Ach so! Yes, Dr. Altier told us you would be coming. Room 340, please. The lift is just down the hall to your right."
Lisa entered the elevator, even more puzzled now than before. Susana was in the hospital? Were things this bad? The idea occurred to her that Susana might be dying. Perhaps she was going to let Lisa go free with her death, telling her where the evidence against her was. Lisa found her palms were trembling.
On the third floor, the nurse at the charge desk was helpful in pointing her down a secluded hall to room 340. Outside the room stood a large, bald man. He was trim and neat in his turtleneck and blazer. He stood when she came close and spoke accented English.
"You are Lisa Starling?" he asked calmly.
"Yes, I am," she said. "What's all this about, anyway?"
"You'll see," he said. "I'm not authorized to discuss it. Turn around, please, and raise your arms."
When Lisa complied, he frisked her calmly and competently. Lisa was slightly shocked to have a strange man running his hands down her thighs, but she knew he was just doing his job. Besides, her curiosity was piqued. Why Susana might want a bodyguard was quite simple. She was still on the FBI's Ten Most-Wanted List, after all. But what did all this mean? What was it about?
"You may go in," the bodyguard said calmly. Lisa opened the blindingly white door and entered. The room was quite large and private. For a hospital room, it was exceptional. Susana Alvarez Lecter lay in the bed, looking calmly at Lisa. She had adjusted the bed's tilt control so that she was sitting up. She looked slightly wan, but content.
"Well, you got here safe," Susana observed. "Thank you for coming, Lisa."
"Hello, Susana," Lisa said softly. "What…why are you in the hospital? Are you sick?"
"Sick? No, no, the last time I was sick was actually back in Virginia," Susana said calmly. "I'm just fine. Tired, though."
Lisa Starling blinked. "So…what?"
The door opened then. A nurse came in, smiling professionally. She pushed along a small metal cart with a plastic bed mounted atop it. She spoke calm Swiss German to Susana, who answered in French. She excused herself past Lisa and rolled the cart up to Susana's bedside. From it, she carefully lifted a swaddled bundle. She placed the bundle in Susana's arms, said something else, and then departed quickly.
Calmly, Susana undid the blanket swaddling the infant and removed the small cotton cap that had been on his head. The infant stirred in his mother's grasp. Susana held him up for Lisa's inspection.
"Him," she said calmly. "Guillaume Hannibal. Nine pounds, one ounce. Born yesterday, while you were in flight. Quite tiring, Lisa. If you have a child, go for the C-section, it's much more civilized. I was ready to give myself one, but they took away my OR privileges and kept sharp things away from me."
Lisa Starling's jaw dropped. She stared at the gurgling newborn, then back up to Susana. Then her mind did a quick subtraction, and she stared blankly and shook her head.
"You were…you were pregnant?"
Susana Alvarez Lecter shifted her infant son. "He's here, isn't he?"
"But through…through all that?" Lisa's knees suddenly felt weak. She saw a chair behind her and sat down hard. It suddenly dawned on her that this tiny infant was fatherless, and fatherless because of her.
"Enough of it," Susana said calmly. She arranged her infant to nurse. This appeared to get the newborn's interest, and he waved his arms and legs in excitement.
"My God," Lisa said. Her eyes were blank. "I killed his father, Jesus Christ, I didn't know…the poor little guy, he's going to hate me…if I'd known, I wouldn't have killed him."
Lisa stared at the floor. Poor kid, oh God, he was going to grow up knowing that she killed his father. If only she'd known. Maybe Taylor hadn't known himself. Had Susana told him? She forced herself to meet her cousin's eyes, shame and guilt roiling her.
"Ah Christ, I'm sorry, Susana. I didn't know he was…you were..,"
Susana Alvarez looked at Lisa with an expression of mild curiosity and amusemement on her face.
"I think your mea culpa is mistaken," she said. "Guillaume won't mind."
"I will," Lisa said. "Jeez, I can't believe it, I didn't know he was his father."
"You mean Luke?" Susana queried, a small, sidewise smile on her face.
"Yes! I mean Luke Taylor. The guy I shot down in Argentina."
"He's not Luke's," Susana Alvarez Lecter said simply.
Lisa Starling gawped at her cousin. For several moments, she stared blankly at the woman in the bed.
"Then…who?"
"He's named after his father," Susana said tactfully.
"Guillaume?" It took Lisa Starling a moment to recall high-school French class to remember what the English equivalent of the name was. Guillaume was…wait…Oh DEAR GOD!
If Lisa had been surprised to discover Luke was not the infant's father, discovering who was shocked her speechless for several minutes. Her face went completely slack. Her knees jellied. Fortunately, she was already sitting, otherwise she'd have spilled to the floor. She stared at Susana cradling her infant in her arms, Susana sitting there perfectly calmly.
"Will Graham?" Lisa whispered strengthlessly.
Susana nodded.
"But…how? And why?"
"How is easy," Susana said. "It was after I'd cut on him, when Luke was taking you into the bedroom. Luke didn't need to see. Neither did you. I must admit, Lisa, I cheated." She hung her head in mock shame and then grinned. "I brought along some drugs with me, and an electrical stimulator. Romance is all well and good, but when you're in a rush, all you need are the right drugs, the type that act on the lower spinal cord, and then you stimulate the prostate." She snapped her fingers. "Any age concerns I had were gone. He was old and dying, yes, but he performed. I took a sample afterwards, just in case, but the first one took." She smiled beatifically down at her infant.
Lisa Starling had comprehended perhaps one word in ten. "You…and Graham…," she gasped. "And…drugs? Electricity?"
"Yes, drugs and electricity," Susana said calmly. "Drugs to get things rolling and the stimulator to finish the job. I don't think you want to know the gory details, Lisa, so I'll spare you that."
"Why?" Lisa gasped.
"Why? That should be simple. In prison, after you told me that Mother had died, I knew I was alone. That was the worst part. Not being in lockdown, although I hated that, and not even knowing they were going to try and kill me by fair means or foul. Being alone, knowing nobody cared, that was the worst. Then, in Toronto, I had everything I could possibly want, and I was still alone. It didn't take me long to realize that Luke wasn't going to be the one. He was great for the time being, and he helped me accomplish…what I needed to do. But not for life, Lisa, I couldn't stand all the religion. I'm as picky on that as I am everything else, you know. I don't know if there is someone out there for me, Lisa, and in the meantime I can amuse myself with boy-toys to my heart's content. But I didn't want to be alone, and so I came to the idea of this."
Lisa shook her head, panting. She was feeling slightly more herself, able to process the monstrous shock.
"But why Graham?" she asked.
Susana chuckled. "Once I'd decided I wanted a child, the only thing was to find a father," she said. "More like a donor, I suppose. But I have very high standards, you know. Graham caught Papa. Papa told me he and Graham were just alike. That's about as high a recommendation as one can get. It's not like you could've done much on that score for me. So…I picked him."
"But then…why…you killed him," Lisa stammered.
Susana shrugged. "A challenge, but not insurmountable," she said indifferently. "Obviously."
Lisa Starling stared blankly and shook her head. "I can't believe it," she said.
Susana shrugged again. "The proof is here, before your eyes," she sighed. "What more do you need?"
"And you brought me here…to see this?"
"To see my son, yes," Susana replied. "Perhaps it might please you to know that I'm happy. Barring that, it might satisfy you to know that not everything of Will is gone. That's really all I wanted, Lisa."
It would remain very difficult for Lisa Starling to grasp that Susana had done this. That Susana was a mother. In some ways, it was as hard for her to think of Susana as a mother as it had been for Will Graham to think of Hannibal Lecter as a father. Even on the plane, heading back to the States, she could only shake her head and laugh.
But the kid was cute. She slipped the picture out of her pocket and looked at it. His eyes looked blue. Would they stay the bright blue of Will Graham's eyes, or would they change to maroon, like the Lecters? Staring at the picture, looking at her murderous cousin's child, she noticed something funny. It took her a moment to place it. The infant had six fingers on his left hand. How odd, she thought. Even that, passed down through two generations now.
Would he be a killer, too? Would he grow and relish in bloodshed and mayhem? Before him had come Hannibal Lecter, and Susana Alvarez Lecter. And now, Guillaume Hannibal Lecter. She remembered Will's last words. Those who come after. He had gotten to be one of those who came after. Now, his son – the son he had been forced to sire on Susana Alvarez Lecter, his only biological son – his son came after him.
…
A year passes quickly with an infant in the house.
It is said that the Argentines are a nation of Italians who speak Spanish and think they are British living in Paris. Much more European in outlook than other South American countries, Argentina Buenos Aires had always considered itself to be the Paris of South America. But the real thing suited her a great deal.
The FBI continued to hunt Susana Alvarez Lecter half-heartedly in South America. And that was just fine with the woman who moved into a palatial estate in the 16th arrondissement, regarded as the neighborhood for the wealthy. The 7th arrondissement is considered to be more exclusive, but it is also where many international residents live, and Dr. Suzanne Arsenault Lesage thought it better not to take chances. Besides, there was nothing at all that her home lacked. Equipped with the very best papers money could buy, Dr. Lesage has obtained a post at a private Paris clinic, very fancy, not unlike the one in Switzerland in which she gave birth to Guillaume H. Lesage. A live-in nanny assures that Guillaume is cared for while she is at work.
Dr. Lesage has found a peace here in Paris. Part of this is simply being kept busy – between her job and her son she has little time to indulge her darker tastes. Part of this, also, is the glamour and allure of Paris. Here, she can indulge her tastes for couture and fashion, for the fashion houses of Paris outshine everywhere else. Here, the French authorities refused for twenty years to extradite Ira Einhorn. This is a comfort to the doctor.
Dr. Lesage occasionally reads the American press, and appears to have some interest in the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit. In a scrapbook at home she has clipped out some newspaper articles about hunts for serial killers that the unit has successfully pulled off. In each one, the name of Deputy Chief Lisa Starling is mentioned. This hobby is not known to her co-workers and friends in Paris; it is conducted quietly in the privacy of her own home.
For his part, Guillaume Lesage begins the journey from infant to toddler in his own right. He learns that his hands – both five- and six-fingered are his own. He learns to crawl and then to walk. Guillaume Lesage's eyes remain bright blue, however, not the maroon of his mother and grandfather. As he tackles the weighty problems of blocks and his sorter, his small brow wrinkles and he resembles Will Graham poring over Francis Dolarhyde's file many years before his birth.
Predators make good parents; this is a surprising but true fact of the natural world. A lioness is all teeth and claws to her prey, ripping mercilessly into them in order to consume their bodies. Jackals raise their young communally and ensure that the pups eat first. So it was with Hannibal Lecter years ago in Argentina, and so it is now with Suzanne Arsenault Lesage in France. She makes as much time for her son as her career will allow. It is not a surprise that she has killed no one since arriving here.
And today is indeed a special day. Guillaume Hannibal Lesage is one year old today. A party is held in the vast back yard of the Lesage mansion, and the birthday boy is seated in his high chair at the head of a large table. Friends from his play group and co-workers of his mother have come to celebrate his birthday. His nanny on one side and his mother on the other, he seems to enjoy all the attention, even if he does not understand it.
The doorbell rings, and Dr. Lesage rises to answer it. The nanny is feeding the young boy a piece of his birthday cake. Dr. Lesage strides confidently through the hall to her front door and opens it. There, she stops and stares, her face blank with surprise at the woman standing on her doorstep. A blonde woman, her own height, her arms laden down with a wrapped gift for the boy.
Dr. Lesage takes a deep breath and notes that the woman is alone. There are no tell-tale vans parked along the street of expensive homes, nor the large rear-wheel sedans favored by American police, nor the smaller ones the French authorities prefer. But still…despite the hidden identity, despite her quiet, pleasant life, despite her lack of murdering those people she does not care for…she has been tracked down. Her heart begins to pound. Her eyes meet those of the other woman's. Can this be? After everything she has set up, can this be? Have her carefully laid plans been set at naught? Has Lisa found some way to slip the noose Dr. Lesage has laid for her should she ever be captured again?
"Gotcha," Deputy Chief Lisa Starling says, and grins. "Can I come in? It's his birthday, after all."
FIN
Author's notes:
Well, here we are…the longest thing I've ever written. I didn't plan it that way; it just sort of happened. Originally, it was just going to be Susana meets Luke and that was it. Then…well…the story just wasn't over. But it is now.
I'd planned this to be Susana's last go-round. But whether or not that will happen is questionable: she's been a fun character to write. (That and Saavik and Samantha Bridges started campaigning for her salvation when I mentioned ending the series here.) But it's been quite a trip, and I never thought it would go this long. But…there was just more story to tell.
Thanks to everyone who's read and reviewed and stuck it out this long.