Clarice Starling felt the 747 dip as it prepared to land at Kennedy Airport and found herself nervous. She was going to be in prison by the end of the night. Prison. She would be shut away from everything she had ever known. Even her name would be taken from her.
Oh, it'll be OK, she thought. The party had been a blast. She checked her paperwork. She had some paperwork in the name of Claire Hanson. The New York City field office would send someone to pick her up. They'd arrange for her personal effects to be stored. Then it was off to the Manhattan courthouse where she would be 'sentenced' and sent off to the prison.
This is important, she told herself. Even prisoners deserve to have some rights. Ardelia had told her how she really believed in this project. Clarice was a bit unsure. She'd always believed if you do the crime, you do the time. But she was here, and it was too late to back out now. Now she got to see the other side of the coin.
The plane landed. Clarice swallowed a bit nervously. Ox-like now that it was on the ground, the plane lumbered along the runway. She'd always hated this part. Hemmed in her seat, forbidden to get up by the plane's crew, while the damn thing puttered along at the speed of a moped. On the other hand, it was a few more minutes before she would be taken to a jail, tossed in a cell, and driven off to a state prison.
But eventually the plane made its way to the gate. Clarice tensed. First the first-class seats were let off the plane, and then those in coach like herself. Clarice shuffled through the tiny aisleway.
At the gate were a group of people in suits who held up a sign that read Starling. Normally, those greeting passengers were not allowed to meet at the gate, but that did not hold for FBI agents. Clarice walked up to them and smiled nervously.
"Hi," she said. "I'm Clarice Starling."
One of them, a tall fellow with thick black hair, extended his hand. "Hi," he said with a pronounced Brooklyn accent. "I'm Agent Paul DaSilva. This is Agents Markham, Bender and Fiorello."
Clarice shook hands with each in turn. They began walking down towards the gate, as Clarice did not have anything other than her carry-on with her. Agent DaSilva talked as they went.
"I understand you're going undercover," he said. "We're here to offer backup support, mostly. Seems you're going in all by yaself."
Clarice nodded. "More or less," she said tensely.
"Well, your hello line and your 'lawyer's office' line is gonna be handled by Agents Markham and Fiorello." He indicated the two agents standing beside him. One was a tall WASP-y looking guy; the other was a woman who looked Italian. "They'll also play your attorneys if you need a legal visit."
Clarice nodded again and felt vaguely nervous.
"What we're gonna do, Agent Starling, is run you down to the New York field office, get your stuff squared away, get you some lunch, and take you down in the afternoon to the Tombs."
A shiver ran down her spine at the sound of that word. "The Tombs?"
He nodded. "It's just the city jail in Manhattan," he said. "You'll be on a bus to Bedford Hills and on your way shawtly."
They made their way down to the car and fought traffic back to the FBI's field office in downtown Manhattan. The office was busy. Phones rang and agents ran up and down the aisles. Clarice realized suddenly that she had no real place here; she was a guest. It was the FBI, yes, but she had never been here before. No trace of Clarice Starling here in this place.
Agent Fiorello led her to an office. "Heah," she said in a friendly tone, "You can just leave your stuff heah. I'll keep it safe for you while you're on assignment."
Clarice nodded.
"Now c'mon," Agent Fiorello continued. Let's get you some lunch. Good meal before you go."
Clarice left her bag and her gun there. She found herself feeling uncomfortably naked without it. That comfortable weight on her hip was just…gone.
"You like Italian?" Agent Fiorello asked.
Clarice looked around her at the Mediterranean complexions and dark black hair of the agents around her. She smiled nervously.
"Sure, that's fine," she said.
She hoped the restaurant would be in Brooklyn or Queens. Or maybe Buffalo. Or Nevada; she wasn't picky. But the New York agents brought her down to the ground floor and then they walked a few blocks up the street. There was a small restaurant on the ground floor. Clarice sighed.
"You'll like this place," Agent DaSilva said.
It was a small, cozy sort of place. They sat Clarice down and examined the menus. Clarice didn't know a lot about Italian food. She examined the menu soberly.
"What do you recommend?" she asked.
DaSilva shrugged. "Chicken marsala's good, if you like marsala," he said.
Clarice decided to try that.
"So," she said. "Do you come here a lot?"
"Oh, yeah. Good food here." He grinned.
"What sort of stuff do you do here in New York?" she asked.
He shrugged. "The usual, I guess. We've been mopping up the Families – the Mob. They're nowhere near what they were. But there are other guys who come up in their place – United Bamboo, the Russians. Jeez, the Russians drive ya nuts. This prison project you're on, now that's a little different."
Clarice sighed. "Yeah, it is," she said. "Some senator's pet project. I dunno. I mean, even prisoners ought to have some rights."
"Gonna be tough," DaSilva observed. "Even Bedford Hills can be a tough facility. That's the max security prison for women in this state."
"Tell me about it," Clarice said.
Their food arrived quickly. Clarice was surprised at the amount of food. Was she supposed to eat all this? Herself? Then it occurred to her that once in prison she wouldn't get a meal like this for a while. She delved into the slab of chicken, mushrooms, and marsala sauce with gusto. It was rich and very good.
"You know," DaSilva said, "let us know if you need us. For anything."
Clarice nodded. "Thank you," she said. "I will."
It seemed almost before she knew it, the meal was done and the coffee had been finished. DaSilva checked his watch.
"We gotta get you over to the Tombs and checked in," he said.
Clarice's stomach twinged.
"Now?' she asked.
"Yep," Agent DaSilva said. "Oh, look, it's not that bad. I worked undercover. I know it's not gonna be fun, but you'll be fine. It's not half so bad as you think. You'll see."
Clarice smiled nervously. "Easy for you to say," she quipped. With that, she was brought back out to the car and whisked off to the jail in Manhattan. She didn't have any jewelry except her watch and her suit was pretty simple. In her hands she had her self-surrender paperwork. The other FBI agents went with her to the self-surrender window. Clarice gulped a bit nervously.
A bored-looking man in a police uniform eyed her as she approached. She could feel her palms beginning to sweat. Part of her told her this was silly; here she was, an FBI agent. This wasn't real. In thirty to sixty days she was going to be pulled out of here. It was unlikely that anyone else in this jail would be getting out so quickly.
"Hi," she said nervously. "I'm Claire Hanson. I'm here to…umm…surrender, I guess."
"Okay," the man said, and stuck out a flabby hand for her paperwork. Clarice handed it to him.
"Hey, Parker," the man caroled. A woman in the same uniform came up. "Here, we got to process in this one. Self-surrender, heading for…let's see…Bedford Hills. We can get her on a bus this afternoon." His eyes floated back to Clarice, piggy and small.
"OK, now listen up," he said. "You're in custody as of…now." He stamped a seal on the form as if to indicate that she was no longer free. "Go with the guards, do what you're told, you'll do fine. Kick up a fuss and you'll regret it."
Clarice nodded, already wishing she could call a halt to this. Maybe the New York agents would hear her if she screamed loud enough. But no, she couldn't turn back now. The female guard ended the internal debate by grabbing Clarice's elbow and marching her into a small room further down the hall. She handed Clarice a plastic basket with a number on it.
"OK," the guard said. "Put your clothes in the bag, then we'll give you a uniform. Then you go down for a physical and a shower."
Clarice waited for a moment before realizing the woman meant to watch. That gave her a bit of pause. For her part, the guard cracked her gum disinterestedly.
"C'mon, I haven't got all day," the guard said irritably.
Nervously, Clarice shucked her suit and put it in the basket. The guard nodded, took the basket, and left the room. The door clicked shut behind her. The guard returned a moment later. Trembling, Clarice noticed that the guard had a rubber glove on.
"Are you gonna…," Clarice trailed off.
The guard smiled humorlessly. "Yup," she said. "Just hold your breath, bend over, it'll be over in a sec."
Clarice submitted, her face burning with shame. Tears of humiliation rose to her eyes. The guard had the good grace to get it over as quickly as she could, not drawing it out. After shucking the glove, she searched Clarice's hair and mouth before presenting her with an orange coverall. Clarice put it on, feeling oddly like she had lost her face. The guard handcuffed Clarice. She was a prisoner now. Then the guard brought Clarice down to another small room for photographs and fingerprints.
Once that was done, Clarice was presented to an equally bored doctor for a quick medical examination. She was quizzed desultorily if she was on any medications, if she was suicidal, and if she was pregnant. She answered no to all three.
After that, Clarice was taken to a holding cell. There were seven other women in the cell with her. The door clanged shut behind Clarice.
"Okay," the guard said to the women in the cell. "Bus for Bedford Hills is in a few hours. Sit tight."
She walked away, leaving Clarice to her own thoughts.
For a few moments, Clarice wondered what would happen to her. The other prisoners eyed her warily. Were they new to this, like she was? She stared at the cell door, sitting on a bunk, and waited.
What would happen now? What if they found out she was FBI? Would the prisoners believe that she was here to see that they were protected, or would they simply think 'cop'? Two of the women were engaged in desultory conversation. Clarice kept her head down and her mouth shut. Would they feed them or make them wait?
What was 'Delia doing? Was she at home? How much longer did she have until she went off to prison? For a moment Clarice wished she could call her. She might let something slip. Besides, none of the other women said anything about phone calls.
So she sat in the cell for a few hours until a bunch of guards came down.
"Awright, ladies," one of them said sardonically. "Line up, come out of the cell one by one. We're gonna cuff you and take you down."
Clarice stood with the rest and shuffled out when it was her turn. She was third in line. The guards grabbed her wrists, pulled them behind her back, and cuffed her with a quick rttttch of the lock. A click to double-lock them, a quick poke of the finger between her cuffs and her wrists to ensure they weren't too tight. She felt rather like a cow being processed for the slaughterhouse. The prisoner in front of her wore a leg shackle on one ankle; the other shackle hung free. The male guard grabbed it and locked it around Clarice's ankle. He attached another above it, so now Clarice was at the end of the chain gang. The next prisoner would be shackled behind her. He patted her behind once and she gasped and clenched her hands.
"Okay, sweetheart, you're all set," he said.
She turned around and looked at him. He seemed not to be bothered in the least by what he had just done. He simply went on to the next prisoner. She tried to catch his badge number but was unable to.
You son of a bitch, she thought. Sure enough, the next prisoner got her butt patted too.
Once the entire set of women had been shackled in line, they were trooped down to a waiting elevator. There was hardly enough room for them all. Clarice found herself wedged at the back of the elevator, fighting for air. But they were brought down to a waiting bus with wire screens over the windows. One by one, they were unshackled from the line, their ankles cuffed together, and brought up onto the bus. Clarice was seated in the back.
The bus stank of sweat and exhaust fumes. Clarice sighed and waited. Her nose itched, but she couldn't possibly reach it. After the prisoners had all been loaded, the bus idled for a while more. Clarice sighed. The woman next to her eyed her curiously but said nothing.
Finally, the bus was underway. The drive to the prison took about two hours. It would be quicker, Clarice thought, if the bus driver actually cared about getting up to highway speed. She glanced out the window and saw people gawping at the bus as they passed by in their cars. For just a moment Clarice found herself wishing that she was down there, instead. In her own car, staring up at a mesh screen and the woman staring out behind it. Down there in the free world. But she wasn't; she was here.
Finally, the bus pulled up at the prison. It stopped at the gate and rattled in with a loud grinding of gears. The guards got up and cleared their throats.
"All right, you bitches," one of them said. "We've arrived. Get on your feet and out the door. Time's a-wasting!"
It took a while to offload all the prisoners, and Clarice was sitting towards the back. But finally she got off the bus and back into line. The foreboding gray walls of the penitentiary loomed overhead.
She had arrived.
…
Isabelle Pierce shifted and awoke with a groan. She lay on a stretcher with a blanket pulled up around her shoulders. Her eyes fluttered open. At her bedside was her doctor.
"Good evening," the woman she knew as Elaine Litton said. "You've been asleep for a bit."
"Urgh," the detective groaned. For some reason, she kept thinking of the cannibal murders. She'd had the strangest dream. In it, Clarice Starling had been quizzing her on the cannibal murders, just as she might have expected in the classes she'd attended at the FBI. So, Detective Pierce, tell me about the cannibal murders…have you identified a suspect? What's your profile look like? I see…go on.
"Your surgery went well," the surgeon said. "I got all the bullet fragments. You should be just fine."
Detective Pierce stared at the small woman and nodded.
"You'll be groggy," Erin Lander said. "That's OK. The nurses will take you back to your room now."
A nurse appeared as if on cue and began to wheel Isabelle back to her room. For her part, she simply lay back against the back of the stretcher and stared around her somewhat confusedly. Her chest felt numb. She'd been expecting horrible scars, but Dr. Litton had told her they would go in through small holes rather than slice her open and make a huge scar.
The nurse helped her into her bed and smiled cheerily.
"Now get some rest," the nurse urged. Isabelle Pierce did not need her to suggest that; she was still groggy and didn't exactly feel up to going for a jog. "Are you hungry? I can find you something to eat."
"Not right now," Isabelle said, and her throat felt parched. "Perhaps some water."
"Righto," the nurse said, and left.
Isabelle Pierce lay in her bed and sighed. Something was up. She knew that even groggy and still half doped-up from her surgery. She was a keen detective, sharp and intuitive. She groped for it as she stared at the television – turned off – at the foot of her bed.
That was it. Why was Dr. Litton there at her bedside? That wasn't normal. One would expect her aftercare to be dealt with by the nurses, not the surgeon.
Perhaps she was out of surgery and just dropped by. It's nothing.
She lay back in her bed and stared bleary-eyed. The upper wall of her room was made with a glass wall, so that the nurses could keep an eye on their patients from outside. There was no door.
The clicking of footsteps came nearer. Isabelle glanced over at the clock. It was quite late, actually. 11 PM. Her surgery must have taken longer than she thought. A man walked down the hall. He wasn't medical; she could tell that right off the bat. He wore a suit and tie. His imperious carriage made him seem taller than he actually was.
He caught the attention of one of the nurses.
"Pardon me," he said. "Can you tell me where Dr. Litton is?"
The accent was slightly odd to her ears. It sounded somewhat like Dr. Litton's crisp American accent, but with a touch of British in there. He pronounced the 'R' as she did, not like Dr. Litton herself. For a moment she thought slowly how different the word 'surgery' sounded when Dr. Litton said it. The nurse seemed not surprised to see him.
"Oh, yes, you're her husband, aren't you?" the nurse asked.
"Yes, I am," he said.
"She's just getting changed, Dr. Litton. She'll be right out."
"I see. Thank you, we've got opera tickets tonight."
"Yes, she'll be right out," the nurse said.
Isabelle Pierce stared at the man's profile outside her room. He waited out in the hall patiently. Catching sight of her looking at him, he smiled politely and dipped his head in a nod.
A few moments later, she could hear the click of heels approaching the man.
"I'm sorry, Hamilton," Dr. Elaine Litton said, "I was just checking in on a patient." She had changed into a dress now. Isabelle Pierce thought she looked pretty good, all things considered.
Yet as the footsteps receded, she found a word forming on her lips and a vague memory of Quantico. Clarice Starling standing at the head of the class, and a merciless, pale face on the projector screen.
"Dr. Hannibal Lecter," Isabelle Pierce murmured.
