As they were instructed, late in the previous evening they were waiting outside the hotel at the prescribed time. At Six AM sharp a vehicle pulled-up and confirmed their identities. The drive was tense, and Misato considered breaking the silence several times, though she could never muster any real willingness to speak. They were unceremoniously dropped off at the front of the imposing building.
As a young female staffer lead her and Shinji inside, she noticed the inside was only marginally less imposing. The reason for the softer tone of the room was soon recognized to be a few pieces of modern art hung on the wall. The pieces seemed out of place for such a corporate lobby, and it would not be a stretch to assume their only purpose was to liven up the otherwise dreary room. A quick check of their passports and they received their visitor IDs.
"You'll both be escorted upstairs once Agent Crawford is ready for you. Please take a seat anywhere you like." The lady's tone was respectful and sullen as if she had been told the reason for their visit. Well, they probably don't get a lot of tourists. Misato mused as she sat with Shinji in the recently familiar silence. After a few long minutes, the elevator door opened, and a large man in a dark suit approached them in a confident stride.
"Ma'am, I'm Special Agent Jack Crawford," they shook hands.
"I'm Misato Katsuragi and this is Shinji." Crawford shook Shinji's hand then looked back to Misato.
"Does he speak English?" Crawford asked.
"Only a little bit, but I'll let him know what's going on."
Crawford gestured to the elevator. "Good. Now c'mon let's get you both up to my office. I've got some of the best people trying to find her."
Shinji kept a distant stare the whole ride up. Misato noticed Crawford take a few speculative glances at Shinji. She was also worried about the boy. Worried tremendously, she knew the only way she could snap him out would be to find Asuka. Finding her had to be Misato's only focus now.
As Crawford led them down the hall, she finally asked a nagging question she had. "Agent Crawford why'd the FBI pick up this case so quickly?" Crawford answered by opening the door to his office to reveal a gathering of two people, one new and one familiar.
"Dr. Lecter let us know you needed help. With all of you guys' international standing, once Dr. Lecter tipped us off, I knew my higher ups would want us to get involved early."
"But how—"
"I am an occasional consultant for the FBI," Lecter said answering her unfinished question.
"Since you both have already met, I'll just introduce you to Will Graham," Crawford said.
Once subdued pleasantries were exchanged, Crawford gave Misato an update. She would have considered Graham cute if they had met under different circumstances.
"Local police haven't found a trace of her. We think we had her on a traffic cam by the description you gave." Crawford turned his computer screen so she could see the video.
"Yeah...that's her" She had to quickly bury pangs of guilt regarding the last words she and Asuka had exchanged.
"Unfortunately, we weren't able to get any leads in that area," Crawford said, "but the agent's I've got on the ground are still working." The room was silent aside from a couple clicks from Crawford's mouse.
"Who knew you came to the United States?" Lecter asked. It was a question she knew would come eventually.
"And... who would have had access to your travel plans and records, we can't eliminate just people you told," Graham added.
"There was only one person I told, and I didn't even give her any details. I booked everything myself."
"There could have been some sort of security breach," Graham pointed out. He was becoming less attractive.
"NERV security is some of the best in the world, there's no way any issues were external. It had to be someone inside." And when I find them! Misato noticed Graham nod at Shinji.
"Tell him everything is going to be all right. That we're going to find her." Graham requested while looking towards her. Before she could translate Shinji stepped towards Graham and nodded again. Graham might be moving back into her good graces, but Shinji piercing stare nearly made her shutter. He'll never forgive me if somethings happened to her.
"I'll ask my deputy director to launch an investigation. In the meantime, I'm going to go out with your agents Mr. Crawford, and look for her," Misato said.
"I understand—"
"It's okay doc I've got it," Crawford cut Lecter off, "Miss Katsuragi, the best thing you can do now, and I mean it, is to run your organizations investigation right here in this office."
"Ritsuko can handle it, I'd rather—"
Crawford raised a hand. "It's great you have faith in your people, but if this thing being an inside job is what we're working off of. You need to be at the point of most friction and that's your organization. I'll get on our trafficking people and see what they can turn-up."
She looked up at the ceiling and placed her arm around Shinji. "I see your point. But you better get your people to work."
"They're already out there, now it's just a waiting game. Until anything changes you both make yourselves comfortable, I'll get an extra desk brought in here so you can get started yourself." Crawford motioned towards two chairs before getting on the phone, while Graham and Lecter left the room in quiet conversation. Her life already felt like moving through sand. By taking this trip across the world, that sand had become quicksand. Every passing second and the sand seemed to give even faster.
The maze. A concept reduced to carnivals and children's menus in the average consciousness. The maze, one of the few illustrations useful in concept and practice, in philosophy and practicality. So much of understanding is escaping the maze, so much of success is creating a situation where defeat for one's advisories is inescapable. A maze might be constructed in a multitude of ways, none without resources. What is lacking in one category must be atoned for in another. Intellect covering for poverty and power negating a lack of foresight.
Lecter had always felt the law preferred the maze. The walls did not have to be thick to watch them scurry. He stood near a tree in a remote hidden space. Fiction would deem this the perfect location for the incoming transaction, but fiction was only given the approval by practical reasoning.
His car was tucked away in a shallow opening between some large rocks and a hill. It was liable to be dented just as the suit he wore was certain to be stained.
A van moved closer along the endless straight road at a pace below the speed limit though not slow enough to induce a second glance. The vehicle stops about a hundred feet from Lecter and forty feet from the pre-arranged meeting spot. Once the van pulled off the road, it slashed a tire and set-up a glow stick designed to direct traffic away from the side of the road. One of the two men begins the token replacement while the other keeps watch. It does not take the man long to spot Lecter. It takes only a moment longer to recognize him as his former therapist.
Peiter Carmov's stunned look turns to fear then anger, then back to fear as the doctor approaches. "Children raised by wolves become indistinguishable from the pack. Perhaps I haven't lost my inner child."
"Well, what the fuck is this all about—is this some kinda set-up!? You fuckin' workin' for the fucking police!?" Carmov drew a handgun on Lecter, his eyes quickly left his target to glance at the time on his right wrist.
"I'm not here as a representative of the law. I'm here as just another one of your clients, ready to compensate your unique service well," Lecter said.
The man smiled slightly at Lecter and said, "I only took one lick of her, other than that, all your instructions were followed. She's all yours to enjoy."
The other man, a taller, better look man joined his partner and motioned for Lecter to hand over the money in the bag he had been carrying. Lecter pointed towards the van with the implication he would hand over the money where it could be counted in safety. Matt Gortist nodded in agreement.
Upon entering the van, the transaction was proceeding with as much integrity as could be assumed by the quality of the pluming company uniforms and freshly painted van the kidnappers used for their legitimate profession. All was accounted for. All except the pension of the human eye to follow movement.
Lecter tossed the bag at the unarmed Gortist, and with a flash of movement more akin to a predator with prey within its grasps than anything human, disarmed Carmov. The firearm only resided in Lecter's position for a few heart beats before it bludgeoned the face of Gortist who had been reaching for a gun tucked away in the van.
As Gortist writhed in pain, Lecter's former patient took a swing with his still free right hand. Lecter blocked the swing and countered by slamming the man's head against the wall of the van, before throwing him to the ground and biting into his jugular.
Blood defiled Lecter's suit and his moment to savor the taste in his mouth was cut short by a kick to the ribs. The tall man's face was just as blood soaked as Lecter's, though his countenance bore more desperation considering the blood he wore was his own. The man swung a metal pipe at Lecter's head which was more threatening in concept than in action as the concussed man's strike was handily brushed aside.
After a few more hapless swings Lecter was able to disarm the man, and with his own use of improvised weaponry (in the form of an X-acto knife) the man was dying after two incisions. Lecter's medical training was sufficient to make one slash enough for the lethal outcome. The demands of illusion made the first slash a necessity. A fact Lecter alluded to as the dying man writhed in pain. "Your sufferings a function of cleanliness not sadism."
Lecter took one final bite out of Carmov, who was already losing the battle to keep his throat from hemorrhaging blood. It's better he can't scream, the doctor thought.
It did not take more than a few moments to find the bag which hosted Asuka's unconscious body, it was quicker still to toss one wad of money under the driver's seat. The next task was to clean the van of any identifying markings. Once that task was complete Lecter took a quick glance outside the van and made his way back to his vehicle both bags in hand. The maze was constructed. His suit was a worthwhile offering.
There was almost always an amount of comfort she felt waking up from being asleep. A warm blanket and pillows usually padded even the most visceral nightmares. This setting was completely devoid of any comforts. Her last memory seeing a pipe fall on a man. The disorientation she felt only increased as she fully opened her eyes to find she was hanging upside down. Her next discovery was the moment she tried to use her hands and found them tied behind her back, her necklace no longer around her neck, her neural connecters removed from in her now loose hair. She winced at a growing pain in her ankles, a pain made worse by the fact that there would be no relief forthcoming. As if her mind had saved the most mortifying revelation for last, she suddenly realized her clothes had been removed.
"There'll be an end to the embarrassment soon," Lecter said. Asuka's eyes darted across the room as she was slowly lifted by the chains.
"It—it's you! What the fuck do you want! You're some pervert aren't you? Let me down! You'll pay for doing this to me!" Asuka (flickering between English and German) felt too weak to speak at the volume she would have under different circumstances. He's gonna rape me...if he hasn't already.
She was determined not to cry. "What the hell are you wearing?" Asuka asked about the white covering Lecter wore.
"Why...for the same reason there's a tarp on the floor. There are no stupid questions but some only waste time." Lecter said as he stepped forward with a butcher's knife in hand and slid a barrel under Asuka.
As she was lowered, she still fought to have her say. "Why are you doing this? You're a monster! You never wanted to help us or probably anyone else you sick bastered!" Her tone was a mix of fury and desperation.
"There is always a sacrificial nature to help. Your particular illness only has one cure. Have you heard of bloodletting?" If even if she wanted to respond Lecter continued speaking. "The practice was maligned, used to illustrate the sophistication of modern medicine. Yet there's always a bit of truth to those old ways. The practice of bloodletting is always effective if taken all the way."
She was inside the large plastic barrel, its echoing effects magnifying her voice.
"I'm not sick! I just—"
"You push people away so they can prove that they'll stay." Lecter interrupted her while reaching into the bucket and placing the knife on her neck.
This is it, she thought. She only had a few moments to consider who she could have been and the life she could have lived. She was already great, but she could have been extraordinary. She could have changed the world; she could have loved and been loved. It brought her some twisted satisfaction, that two people might miss her. The possibility Shinji might not stop looking for her. In these last moments, she would have traded the universe for what Misato called a 'family' moment.
She always said she hated those moments. She was a born liar, she had to be to deceive her brilliant self so often. Now all she wanted was a chance to call herself out in front of the people who mattered. Deep down she knew her desire would only be realized if she had any options. None presented themselves. I won't cry. I won't cry.
"Please don't! Please—"
The pleading ceased. Once the blood stopped dripping, Lecter began the process of skinning and preservation.
