When Will opened his eyes he found a stranger beside him on the roof. The officer stood long and bony and pale as a deep-sea fish. His uniform was dark with patches of frozen blood.

"Thank you for coming to my office on such short notice, Mister Graham."

"Who are you?"

"I am Mister Hobbs. I am in charge of the Reich's subterranean penal colony. You wished to speak with me?"

"Subterranean?"

"Rocket factories powered by slave labor at the bottom of old gypsum mines. Don't bother looking. You won't find us. What was your real question?"

"I want-"

"Yes I already know. You want to escape? How boring. Tell me, how do you plan to get out?"

"Someone is going to steal Officer Chilton's mask and uniform for me, and with it I'll walk out the front gate."

"What a terrible idea."

Will turned away, gazing out at the forest all frosted with snow. Hobbs kept his face in shadow, suggesting he too was deformed like the other men at Camp Mullerin.

"Are you in a big hurry to get home, Mister Graham?"

"I've been de-coding radio relays out of Moscow, the Russians are coming in..." Will tapped his fingertips, unsure of what day of the week it was, "Four days."

"And perhaps you'd like to elope with your therapist?"

"I never-

"So you are Lecter's new patient. Not very smart of you. He's very handsome, yes? He seduced four of my best scientists, I'm thinking of forming a string quartet."

Will rubbed his face, not sure if Hobbs were part of another dream or not. He waited for someone to flip on a light to wake him. "Can Lecter help me escape?"

"No one's escaped this place."

"Could he?"

"Nothing is free, Mister Graham."

"What does that mean?"

The moon came out from behind a cloud and Will saw Hobbs clearly for the first time, his uniform decorated with medals, his eyes filmed over like a snake. "I've known Lecter a long time, Mister Graham. He used to work with Spetsnaz. Russian special forces. A greater assembly of daredevils you will never meet, plucked from the northern wastes whenever the Reich has need of godly muscle and ungodly intelligence. The commander sends me a bottle of Glenrothes 18 every Christmas. You know what Spetsnaz do with their lovers?" said Hobbs, not blinking those dead eyes, "They eat them."

Will was about to ask what the hell that meant when two pig masks appeared over the edge of the roof and buried an axe in the shingles between Will's feet. He lept up and hove toward higher ground. The guards squealed with bloodlust, swinging the blade and carving out chunks of chimneys in their path as Will navigated the maze of rooftops and hid behind a grate.

The piggy guards lost interest and took to taking potshots at deer in the courtyard instead. They had terrible aim. The local wildlife was so used to gunfire that the deer did not once raise their heads.

Will snuck back into the dormitory in time for his wake-up call. When last he looked in Hobbs' direction all he saw was a pair of eyes atop a column of smoke, quickly dissipating in the soft purple twilight of dawn.

TO BE CONTINUED