Chapter Five:
Harry, Abe and Shirley struggled through the throng of press and public gathered on the courthouse steps. Questions and threats whirled around them. Shirley didn't see the point of grandstanding statements to the press and had decided to avoid one now. The only person who needed to hear a statement from her was the judge.
They'd argued about this in the car. "This is the age of the court of public opinion," Harry had told her, but she held firm.
Besides, Branson Scott was saying enough for both of them. Through the crowd of journalists, Shirley could see the shine off the prosecutor's glossy hide.
The defense team of Torres the drug kingpin was coming up the stairs from the other direction and they were no shaggy-haired bunch of leftover liberals. They too stopped to speak with the press, creating a distraction. Lecter's attorneys scurried past, hardly noticed.
They stopped once they cleared security, waiting for Scott and his team.
"Should we check on Lecter?" Harry asked.
Shirley knew he burned with curiosity to see the man in the flesh. Before she could give him the chance, a sheriff's deputy approached them and said, "Folks, just wanted to let you know that your client's here and has been put in a secured room that's a holding cell. They'll bring him in when the court room's ready."
Scott came prancing up, his thick waistline puffed out, followed closely by his assistant Hansen. Before the lead prosecutor could give whatever bon-mot quivered on his lips, gunfire broke out somewhere in the building, booming through the halls.
"What the fuck?" probably wasn't what Scott had intended to say.
Abe drew Shirley to his side. The deputy quickly checked his radio. Various cops began running through the halls, popping in and out of doorways like gophers.
"What's going on?" Harry said.
The deputy replied, "I'm not sure but let's get you into this office." He herded all the lawyers into one room and closed the door firmly behind them.
Harry backed to the wall. "Why're we trusting these guys?"
"Shut up, you commie," snapped Scott, even as he began to sweat profusely.
Before the argument could continue, the deputy was back. "Calm down, folks. His voice was low and steady, but his eyes flickered like sped up film. "It looks like Torres' buddies have shown up, thinking they'd bust him out. They got nailed, and now they're trying to shoot their way out. They're up on the fourth floor. We've got SWAT teams coming in, so as long as you stay in here-I'm gonna put a guy on the door-you're going to be fine."
"You're leaving us?" Hansen whined, clutching at his sleeve.
The deputy showed his open disgust. "I tol' you, there's a guy on the door. I've got civilians pinned down upstairs." He was gone.
Special Agent Cartwright himself had escorted Lecter to the courthouse, along with three state troopers. Now they were all crammed into a tiny holding cell, made even smaller because no one wanted to stand close to the doctor. The officers listened to the back and forth of action on their walkie-talkies. Only their prisoner remained calm and disinterested.
Cartwright's walkie-talkie squawked, a garbled, high voice calling him.
This is dispatch, do you copy?
"Yeah," he said, tense.
How many men have you got there?
"Four."
Bring 'em out; you're needed on the third floor. We need all the back-up we can muster on a hostage situation.
"I can't leave the prisoner alone, copy."
There was more crackling. All right, three.
Cartwright looked at Lecter, almost napping in his restraints. "Can do. I'll leave one. Copy."
All three junior officers exchanged worried glances and Jackson slumped his shoulders when his superior told him he'd stay behind. "Don't open this door for anyone," he ordered the young man before hurrying away.
The trooper carefully locked the door and flipped the snap open on his holster. Lecter blinked as though waking.
"We meet again," he said.
"Don't say anything," Jackson replied.
"All righty." Lecter's eyelids drooped again and he barely mumbled, "She's...coming."
"What?" Jackson asked, but the doctor had fallen asleep.
"It's gonna be fine," Abe said in his best imitation Southern accent and Shirley adored him all over again.
She wanted to kiss him, badly, but knew better, lodged in this room with the prosecution. Yearning for any contact, she quickly reached up and brushed her fingertips along his lips, a gesture that could be assumed as wiping away some crumbs-and stopped.
Mental pictures flipped forward-
'She won't lie...'
Tears, caught on pale eyelashes. 'I'm not afraid of him.'
'It's you who may be inconvenienced by bringing Doctor Lecter out of his cell.'
A heavy head, cradled by thin, strong fingers...those fingers stroking his lips-
"Shit! Shit! Shit!" Russell started hollering. The men already jumpy, began questioning her, but she had no time. She pushed her way to the door and pounded on it. "Guard! Guard!"
A nervous rookie deputy flung the door open. "What's wrong!?"
"She's breaking him out!" Russell babbled.
He looked at her as though she were deranged. "They're working on the Torres breakout now."
Russell shook her head in frustration. "No, no! Somehow, Starling's set this up! She's breaking Lecter out! You have to stop them!"
Jackson's walkie-talkie called him. "Yeah, Jackson here," he said into his shoulder.
We have an EMT trapped back behind the firing line. Can she take refuge in there?
"I dunno about that, I've got a murderer in here."
There's firing going on, deputy. She's pinned down in your hall.
The young trooper looked at the reassuring chair holding the quiet man fast. "All right," he said.
The voice sounded satisfied. Great. She's going to give two sharp knocks, then one more. Don't let anyone else in.
"Got it."
Jackson dared to lean close to his prisoner but he seemed almost catatonic. The rapping came on the door. The trooper cracked it slightly, his gun drawn. Once open, he could hear the splatter of distant gunfire. A female EMT, her face white and frightened under a dark cap, peered back.
"Thank you so much-please, please-" she babbled.
He turned, keeping an eye on Lecter. "Come in, but for God's sake, stay back from this man-" When he felt the prick at his buttock, he looked back, confused. He knew that woman; that was the pretty lady with the big gun-now the gun was in his face and his own pistol fell from his limp grasp.
Starling caught Jackson to ease his way to the floor. Flinging the door open, she yanked a gurney into the room.
Without looking at Lecter, she asked, "Does that thing have an easy way to turn off?" meaning the chair's mechanism.
"It's a code, but unfortunately, I haven't been able to discern it."
As she crouched behind the chair to check the device, he said, "I will admit, Clarice, I had been suffering some faint concern as the days slipped by. I would have hated our journey to end so mundanely with me strapped down, taking the needle, while you cried behind the two way glass."
"Who's saying I'd be crying?" she said, flipping her medic's case open to reveal a number of non-medical items. "Sorry about your frettin', but I'm still learning this breaking-out thing."
She rooted out a large pair of wire cutters from under three full gun clips. "I dunno know about this, Doctor, what do you think?" she asked, holding them up.
"Do it," he said.
She snipped a large cable leading from the motor to the body of the chair and although sparks flew, it went silent. She unclamped the first arm and let him finish as she dug in the case again.
"I've got the ambulance on the other side of the police lines. We're going to have to brave it through." She tossed out some bandages and a baggie full of stage blood. " Here. Let's dress you up as a facial gunshot victim."
Sniffing the contents of the bag, Lecter glanced down at the unconscious guard. "The real thing plays so much better," he suggested.
"Get up on the gurney," she said, ignoring his remark.
He vaulted into position and began slathering his face. She started to buckle him in. With blood streaming down his features, he said, "I'd really prefer you not do that. I've just gotten free."
"No, it has to be this way," she said, her expression grave and he felt a prick at his hip. He struggled, smearing the blood on her face as she pinned him back down, but lethargy overcame him quickly. She finished fastening the straps across his prone body.
She wiped her face clean, ignoring his quiet murmur: "Clarice...Clarice." His eyelids were the last part to relent, finally sliding shut over his pale eyes, blank as sun-struck windows. For only the second time in their acquaintance, Clarice Starling had truly surprised Hannibal Lecter.
The End, Continued in Ring of Fire