Author's Chapter Notes:
Unbeta'd as usual. The real note is at the bottom, because it contains spoilers.
OOO
It was in the moment that she saw Nunez planted at the end of the corridor that she knew things were not quite right. While, given the day's events thus far, this was not very surprising, Harley was less than pleased upon making this registering the look on his face, her heart sank somewhere lower than her shoes (though at this point she didn't think it could make it much farther down).
He did not give her a chance to speak, words instead escaping in a torrent.
"They've got him, they've got him."
"What!?" she nearly screamed. It was luck there was no one around to hear.
"The MP's, they came and got him almost an hour ago. They've got him in some room down on the first floor. There was nothing I could do about it," he said quickly.
"What were you going to do? What could you really have done?" she asked quietly, managing to sound much calmer than she felt. "What do they know?"
"How in the hell am I supposed to know?" he snapped. "I'm not even sure what I know. I don't know what's going on. He got to Nubby before they got to him. He's in your office. You better hurry and go talk to him. You never know where those bastards are."
She nodded quickly, gripped his shoulder firmly as she passed. He squeezed her hand tightly in his desperation, knuckles grinding together for a moment, then let her go, tossing his hand quickly over his shoulder.
"Go on, hurry up. They come this way, I'll hold them up. They come that way, you're just fucked."
OOO
It was with a suspiciously large crash that she found and opened the door to her office, shutting it quickly behind her. The rays of sunlight through the bay window caught on a thousand tiny motes of dust in the air. Her computer monitor had been shoved aside on the desktop, papers scattered across the floor beneath two discarded ceiling tiles. Directly ahead of her she saw a gangly pair of legs wrapped thinly in hospital pajamas. His single arm pulled in vain upon a long wire that disappeared somewhere into the ceiling.
Stepping closer, her gaze fell upon a shattered processor on the floor, eyes widening.
"Is that—"
"It's not yours," he said, before she could finish, glancing down at her briefly.
"It came from up there?"
He nodded, resuming his struggle.
"Well, why would you just let it break like tha—"
"He said it wasn't important. Only needs one" he pointed to a small black box lying on a couch cushion, "There was three of them up there. S'just the wire and camera he really wants. Said he'll need them when he gets through with the police."
It's true then, she thought, heart clenching, he did know the camera was there… It was a trap all along. He laid me out like a pawn, like bait, and he attacked… but how? How did he kill him? I have to find out.
He stopped, arm lowering beside him, sighing deeply as he squeezed his eyes shut.
"Are you really going to make me ask for it? Or you just gonna stand there and watch me struggle?"
She sighed herself, kicking off her high heels and stepping around the desk, using the chair as a step-up. She grumbled aloud as she made her way onto the desktop.
"Confident, isn't he, that he's just going to be able to brush them off so easily? I think he might have finally put himself into a corner this time…"
"I don't know what he's gonna do," Nubby said, reaching back up and wrapping the wire first around his forearm, then his hand, gripping it tightly and passing the end back to her. "But I do know that nothing he does surprises me anymore."
"Do you really think we should just be jerking it out of the ceiling like this? What if it damages something?"
He shook his head. "S'just another processor, bunch of staples holding it up there. I checked. One good tug'll get it down."
Harley grunted skeptically, looping the wire around her arm in much the same fashion. She stopped suddenly.
Cameras… Wait, cameras… the security cameras! Whatever happened to the Colonel, it'll show on the security tapes! If I check the footage, I'll have my answer!
"One, two, three," Nubby counted, and Harley pulled. "Alright, so maybe two tugs…"
It took three, and a final backward press of Harley's weight to dislodge the wire from its moorings. The processor clipped his shoulder on the way past, and would have landed squarely in Harley's face had she not already been in the midst of tumbling from the desk. Crashing past the desk chair, her elbow met with a crack against the wall, though her head sounded a little more like a thud against the carpet and its meager padding.
"Doc?"
She blinked blearily, groaning as she struggled to bring her eyes to focus.
"God, my head hurts," she mumbled, squeezing her eyes shut. The fluorescent lamps were much too bright.
"I don't have time for this," he said, an edge of panic in his voice.
"Go on," she slitted an eye open, peering at him carefully, groaning again as she sat up. "Do what you have to do. I still have work… Things to find out… The security feed… I'll be fine."
Christopher, not privy to her personal thoughts, looked as though he regarded this as largely nonsense, and as if he thought she might have bumped her head a bit harder than she was admitting. He clenched his jaw shut, though, and nodded stiffly, bowing to begin stuffing the wires, camera, and processor into a small knapsack that Harley now saw by the door.
"Good luck," he said absently, tossing it over his shoulder and slipping out the door, shutting it again quickly behind him. She stood weakly, weaving drunkenly on her bare feet as she made her way to the door, stopping to slip on her shoes. She pressed the heel of her hand into her temple as she grabbed her keys and left the room, locking the door behind her. From there, she made her way to the nurse's station. It was to her great relief that she found that Alicia was not behind the desk, instead a tall blonde who Harley knew to be a floater, working in any department in the hospital in which she was required.
"Emma," Harley read from her name tag. "I'm Dr. Harleen Quinzel. I'm afraid I have an emergency. I will have to cancel all of my appointments for today. Would you please make sure that my patients are informed?" The nurse nodded, already turning to the computer to bring up the schedule. Harley felt thankful for small favors. At least one part of her plan would go off easily today. "Thank you," she said quietly, turning away and taking great care to walk a straight line as she made her exit.
She needed to find Wilhelm again. She was certain that he would help her, but without his presence the other guards might not be so willing to assist her in looking into things she rightly had no business seeing. No doubt Harrison and the other MP's in his command had already thought of checking the security tapes themselves. If they had not already, they would soon, which meant that time was of the essence. They could come for that footage at any time.
It wouldn't do to call him over the intercom again, but neither could she wander from one end of the hospital to the other looking for him. There were too many floors, too many wings to cover.
"Walkie-talkie," she murmured. Yes, all the guards had radios. It was how they relayed information, asked for assistance from one to another. If she could find one guard, she could ask him to call Captain Knauer over the radio. The security room was on the top floor, in the center wing. Surely she would run into a guard somewhere between here and there.
She did not see anyone on the first floor she crossed, nor the second, it was not until her third pass through the fifth floor that she was finally able to catch a quick glimpse of the familiar khaki uniform. He strode with purpose; she had to pick her speed up to a jog to catch up with him. As she drew closer, she realized she knew the guard. David, was his name, the one who had been with Captain Knauer the day that… she didn't want to think about that.
"David…. David!" He turned the second time she said his name, confused at first, perhaps a bit irritated. He had been headed somewhere particular, and was not pleased to be interrupted. She noticed his expression soften the moment he recognized her, however.
"Dr. Quinzel. You need somethin'?"
She did not try to steady her voice, nor straighten her shoulders, nor bring herself to her full height. It would be in her best interest to appear vulnerable at this moment. "Yes… actually… If you might do me a favor… I… I need to speak with Captain Knauer. Could you please ask him to meet me by the stairwell here?"
"Yeah, sure… I ran into him about two minutes ago. He shouldn't be far. Go sit down, Doctor, I'll call him."
She gave him a smile of thanks, rounding the corner and taking a seat upon the memorial bench just on the other side. She was three-quarters of the way through the gold dedication placard (Gunnery Sergeant Milton P. Turrell) when she heard the quiet tap of dress shoes approaching.
His eyes had already found her. His expression was tense: it seemed he did not know exactly what was waiting for him. Finding her alone, he relaxed a little. She drew herself up to her feet as he finally stopped before her.
"They have my patient in custody."
"What?"
She did not answer him.
"Can you get me into the security center?"
He sighed, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment.
"You're still trying to figure this out… You want to check the hallway camera outside the Colonel's room, don't you?"
"Yes," she nodded. "I have to know what happened. If he's innocent, their attention toward him might have a negative effect. His paranoia and his hostility will increase again, all of my hard work will be wasted. If he's innocent, then I have to make them stop the questioning as soon as possible. If he's guilty… if he's guilty, then it's my fault… and he's going to need a lawyer."
He frowned deeply. "How is this your fault?"
"If he did it, then he did it for me… it was an act of retribution… He saw me. He knows what happened. He was only trying to protect me."
He pressed a hand over his eyes, finally removing it and looking to her resignedly.
"Yeah… well… I can't really fault him for that…" He shook his head. "God… I can't believe… You're the most stubborn, hard-headed…" He trailed off in a mutter. "Come on. Matheson's on the TVs today. He's not gonna spread the word about what we're doing. Never says boo to anybody anyway."
"Thank you." He did not fully return her smile as he spun around, took a single step around the corner, and plowed headlong into the obstacle on the other side.
The obstacle in question, one that was beginning to look very familiar to Harley, let out a squeak and tumbled backwards with such force she looked as though she had walked into a wall. For the second time that day, Harley watched Knauer dart forward, scooping her up just before she hit the tile. He was proving to be quite agile, she thought, but the good coroner certainly was not.
Her eyes were very wide, Harley realized with a soundless gasp, and not all from surprise. It was a moment before either of them moved. Dr. Browning finally coughed softly, glancing at a curiously diagonal angle in order to look at the floor.
"We really should stop meeting like this. People are going to talk." She slurred the words together quickly, too embarrassed to even open her jaw fully to speak.
She likes him! Harley realized with a rising elation. Oh god. If I can just direct his attention to her I'll be saved! This is my chance!
Wilhelm seemed to finally realize their position, setting her back onto her feet and stepping back, clearing his throat rather uncomfortably.
"Funny meeting you two here," she regarded them rather suspiciously, but Harley had already turned just such an eye upon her colleague.
"You're being nosy, aren't you? You came to look at the security cameras."
The look of outrage was such that Harley knew immediately that she was in fact correct in her assumption.
"So were we. Come with us."
For a moment it seemed that she might try again to cry foul at Harley's accusation, but she finally gritted her teeth together and nodded curtly. Wilhelm gave her a strange look, but Harley stared resolutely back. Finally, even he was forced to back down.
They were some ten doors down the hallway from it, a plain metal door with the word 'SECURITY' painted in wide block letters. He did not bother with the ring of keys on his belt, instead raising his hand and delivering three sharp knocks.
"Matty! Open it up!"
It took a moment, she heard the skid of wheels along the floor and then the sound of someone crossing a short distance. It was not a very big room then. The door swung wide revealing a tall redhead with a nervous, pinched expression. She'd noticed him around once or twice, as much as she had ever noticed the security guards (she considered them more or less as decoration, rather like tall potted plants placed periodically through the building). Wilhelm, truly, had been the first guard she'd ever known by name.
"Go take a break, kid." His tone brooked no questions, though it did not look as though Matheson's personality was all that suited to arguing in the first place. He nodded, saying nothing, only a murmur of assent before he grabbed his radio from a tabletop and left the room.
Knauer folded his arms over his chest, sweeping one out in an encouraging gesture. Harley looked to the bank of monitors along the right wall of the small, rectangular room.
"Every floor has ten cameras placed from one end of the building to the other. There's a camera at every level of the stairwell, too."
"So how do I know which is the right camera?"
He pointed to a large map on the opposite wall. It was a security schematic of the building, showing the placement of each camera, listing every numbered room, department, and storage space. There was the Morgue, the Boiler Room, the Cafeteria, the ICU, Physical Therapy, the Burn Unit, Psychiatry, the OR's, Recovery, Orthopedics. There was the maintenance room they would be leaving the building from, very soon, Harley realized. The map laid out every door and window; it even showed the coordinated bunches of wires and pipes that ran throughout the walls, connecting one level to the next.
"Dammit," Harley muttered. "I can't think of his room number."
"654," Dr Browning said quietly, after a long moment of silence. Harley looked back to her with a curious expression. "Perhaps I was a bit better prepared to snoop than you were."
Harley made the concession with a nod, laughing softly. Looking to the map, she quickly found the sixth floor. Room 54 would place him somewhere in the center of the building. She ran her finger along the paper until she found the number she was looking for, glancing out around it until she found the circular symbol they used to represent the cameras.
"It's camera D15…" She looked back to Wilhelm quickly, her excitement building. "The camera's not five feet from his door… Whoever did it, whatever they did… We'll see it… It will be right in the security footage."
Wilhelm crossed the distance in a single long-legged stride, bowing briefly over the keyboard. He typed in some sort of code, Harley had not been studying his fingers, which brought up a little input prompt. He typed in the number of the camera, D15, and the screen changed, revealing a smaller screen at the center, and beneath it a control panel.
"Problem is, we've got at least a two hour window to look at…" he said, another prompt appearing. "From about 1 till 3:00 or 3:30…"
"It would probably be safer to set a four-hour window. TOD predictions are not always one hundred percent correct…" Dr. Browning put in again, finally stepping forward, peering over Wilhelm's other shoulder.
"Alright, from 12 to 4 then." He entered the numbers into the box, pressing enter. The black screen jumped, a still of the hallway appearing within the smaller screen. "We don't have the time to sit here and watch it, not even fast-tracking. I can copy it onto a DVD, and you can go through it on your own time." He pulled a blank disc from a drawer beside him, inserting it into the hard drive, pushing it shut.
"I've got a TV in my office. We can watch it there," Dr. Browning supplied.
"Sounds like a plan." Harley said quietly.
Dr. Browning nodded silently, finally leaving the room with a last lingering glance toward Wilhelm. It was not a full two minutes later, just as the newly burnt DVD slid out of the hard drive, that she appeared again, out of breath.
"Christ, they're coming, they're coming right now!"
"What?" Harley shrieked.
"They're right behind me. I saw them down the hall."
"They're coming to check the footage," Harley realized, "Wilhelm, can you delete it?"
"What!?" It was his turn to question, whirling on her.
"Can you delete it?" She spoke each word slowly and succinctly. "I have to know what's on this tape, before they see it. If the Captain is on the tape, I have to have time to think this through. If he's not, then I can find a way to get the footage back to them anonymously. They need never know any of us was ever involved."
He hesitated, shaking his head briefly, teeth sinking into his bottom lip. Harley imagined her nerves stretched to shaking, imagined she could hear their footsteps just outside the door.
"Please, Wilhelm, please!" she whispered desperately.
He seemed almost in pain as he turned back quickly, his fingers flying across the keyboard, drawing up another prompt, and then a box which read 'Reboot System?' He clicked yes. Harley watched the screen flicker again, several windows shutting down, and then a single one reappearing. The number in the right hand corner read 'A1', the screen showing a view of the front door of the hospital, the clock reading 8:58 AM.
Wilhelm stood just as she heard the key enter the lock, sliding the DVD into his back pocket as he did, turning to face the two women and the door to the room.
Harrison was at the front, two new officers flanking him. His eyes found Wilhelm first, then Harley, then Dr. Browning. She kept her face passive and still, though she could scarcely hear past her heart pounding in her ears.
"Now what do we have here?"
Wilhelm grunted softly, leaning back against the table, folding his arms across his chest, one ankle across the other.
"Alright… so you caught us fucking off on the clock… That a crime, all of a sudden?" He raised his eyebrows. The dislike, it seemed, was palpable between the two men. Harley looked uneasily between them.
Harrison did not seem inclined to honor him with a response. He threw a thumb over his shoulder.
"We've got work to do. Get out of here."
"Sure thing, boss." Wilhelm shrugged, gathering himself up easily to his full height. It was obvious he had several inches on the Major. Harrison didn't look as though he particularly enjoyed that fact.
"Wait a second… I can't access the memory. It's not letting me go through." One of the cops, the one bent in front of the computer screen, spoke up, glancing nervously back over his shoulder at Harrison.
"What do you mean you can't access it?"
"Well, you know," Wilhelm glanced at his watch. "It is 9:02… We don't have a whole lot of memory… System erases itself at 9 every morning, to make space for the next day."
A muscle in his jaw pulsed like a metronome, a thin sheen of sweat appearing on his forehead. Oh Jesus… He's going to lose it… Harley thought.
"I am… aware of the system's parameters… But… I thought… that I told you… this morning… to hold the files until I could review them…"
Wilhelm feigned a bewildered expression, finally gasping quietly. "Oh… you know… come to think of it… You did, didn't you? About 5 o'clock this morning, right? I thought you would have already checked it by now… God, I'm so sorry…. It totally… slipped my mind. These things happen… I'm kind of flighty… on account of not having slept in the last thirty hours and all."
It was all Harley could do not to gasp herself. Harrison had told him? Then… Wilhelm had disobeyed a direct order… simply because she had asked. Her heart clenched, stomach tying itself in knots.
"Get out… GET OUT!" Her prediction had been correct. His thin veneer of control shattered nearly audibly. Harley did not try to register his expression, however, instead darting immediately for the door. Her two companions were not far behind, each falling into step beside her as they heard the door slamming shut.
No one looked back.
OOO
In the dank and cool of the morgue's main room, Harley found that her ears were still ringing from the volume of the Major's voice. Wilhelm had not spoken since they had left the Security Center behind, though Harley had tried several times to draw some sort of response from him.
"I'll lock the door…" Browning said quietly, walking from sight.
Harley glanced at an exam table, traced her finger along the lip of the cold, clean steel.
"Thank you, Wilhelm… I know… I understand what you did."
"I could end up in jail for this… For longer than I've probably got years left," he said quietly, crossing his arms over his chest again, looking away from her. "But I didn't do it for him. I want you to know that. I did this for you. If it was my way, I'd see him and everyone like him tied in a cage… somewhere far from the sun, and so much as a molecule of fresh air. I know his type. They're monsters. Not the kind you see in movies, but the real ones. The ones that walk around in broad daylight, everyday. Now you seem to think that there's some piece of human left somewhere in him, enough to warrant helping him out of this situation, something that makes him worth saving. My only hope is that your faith in him is not misplaced."
It isn't, Harley thought frantically to herself, It can't be.
Browning returned, gesturing with her hand that they should follow. Harley glanced back to Wilhelm, who motioned her forward, falling into step behind her, pulling the DVD from his back pocket again. He handed it to Browning as they entered her cramped office. Harley heard the hum of electricity before the screen came to life, first blue, then black and white as the security footage started, grainy, the pixels stretched on the larger screen, a portion of the hallway visible and the doors to five patient rooms.
"Alright… Here we are at 12 AM." She pressed fast-forward, lines jumping across the screen though the image did not change. Suddenly a dark figure darted past the camera.
"Hold it," Harley spoke up. "Go back to that."
Browning pressed pause and then rewound the footage more slowly. Step by step backwards the figure appeared.
"Go on," Wilhelm said. "That's Margit. He's making the rounds. Keep going."
Margit made two more passes between 12:30 and 1:15. Browning pressed the button again, the speed increasing.
"Don't go so fast… we might miss something." Harley admonished, leaning closer to the screen.
"Don't think you're going to miss that."
She looked back to Wilhelm. "What?"
"That," he pointed to the TV screen. Browning had paused and rewound it again, finally pressing play. At first there was nothing that Harley could see, only the same empty hallway. Finally there was movement to the left of the screen, a shape coming slowly into view.
He strode slowly down the hallway, looking for all the world as though he was taking a stroll in the park, hands folded casually behind him. He came to a stop finally, glancing (slyly, Harley thought) up at the camera before leaning back against door 654, sliding slowly down to the floor, elbows balanced on his knees, fingertips dangling between them.
"He's talking," Browning pointed to the screen, pressing the volume button up on the remote in her hand.
Wilhelm shook his head. "Camera's aren't equipped for sound."
"There's no way to figure out what he's saying?" Harley asked quietly.
"Not unless you know how to read lips."
"Dammit," Browning muttered. They watched several minutes more of the same thing, the Captain did not move, only continued to speak, remaining in the same position.
"Fast-forward it." Wilhelm said, and she did so, slowly. Harley watched the footage roll past. "Stop."
He had risen from the floor, standing and stretching, and after a moment just as casually wandering off again. Harley frowned.
"That's it? He's there from 1:30 till 2:10… 40 minutes… What the hell was he doing, stopping by to have a midnight chat?" Knauer grumbled
"I don't get it," Harley whispered.
Browning looked just as dissatisfied with their discovery, pressing the rewind button with much more force than was necessary, heading back to 1:30.
"Alright…We don't have much… so we've got to look closer at what we've got. So… he walks up, looks at us, sits down, starts talking… What's he saying?"
Wilhelm looked very perturbed, Harley noticed, but he waved off her concern when Browning spoke up again.
"Wait a second… Watch…" She tapped the screen rhythmically for a long moment, rewinding it back to 1:30 again, doing it again. "It is… I'm right… Watch his lips move. He's talking in a rhythm…. 72 words a minute."
"Does that mean something?" Harley looked to her, supremely confused.
"The average resting heart rate of a human is 72 beats a minute. It's a common hypnosis technique… Speaking in rhythm with the heart, to soothe, draw them in…" She bit her lip, shaking her head, eyes wide.
"What? What is it?" Harley spat, impatiently. "What does this have to do with the Colonel's murder?"
"Don't you see?" Browning spun in her chair, looking back to Harley quickly. "It's got everything to do with the murder. Do you know what happens when someone is hypnotized?"
"Um… I know a little. I know the purpose of hypnosis is to create a state of deep relaxation in which it is easier to implant suggestions into the subconscious…"
Browning looked to her expectantly, sure at any moment, it seemed, that she would catch on. "Yes. Deep relaxation. Heart rate and respiration slow dramatically, brain activity decreases, muscles loosen and release… You're sooo relaxed… and the tongue and the soft-palate slliide back…"
"And completely block the airway." Harley finished, jaw dropping open as the realization hit her. "Ar-are you telling me… that… he convinced him… to swallow his own tongue?"
"It's perfect," Browning said admiringly, shaking her head in awe. "There's not a judge in the country that would see that conviction through… He killed him… but he never laid one finger on him… There's no better explanation for the state of the body… There's our mysterious murderer, right there… and he's gonna get away with it scot-free…"
"That son of a bitch," Wilhelm muttered.
"What is it?" Harley inquired.
"We never had a chance against him, did we?"
"I don't understand—"
"Him… The Captain. He's smart… smarter than all of us… and he knows it." He reached for the remote, Browning handing it to him after a moment. He rewound the tape again to 1:30:15, pressing pause. "There… you see… he looks right at the camera."
Harley shook her head again. "But we all saw that—"
"You don't get it," Wilhelm interrupted again, pointing back to the TV screen. "That camera? The one he's looking at? Do you see that symbol on the map? How D-15 has a slash through the circle and D-16 doesn't? That camera is one of 30 cameras in the building that is recessed. It's hidden inside of a ceiling vent. That camera? He shouldn't even know it's there."
OOO
Chapter End Notes:
Alright! So, from the very beginning of the story I have wanted to do this, because it was my absolutely favorite part of Silence Of The Lambs, and has pretty much summed up Hannibal Lecter's mystique for me in one single action. He convinced him to swallow his own tongue. I mean, how much more efficient can you get? Killing someone without ever touching them? Now, while it is physiologically impossible to swallow one's own tongue, it is, however, possible to suffocate upon the tongue and the soft palate. It's why they tell you to turn a person who's having a seizure onto their side, to keep them from choking to death. I've drawn from Silence of The Lambs and, to some smaller extent, Hannibal a lot while writing Genesis, and I can so see the Joker doing this... So that's my reason for having the Colonel share the same unfortunate (but AWESOME!) fate as Miggs.