THE MEETING

As a favor to the president and under the close supervision of the FBI, Hannibal was allowed to walk into the large meeting room without handcuffs or restraints of any kind.

Ardelia had just arrived to provide the requisite emotional support and sat beside Clarice furthest from the door. She smiled when she saw Logan walking quietly behind Hannibal much like an attending squire would follow his knight.

The Bashandi's were seated across from the pair of women, leaving a place at the head of the table for Hannibal. As Hannibal entered, Anwar Bashandi stood and directed his daughter to do the same.

"Doctor Lecter, please forgive my delay. I arrived as soon as I received word of your treatment."

Hannibal moved quickly across the room to greet the prime minister.

"There is no forgiveness necessary, Mister Prime Minister. I am humbled by your presence my friend." The men shared a warm handshake. The Prime Minister then stepped to the side and took his seat allowing his daughter to greet Hannibal. Mariyah was staring at the ground, embarrassed that her eyes were welling with emotion.

Tilting his head slightly to catch Mariyah's attention the good doctor spoke very gently, "Tears? Is that how good friends greet one another?" Hannibal smiled widely and extended his arms to the young lady.

When she realized he was offering an embrace she wiped her tears and looked to her father. The moment he nodded his assent, Mariyah ran from the table and threw herself into Hannibal's arms. He hugged her tightly as she pulled the back of his suit jacket to bring him closer.

Hannibal kissed the top of the young lady's head prompting a smile from Clarice. Hannibal winked at his wife and turned his attention back to the young lady in his arms.

The camera people leapt one over the other to capture the moment.

Mariyah buried her face against Hannibal's chest trying to hide her tears. "I was so worried about you, Doctor Lecter." The young lady had been well-raised and though, emotionally, she felt very close to Hannibal she understood that her age made it inappropriate for her to address him in any other way.

Hannibal held her as he spoke. "It is wonderful to see you as well, Mariyah. How have you been feeling? Did you do what I suggested?"

She lifted her face to look at him as she answered, "Yes sir, I did."

Hannibal leaned back, one arm still around her and the other lifting her chin with his thumb and index finger, "And did you see the improvement I predicted?"

She was proud to answer, "Yes, at first I felt a little silly about the process, but I did it anyway and I felt better immediately."

The journalists present began taking prodigious notes but had been told because of the pending competency hearing not to ask questions of Hannibal.

With a tender hand on her shoulder guiding her, Hannibal escorted Mariyah to her seat. He then looked to her father.

"She is doing well, Sir?" Hannibal inquired to the prime minister.

Bashandi was animated in his response, "Yes! Because of you she is thriving."

"I am heartened to hear it, though it is due more to her strength and the strength of her lineage than my own humble contribution. If you will excuse me, with your permission, I should like to greet my wife."

"Certainly, I insist."

Before welcoming his wife Hannibal greeted Ardelia with a friendly hug, "Thank you for your support of Clarice, Ardelia. She has shared with me how much your friendship comforts her. Knowing she has you has been a comfort to me as well."

"Thank you, Hannibal. That's so kind of you to say. I hope you know I'd do anything for you both."

"Yes, we do know that and believe me it means quite a lot to us." Hannibal helped her push in her chair as she took her seat. All the while his eyes were on Clarice.

"Hey H."

"Hay is for…"

Before he could finish the correction, Clarice cut him off.

"Don't even think about it, Hannibal!"

Hannibal moved around the table, took a knee and lowered his head level with her belly to address his child.

"It would seem I'm in trouble again, Little One. Mother called me Hannibal…not H…you know what that means don't you? She is upset with me again...shocking I know." He put his ear against her belly as he continued, "What? Yes I probably should apologize."

Hannibal took Clarice by the hand and looked up from her belly, "I shouldn't have attempted to correct you, my Love. Please accept my apology."

"Cut the crap, H."

He kissed her hand, lingering as he spoke, "Hmm, I love it when you talk dirty."

He stood and cautiously extended his wife's hand leading her to stand. He held her an arm's length away to admire her.

"Hello, my Love. You look magnificent as always."

Clarice smoothed the front of her dress to show her appreciation for the gifts, "Haven't you heard? My husband has great taste."

"Yes Clarice, though not in the clothing choice so much as the woman wearing them."

Hannibal tugged gently at her arm and pulled her close, much like a dancer would bring his partner to him. As Clarice entered his embrace Hannibal wrapped her in his arms and held her close kissing her very tenderly.

Comforted by his warmth and the strong thump of his heart, Clarice pressed her check against his chest and ran her hands up his back smoothing them across the span of his shoulders.

Knowing Hannibal could hear what others could not she whispered against his chest, "They brought in Danielson. He called me last night."

"Thank you, Clarice," he answered softly knowing it was an ambiguous enough statement not to draw attention if the microphones picked it up.

Hannibal kept his arms coiled around her. It was a very loving, very intimate, and very deliberate moment angled in full view of the press corps assembled and orchestrated wholly by Hannibal. None in attendance believed it anything less than a spontaneous expression. Not even Clarice, though it would neither have surprised nor angered her had he announced his intention.

Again, the photographers clamored, all climbing one over the other for the perfect angle from which to capture the moment. Hannibal did not shy from sharing his passion for his wife, though he was careful to be respectful of her.

Hannibal counted how many seconds passed, multiplied them by the split seconds it would take for the digital cameras to advance to the next frame and when he had decided the photo opportunity was sufficient he slowly pulled back from his wife.

As she sat Hannibal grazed the back of his hand along the side of her face as he did not wish the contact to end. Again, there was a strobe of camera flashes.

Prime Minister Bashandi was obviously comfortable with his role in this proceeding and waited for Hannibal to take his seat before continuing. "I have made several calls on your behalf, Doctor Lecter. The president himself guaranteed me he would look into the matter. Has your treatment improved?"

"Yes, I have been informed the court order for electroconvulsive therapy has been rescinded. I thank you for that."

Bashandi nodded, "And the isolation… Has that ceased as well?"

"Not as such, though the sessions are much less frequent and the duration has been shortened considerably. I am able to tolerate it without complaint."

"That will stop as of this night as well, I assure you."

Bashandi leaned forward with his palms flat and arms stretched out on the table in front of him looking much like a lion waiting to pounce. His voice boomed from his body as he spoke.

"Now that we are all here we will discuss the matter of Doctor Hannibal Lecter for the final time!"

BLOOM

Bloom was directed to a situation room within the White House fully unaware that he was the situation causing all of the concern. He sat at what he correctly perceived would be the chair closest to where the president might sit. Had he known the mood of the president, he may have chosen differently.

Entering the room in a procession were several members of the president's staff, the surgeon general and Doctor Danielson now in private practice, formally from the sex reassignment center at Johns Hopkins. It was obvious by their simultaneous entrance they had been together in another location prior to this session. That was not good news for Bloom, though he was unaware of his tenuous position.

Bloom watched each of the men as they filed around the table and took their seats. No one spoke and though he thought it odd, he sat quietly and waited for the president. He would not wait long.

The president walked into the room briskly and took his seat. Each of the men in the room nodded a greeting but, again, none spoke. Finally the president broke the silence with seven words that sliced Bloom's heart in half.

"Bloom…what the hell were you thinking?"

Doctor Alan Bloom looked around the room he had earlier believed would not only welcome him, but would praise his efforts. Now understanding the opposite to be true he was speechless for a moment as he attempted to gather his thoughts. He panicked, his chest expanded with increased respiration as sweat droplets pearled the width of his forehead.

Nervous but needing to defend himself, Bloom forced his lips to draw dry along his teeth, his voice cracked with concern, "Mr. President, I believe Doctor Lecter to be inherently damaged on a physiological level and have sought to prove his incompetency through a series of well-considered though admittedly controversial treatments."

The surgeon general spoke quietly as she outlined her position, "Controversial treatments? Did you just refer to the blatant torture of a man whom the State of Maryland put in your trusted care as a level of treatment?"

"Yes. I was treating him. That is all. There was nothing in that protocol that would have harmed him. Let us not forget he is not an ordinary man, if he is a man at all."

"You submitted Doctor Lecter to a series of isolation events of such extreme duration it would drive any sane men to psychosis. You are correct that he is not an ordinary man and quite fortunate are you that his constitution, his intelligence, and his mental discipline are remarkable or we would be having a very different conversation than the one we are having."

The president was obviously upset as he forcefully rapped his knuckles on the table to garner Bloom's attention. "Doctor Bloom your task…your only task, was to issue Doctor Hannibal Lecter a test to determine his current mental status and provide your opinion of possible recidivism. No one asked you to move for an involuntary commitment."

Bloom stammered, "I…I had to do that he's… he is far too sophisticated for standardized testing. And his wife is pregnant. There is a baby involved."

The president would not accept the explanation, "You assured my office personally that you would be able to frame the questions of the test in such a way as to disguise the intent and get results. Now you complain that he is too sophisticated! And what about his wife and child; what does that have to do with you?"

"He isn't fit to be a father," Bloom stated with conviction and an air of flagrant moral superiority.

The president was furious and pounded his fist on the table causing the water glasses to jump. His voice boomed, "This is the damned United States of America! We don't preemptively abduct children from loving homes, and we don't issue goddamned tests to determine parental qualifications!"

Bloom truly believed he was the only sane man in the room. His voice was as elevated as his heart rate, "He is a convicted killer!"

The president stood and pointed his finger in Bloom's face, his voice shaking with anger, "I don't give a damn if he's Jack the Ripper! You were told to assess him, not to judge him. He may be a convicted killer but he's a convicted killer that has an official commutation of all his sentences with my damned signature on it!"

Bloom covered his ears and shook his head as if trying to rid himself of an irritating infestation, "He is impossible to test. He's always a step ahead. He gets in your mind…he gets in your mind!"

The president took a deep breath and sat. "When we first spoke you were more than confident in your ability to flank his perception and now he's impossible to test? Did you record the testing?"

Bloom brushed off his tie, as well as the inquiry, as if it were an insult to his intelligence, "No, I made no such attempt. My memory is impeccable as is my ability to take detailed notes."

The president continued, "Were you aware that that your patient recorded the session in its entirety and forwarded the recording to my office with a request that it be judged independently? His note detailed your relationship to Frederick Chilton, some of the abuses Doctor Lecter suffered under his care and your direction, and the request that Doctor Danielson be involved. It arrived several days ago. I believe the judge in this case has received a copy as well."

"So what is that supposed to mean to me. I am above reproach in this," Bloom groused.

"I am the President of the United States and thanks to your incompetence even I'm not above reproach in this! Doctor Danielson has reviewed the information along with several well respected psychiatrists and the Surgeon General as well. Each has expert has reviewed the tape and evaluated it independent from one another. Can you guess what the outcome of their assessment was?"

Bloom's heart began to fibrillate causing an uncomfortable flutter against his chest wall. He shifted in his seat and placed a hand over his heart as if the motion might steady it. He then sucked in a breath and braced himself as he spoke with bravado, "I am certain my learned colleagues will have agreed with my evaluation."

The president gestured for Doctor Danielson to speak. The man, familiar with Bloom because of the Buffalo Bill case, looked at him and shook his head, "No, Alan…I'm sorry. I don't know what's going on with you, this seems so out of character, but I can't agree with either your initial diagnosis or with your treatment protocol."

"But you agree...with must agree with my diagnosis. You agree that he's psychotic?"

Danielson disagreed, "No. I don't know whether or not he has been psychotic in the past but at this point in time he's not psychotic."

"A sociopath at the very least," Bloom encouraged.

Danielson shook his head. He felt sorry for Bloom. He was alone in that sentiment.

"No, I'm sorry Alan. Even if one discounts the answers to the questions he gave you and chalks it up to his thorough knowledge of the test, the life he is leading is far beyond the capacity of a sociopath. It is obvious he loves his wife deeply and he's shown a significant amount of empathy for others. Even those he is not close to. He helped his elderly neighbor when she was attacked and he sacrificed his freedom and his own safety to help find Mariyah Bashandi. A sociopath is not capable of that."

"So, what do you think…that he's cured?" Bloom taunted, "He was doing all those things while he was killing people and sautéing their organs!"

Danielson corrected, "I'm not saying he's cured because I was not a part of his treatment team at Baltimore State Forensic but I can tell you that in the past he did not illustrate the ability to form a loving relationship."

Bloom took on a very aggressive and defensive posture, "How do you know that? He was seeing lots of women."

Danielson flipped through a manila folder on the conference table and checked his facts. He then spoke with confidence, "I know because after I watched the tape of your interview with him I took it upon myself to review all of the available FBI files on Doctor Lecter. Clarice Starling was extremely thorough and interviewed each and every one of his past romantic partners. They all describe Lecter the same way: attentive to their physical needs, thoughtful, very generous with gifts but emotionally remote and very guarded about his past. None knew anything of his family, where he was born, or of his personal habits when they were not with him. None had even spent the night in his home. I spoke with Clarice on the phone this morning and she knows everything about him, including very specific events in his past that he had never before shared. She describes him as extremely loving and their relationship as being unusually close. She tells me he will answer any question she puts to him honestly. Sociopaths are not open or loving. They don't sacrifice for others. They don't show empathy. Doctor Hannibal Lecter has illustrated each of these traits, rather publicly I might add. His wife is unwavering in her support of him."

Bloom's hypnotic arrogance kicked in, "I have no interest in the opinion of the dam he chose to sire his whelp."

There was a gasp and a collective look of disbelief among the participants. The surgeon general spoke very directly, "Doctor Bloom your handling of this case has been so grossly deficient that we are considering having the medical board investigate revoking your license to practice medicine."

"There is nothing about the treatment of Hannibal Lecter that can be considered serious enough to revoke my license! I've been using cutting edge evaluation methods. He is extremely savvy and as such, I needed to get him out of his comfort zone. I needed to shake the tree to loosen the fruit."

The president had a compromise planned, "Look, this has been a public relations nightmare. We may be able to find a way past this but only if we all work together. I suggest we hold a public press conference tomorrow at the prison where you will announce your finding that Hannibal Lecter is indeed sane and that you are filing a petition with the court to cancel the competency hearing. An apology to Doctor Lecter and a nice handshake, maybe a friendly pat on the back or two for all the cameras would be great. If you do that, we may be able to help you protect your license. If not, when the medical board investigates and moves to pull it, instead of a friend in the White House who has your back you will find an enemy who stabs you in it. Do we understand each other?"

"Yes…yes we understand each other… perfectly." Bloom grumbled like a spoiled child.

"What is your answer?" the president coaxed.

"Fine…I'll do it." Bloom spat out the sentence as if the words were coated in bile.

The president reached out his hand and shook Bloom's, "I appreciate you helping us out with this, Alan. It's a tricky business. We will arrange the press conference and will send a car for you…Noon. Be ready."

"Yes, Mister President…I'll be ready…I'll be very ready indeed!"

The president as his staff waited as the chief of staff escorted Bloom from the room and out to the waiting car.

Bloom stared out the window throughout the ride home. He entered his house with purpose, went to the front foyer and took out his medical bag. He reached it the drawer of the hall table, retrieved the Harpy and set the bag down. He pushed around briefly to retrieve an item located at the bottom of the bag. He reached for the blood pressure cuff and unrolled it. Taking the Harpy out of the box, he then rolled it in a very small piece of bubble wrap and taped it closed. Next, Bloom pulled back the Velcro flap on the interior and slipped the puffed up and neatly packaged Harpy within. He secured the flap and wrapped the cuff around itself. He squeezed it to make sure the knife could not be felt within the partially inflated cuff. When he was satisfied, Bloom tightly wrapped the tubing around the cuff and tucked the device in his bag for the trip to the prison the following day.

Bloom then settled himself on a chair and prepared to watch the documentary of his exploits unfold. He was certain the exhibition of his activities would be his public redemption. He was confident and unafraid.

One of us will live and one of us will die tomorrow, Hannibal. Sleep well tonight for it will be your last.

Review and let me know what you think, then drop me a PM and say Hi!

Until the next chapter my friends!

LH