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  “Keep going on the subscriptions,” Krendler instructed. “You can tell Crawford about the subscriptions when he comes back to work. He’ll organize coverage on the mail drops after the tenth.”

  Krendler called Mason’s number, and started out running from his Georgetown town house, trotting easily toward Rock Creek Park.

  In the gathering gloom only his white Nike headband and his white Nike shoes and the white stripe down the side of his dark Nike running suit were visible, as though there were no man at all among the trademarks.

  It was a brisk half-hour run. He heard the blat of helicopter blades just as he came in sight of the landing pad near the zoo. He was able to duck under the turning propeller blades and reach the step without ever breaking stride. The lift of the jet helicopter thrilled him, the city, the lighted monuments falling away as the aircraft took him to the heights he deserved, to Annapolis for the tape and to Mason.

  CHAPTER

  76

  “WILL YOU focus the fucking thing, Cordell?” In Mason’s deep radio voice, with its lipless consonants, “focus” and “fucking” sounded more like “hocus” and “hucking.”

  Krendler stood beside Mason in the dark part of the room, the better to see the elevated monitor. In the heat of Mason’s room he had his yuppie running suit pulled down to his waist and the sleeves tied around him, exposing his Princeton T-shirt. His headband and shoes gleamed in the light from the aquarium.

  In Margot’s opinion Krendler had the shoulders of a chicken. They had barely acknowledged one another when he arrived.

  There was no tape or time counter on the liquor store security camera and Christmas business was brisk. Cordell was pushing fast-forward from customer to customer through a lot of purchases. Mason passed the time by being unpleasant.

  “What did you say when you went in the liquor store in your running suit and flashed the tin, Krendler? You say you were in the Special Olympics?” Mason was much less respectful since Krendler had been depositing the checks.

  Krendler could not be insulted when his interests were at stake. “I said I was undercover. What kind of coverage have you got on Starling now?”

  “Margot, tell him.” Mason seemed to want to save his own scarce breath for insults.

  “We brought in twelve men from our security in Chicago. They’re in Washington. Three teams, one member of each is deputized in the state of Illinois. If the police catch them grabbing Dr. Lecter, they say they recognized him and it’s a citizen’s arrest and blah blah. The team that catches turns him over to Carlo. They go back to Chicago and that’s all they know.”

  The tape was running.

  “Wait a minute—Cordell, back it up thirty seconds,” Mason said. “Look at this.”

  The liquor store camera covered the area from the front door to the cash register.

  In the silent videotape’s fuzzy image, a man came in wearing a billed cap, a lumber jacket and mittens. He had full whiskers and wore sunglasses. He turned his back to the camera and carefully closed the door behind him.

  It took a moment for the shopper to explain to the clerk what he wanted and he followed the man out of sight into the wine racks.

  Three minutes dragged by. At last they came back into camera range. The clerk wiped dust off the bottle and wrapped padding around it before he put it into a bag. The customer pulled off only his right mitten and paid in cash. The clerk’s mouth moved as he said “thank you” to the man’s back as he was leaving.

  A pause of a few seconds, and the clerk called to someone off camera. A heavyset man came into the picture and hurried out the door.

  “That’s the owner, guy who saw the truck,” Krendler said.

  “Cordell, can you copy off this tape and enlarge the customer’s head?”

  “Take a second, Mr. Verger. It’ll be fuzzy.”

  “Do it.”

  “He kept the left mitten on,” Mason said. “I may have gotten screwed on that X ray I bought.”

  “Pazzi said he got his hand fixed, didn’t he? Had the extra finger off,” Krendler said.

  “Pazzi might have had his finger up his butt, I don’t know who to believe. You’ve seen him, Margot, what do you think? Was that Lecter?”

  “It’s been eighteen years,” Margot said. “I just had three sessions with him and he always just stood up behind his desk when I came in, he didn’t walk around. He was really still. I remember his voice more than anything else.”

  Cordell’s voice on the intercom. “Mr. Verger, Carlo is here.”

  Carlo smelled of the pigs and more. He came into the room holding his hat over his chest and the rank boar-sausage smell of his head made Krendler blow air out his nose. As a mark of respect, the Sardinian kidnapper withdrew all the way into his mouth the stag’s tooth he was chewing

  “Carlo, look at this. Cordell, roll it back and walk him in from the door again.”

  “That’s the ¡tronzo son of a bitch,” Carlo said before the subject on the screen had walked four paces. “The beard is new, but that’s the way he moves.”

  “You saw his hands in Firenze, Carlo.”

  “Sì.”

  “Five fingers or six on the left?”

  “…. Five.”

  “You hesitated.”

  “Only to think of cinque in English. It’s five, I’m sure.”

  Mason parted his exposed teeth in all he had for a smile. “I love it. He’s wearing the mitten trying to keep the six fingers in his description,” he said.

  Perhaps Carlo’s scent had entered the aquarium via the aeration pump. The eel came out to see, and remained out, turning, turning in his infinite Möbius eight, showing his teeth as he breathed.

  “Carlo, I think we may finish this soon,” Mason said. “You and Piero and Tommaso are my first team. I’ve got confidence in you, even though he did beat you in Florence. I want you to keep Clarice Starling under surveillance for the day before her birthday, the day itself, and the day after. You’ll be relieved while she’s asleep in her house. I’ll give you a driver and the van.”

  “Padrone,” Carlo said.

  “Yes.”

  “I want some private time with the dottore, for the sake of my brother, Matteo. You said I could have it.” Carlo crossed himself as he mentioned the dead man’s name.

  “I understand your feelings completely, Carlo. You have my deepest sympathy. Carlo, I want Dr. Lecter consumed in two sittings. The first evening, I want the pigs to gnaw off his feet, with him watching through the bars. I want him in good shape for that. You bring him to me in good shape. No blows to the head, no broken bones, no eye damage. Then he can wait overnight without his feet, for the pigs to finish him the next day. I’ll talk to him for a while, and then you can have him for an hour before the final sitting. I’ll ask you to leave him an eye and leave him conscious so he can see them coming. I want him to see their faces when they eat his face. If you, say, should decide to unman him, it’s entirely up to you, but I want Cordell there to manage the bleeding. I want film.”

  “What if he bleeds to death the first time in the pen?”

  “He won’t. Nor will he die overnight. What he’ll do overnight is wait with his feet eaten off. Cordell will see to that and replace his body fluids, I expect he’ll be on an IV drip all night, maybe two drips.”

  “Or four drips if we have to,” said Cordell’s disembodied voice on the speakers. “I can do cut-downs on his legs.”

  “You can spit and piss in his IV at the last, before you roll him into the pen,” Mason told Carlo in his most sympathetic voice. “Or you can come in it if you like.”

  Carlo’s face brightened at the thought, then he remembered the muscular signorina with a guilty sideways glance. “Grazie milk, Padrone. Can you come to see him die?”

  “I don’t know, Carlo. The dust in the barn disturbs me. I may watch on video. Can you bring a pig to me? I want to put my hand on one.”

  “To this room, Padrone?”

  “No, they can bring me do
wnstairs briefly, on the power pack.”

  “I would have to put one to sleep, Padrone,” Carlo said doubtfully.

  “Do one of the sows. Bring her on the lawn outside the elevator. You can run the forklift over the grass.”

  “You figure on doing this with one van, or a van and a crash car?” Krendler asked.

  “Carlo?”

  “The van is plenty. Give me a deputy to drive.”

  “I’ve got something else for you,” Krendler said. “Can we have some light?”

  Margot moved the rheostat and Krendler put his backpack on the table beside the bowl of fruit. He put on cotton gloves and took out what appeared to be a small monitor with an antenna and a mounting bracket, along with an external hard drive and a rechargeable battery pack.

  “It’s awkward covering Starling because she lives in a cul-de-sac with no place to lurk. But she has to come out—Starling’s an exercise freak,” Krendler said. “She’s had to join a private gym since she can’t use the FBI stuff anymore. We caught her parked at the gym Thursday and put a beacon under her car. It’s Ni-Cad and recharges when the motor’s running so she won’t find it from a battery drain. The software covers these five contiguous states. Who’s going to work this thing?”

  “Cordell, come in here,” Mason said.

  Cordell and Margot knelt beside Krendler and Carlo stood over them, his hat held at the height of their nostrils.

  “Look here.” Krendler switched his monitor on. “It’s like a car navigation system except it shows where Starling’s car is.” An overview of metropolitan Washington appeared on the screen. “Zoom here, move the area with the arrows, got it? Okay, it’s not showing any acquisition. A signal from Starling’s beacon will light this, and you’ll hear a beep. Then you can pick up the source on overview and zoom in. The beep gets faster as you get closer. Here’s Starling’s neighborhood in street-map scale. You’re not getting any blip from her car because we’re out of range. Anywhere in metro Washington or Arlington you would. I picked it up from the helicopter coming out. Here’s the converter for the AC plug in your van. One thing. You have to guarantee me this thing never gets in the wrong hands. I could get heat from this, it’s not in the spy shops yet. Either it’s back in my hands or it’s in the bottom of the Potomac. You got it?”

  “You understand that, Margot?” Mason said. “You, Cordell? Get Mogli to drive and brief him.”

  V

  A POUND OF FLESH

  CHAPTER

  77

  THE BEAUTY of the pneumatic rifle was that it could be fired with the muzzle inside the van without deafening everyone around it—there was no need to stick the muzzle out the window where the public could see it.

  The mirrored window would open a few inches and the small hypodermic projectile would fly, carrying a major load of acepromazine into the muscle mass of Dr. Lecter’s back or buttocks.

  There would be only the crack of the gun’s muzzle signature, like a green branch breaking, no bang and no ballistic report from the subsonic missile to draw attention.

  The way they had rehearsed it, when Dr. Lecter started to collapse, Piero and Tommaso, dressed in white, would “assist” him into the van, assuring any bystanders they were taking him to the hospital. Tommaso’s English was best, as he had studied it in the seminary, but the h in hospital was giving him a fit.

  Mason was right in giving the Italians the prime dates for catching Dr. Lecter. Despite their failure in Florence, they were by far the most capable at physical man-catching and the most likely to take Dr. Lecter alive.

  Mason allowed only one gun on the mission other than the tranquilizer rifle—that of the driver, Deputy Johnny Mogli, an off-duty sheriff’s deputy from Illinois and long a creature of the Vergers. Mogli grew up speaking Italian at home. He was a person who agreed with everything his victim said before he killed him.

  Carlo and the brothers Piero and Tommaso had their net, beanbag gun, Mace, and a variety of restraints. It would be plenty.

  They were in position at daylight, five blocks from Starling’s house in Arlington, parked in a handicap spot on a commercial street.

  The van today was marked with adhesive signs, SENIOR CITIZEN MEDICAL TRANSPORT. It had a handicap tag hanging from the mirror and a false handicap license plate on the bumper. In the glove compartment was a receipt from a body shop for recent replacement of the bumper—they could claim a mix-up at the garage and confuse the issue for the time being if the tag number were questioned. The vehicle identification numbers and registration were legitimate. So were the hundred-dollar bills folded inside them for a bribe.

  The monitor, Velcroed to the dashboard and running off the cigarette lighter socket, glowed with a street map of Starling’s neighborhood. The same Global Positioning Satellite that now plotted the position of the van also showed Starling’s vehicle, a bright dot in front of her house.

  At 9:00 A.M., Carlo allowed Piero to eat something. At l0:30 Tommaso could eat. He did not want them both full at the same time, in the event of a long chase on foot. Afternoon meals were staggered too. Tommaso was rummaging in the cooler for a sandwich at midafternoon when they heard the beep.

  Carlo’s malodorous head swung to the monitor.

  “She’s moving,” Mogli said. He started the van.

  Tommaso put the lid back on the cooler.

  “Here we go. Here we go … Here she goes up Tindal toward the main road.” Mogli swung into traffic. He had the great luxury of lying back three blocks where Starling could not possibly see him.

  Nor could Mogli see the old gray pickup pull into traffic a block behind Starling, a Christmas tree hanging over the tailgate.

  Driving the Mustang was one of the few pleasures Starling could count on. The powerful car, with no ABS and no traction control, was a handful on slick streets for much of the winter. While the roads were clear it was pleasant to wind the V8 out a little in second gear and listen to the pipes.

  Mapp, a world-class couponeer, had sent with Starling a thick sheaf of her discount coupons pinned to the grocery list. She and Starling were doing a ham, a pot roast and two casseroles. Others were bringing the turkey.

  A holiday dinner on her birthday was the last thing Starling cared about. She had to go along with it because Mapp and a surprising number of female agents, some of whom she only knew slightly and didn’t particularly like, were turning out to support her in her misery.

  Jack Crawford weighed on her mind. She couldn’t visit him in intensive care, nor could she call him. She left notes for him at the nursing station, funny dog pictures with the lightest messages she could compose.

  Starling distracted herself in her misery by playing with the Mustang, double-clutching and downshifting, using engine compression to slow for the turn into the Safeway supermarket parking lot, touching her brakes only to flash the brake lights for the drivers behind her.

  She had to make four laps of the parking lot before she found a parking place, empty because it was blocked by an abandoned grocery cart. She got out and moved the cart. By the time she parked, another shopper had taken the basket.

  She found a grocery cart near the door and rolled it toward the grocery store.

  Mogli could see her turn in and stop on the screen of his monitor and in the distance he could see the big Safeway coming up on his right.

  “She’s going in the grocery store.” He turned in to the parking lot. It took a few seconds to spot her car. He could see a young woman pushing a cart toward the entrance.

  Carlo put the glasses on her. “That’s Starling. She looks like her pictures.” He handed the glasses to Piero.

  “I’d like to take her picture,” Piero said. “I got my zoom right here.”

  There was a handicap parking space across the parking lane from her car. Mogli pulled into it, ahead of a big Lincoln with handicap plates. The driver honked angrily.

  Now they were looking out the back window of the van at the tail of Starling’s car.

  Perha
ps because he was used to looking at American cars, Mogli spotted the old truck first, parked at a distant parking place near the edge of the lot. He could only see the gray tailgate of the pickup.

  He pointed the truck out to Carlo. “Has he got a vise on the tailgate? That what the liquor store guy said? Put the glasses on it, I can’t see for the fucking tree. Carlo, c’è una morsa sul camione?”

  “Sì. Yes, it’s there, the vise. Nobody inside.”

  “Should we cover her in the store?” Tommaso did not often question Carlo.

  “No, if he does it, he’ll do it here,” Carlo said.

  The dairy items were first. Starling, consulting her coupons, selected cheese for a casserole and some heat ’em and eat ’em rolls. Damn making scratch rolls for this crowd. She had reached the meat counter when she realized she had forgotten butter. She left her cart and went back for it.

  When she returned to the meat department, her cart was gone. Someone had removed her few purchases and put them on a shelf nearby. They had kept the coupons, and the list.

  “Goddamn it,” Starling said, loudly enough for nearby shoppers to hear. She looked around her. Nobody had a thick sheaf of coupons in sight. She took a couple of deep breaths. She could lurk near the cash registers and try to recognize her list, if they still had it clipped to the coupons. What the hell, couple of bucks. Don’t let it ruin your day.

  There were no free grocery carts near the registers. Starling went outside to find another one in the parking lot.

  _______

  “Ecco!” Carlo saw him coming between the vehicles with his quick, light stride, Dr. Hannibal Lecter in a camel’s hair overcoat and a fedora, carrying a gift in an act of utter whimsy. “Madonna! He’s coming to her car.” Then the hunter in Carlo took over and he began to control his breathing, getting ready for the shot. The stag’s tooth he was chewing appeared briefly through his lips.

  The back window of the van did not roll down.

  “Metti in mòto! Back around with your side to him,” Carlo said.