One more thing, Doctor. You know, Health and Human Services is right here in Baltimore. My thoughts are running to the Office of Eligibility Policy, and I expect your thoughts got there first, didn't they? What if Senator Martin, sometime after her daughter's funeral, asked the fellows over at Eligibility this question: Should the sex-change operations you perform here be considered cosmetic surgery? Maybe they'll scratch their heads and decide, 'Why, you know, Senator Martin's right. Yes. We think it's cosmetic surgery,' then this program won't qualify for federal assistance any more than a nose-job clinic."

"That's insulting."

"No, it's just the truth."

"You don't frighten me, you don't intimidate me--"

"Good. I don't want to do either one, Doctor. I just want you to know I'm serious. Help me, Doctor. Please."

"You said you're working with Alan Bloom."

"Yes. The University of Chicago-- "

"I know Alan Bloom, and I'd rather discuss this on a professional level. Tell him I'll be in touch with him this morning. Ill tell you what I've decided before noon. I do care about the young woman, Mr. Crawford. And the others. But there's a lot at stake here, and I don't think it's as important to you as it ought to be… Mr. Crawford, have you had your blood pressure checked recently?"

"I do it myself."

"And do you prescribe for yourself?"

"That's against the law, Dr. Danielson."

"But you have a doctor."

"Yes."

"Share your findings with him, Mr. Crawford. What a loss to us all if you dropped dead. You'll hear from me later in the morning."

"How much later, Doctor? How about an hour?"

"An hour."

Crawford's beeper sounded as he got off the elevator at the ground floor. His driver, Jeff, was beckoning as Crawford trotted to the van. She's dead and they found her, Crawford thought as he grabbed the phone. It was the Director calling. The news wasn't as bad as it could get, but it was bad enough: Chilton had butted into the case and now Senator Martin was stepping in. The attorney general of the state of Maryland, on instructions from the governor, had authorized the extradition to Tennessee of Dr. Hannibal Lecter. It would take all the muscle of the Federal Court, District of Maryland, to prevent or delay the move. The Director wanted a judgment call from Crawford and he wanted it now.

"Hold on," Crawford said. He held the receiver on his thigh and looked out the van window. There wasn't much color in February for the first light to find. All gray. So bleak.

Jeff started to say something and Crawford hushed him with a motion of his hand.

Lecter's monster ego. Chilton's ambition. Senator Martin's terror for her child. Catherine Martin's life. Call it.

"Let them go," he said into the phone.

CHAPTER 29

Dr. Chilton and three well-pressed Tennessee state troopers stood close together on the windy tarmac at sunrise, raising their voices over a wash of radio traffic from the open door of the Grumman Gulfstream and from the ambulance idling beside the airplane.

The trooper captain in charge handed Dr. Chilton a pen. The papers blew over the end of the clipboard and the policeman had to smooth them down.

"Can't we do this in the 'air?" Chilton asked.

"Sir, we have to do the documentation at the moment of physical transfer. That's my instructions."

The copilot finished clamping the ramp over the airplane steps. "Okay," he called.

The troopers gathered with Dr. Chilton at the back of the ambulance. When he opened the back doors, they tensed as though they expected something to jump out. '

Dr. Hannibal Lecter stood upright on his hand truck, wrapped in canvas webbing and wearing his hockey mask. He was relieving his bladder while Barney held the urinal.

One of the troopers snorted. The other two looked away.

"Sorry," Barney said to Dr. Lecter, and closed the doors again.

"That's all right, Barney," Dr. Lecter said. "I'm quite finished, thank you."

Barney rearranged Lecter's clothing and rolled him to the back of the ambulance.

"Barney?"

"Yes, Dr. Lecter?"

"You've been decent to me for a long time. Thank you."

"You're welcome."

"Next time Sammie's at himself, would you say good-bye for me?"

"Sure."

"Good-bye, Barney."

The big orderly pushed open the doors and called to the troopers. "You want to catch the bottom there, fellows? Take it on both sides. We'll set him on the ground. Easy."

Barney rolled. Dr. Lecter up the ramp and into the airplane. Three seats had been removed on the craft's right side. The copilot lashed the hand truck to the seat brackets in the floor.

"He's gonna fly laying down?" one trooper asked. "Has he got rubber britches on?"

"You'll just have to hold your water to Memphis, buddy ruff," the other trooper said.

"Doctor Chilton, could I speak to you?" Barney said.

They stood outside the airplane while the wind made little twisters of dust and trash around them.

"These fellows don't know anything," Barney said.

"I'll have some help on the other end-- experienced psychiatric orderlies. He's their responsibility now."

"You think they'll treat him all right? You know how he is-- you have to threaten him with boredom. That's all he's afraid of. Slapping him around's no good."

"I'd never allow that, Barney."

"You'll be there when they question him?"

"Yes." And you won't, Chilton added privately.

"I could get him settled on the other end and be back here just a couple of hours behind my shift," Barney said.

"He's not your job anymore, Barney. I'll be there. I'll show them how to manage him, every step."

"They better pay attention," Barney said. "He will."

CHAPTER 30

Clarice Starling sat on the side of her motel bed and stared at the black telephone for almost a minute after Crawford hung up. Her hair was tousled and she had twisted her FBI Academy nightgown about her, tossing in her short sleep. She felt like she had been kicked in the stomach.

It had only been three hours since she left Dr. Lecter, and two hours since she and Crawford finished working out the sheet of characteristics to check against applications at the medical centers. In that short time, while she slept, Dr. Frederick Chilton had managed to screw it up.

Crawford was coming for her. She needed to get ready, had to think about getting ready.

God dammit. God DAMMIT. GOD DAMMIT. You've killed her, Dr. Chilton. You've killed her, Dr. Fuck Face. Lecter knew some more and I could have gotten it. All gone, all gone, now. All for nothing. When Catherine Martin floats, I'll see that you have to look at her, I swear I will. You took it away from me. I really have to have something useful to do. Right now. What can I do right now, what can I do this minute? Get clean.

In the bathroom, a little basket of paper-wrapped soaps, tubes of shampoo and lotion, a little sewing kit, the favors you get at a good motel.

Stepping into the shower, Starling saw in a flash herself at eight, bringing in the towels and the shampoo and paper-wrapped soap to her mother when her mother cleaned motel rooms. When she was eight, there was a crow, one of a flock on the gritty wind of that sour town, and this crow liked to steal from the motel cleaning carts. It took anything bright. The crow would wait for its chance, and then rummage among the many housekeeping items on the cart. Sometimes, in an emergency takeoff, it crapped on the clean linens. One of the other cleaning women threw bleach at it, to no effect except to mottle its feathers with snow-white patches. The black-and-white crow was always watching for Clarice to leave the cart, to take things to her mother, who was scrubbing bathrooms. Her mother was standing in the door of a motel bathroom when she told Starling she would have to go away, to live in Montana. Her mother put down the towels she was holding and sat down on the side of the motel bed and held her. Starling still dreamed about the crow, saw it now with no time to think why. Her hand came up in a shooing motion and then, as though it needed to excuse the gesture, her hand continued to her forehead to slick back the wet hair.