“Anything to say, Dr. Lecter?” came Mason’s deep voice.
The .45 boomed in the enclosure of the barn and Starling’s voice: “Hands up and freeze. Turn off the motor.”
Piero seemed not to understand.
“Fermate il motore,” Dr. Lecter said helpfully.
Only the impatient squealing of the pigs now.
She could see one gun, on the hip of the white-haired man wearing the star. Holster with a thumb break. Put the men on the ground first.
Cordell slid behind the wheel fast, the van moving, Mason yelling at him. Starling swung with the van, caught the white-haired man’s movement in the corner of her eye, swung back to him as he pulled his gun to kill her, him yelling “Police,” and she shot him twice in the chest, a fast double tap.
His .357 shot two feet of fire toward the ground, he went back a half step and to his knees, looking down at himself, his badge tuliped by the fat .45 slug that had passed through it and tumbled sideways through his heart.
Mogli went over backward and lay still.
In the tack room, Tommaso heard the shots. He grabbed the air rifle and climbed to the hayloft, dropped to his knees in the loose hay and crawled toward the side of the hayloft that overlooked the barn.
“Next,” Starling said in a voice she did not know. Do this fast while Mogli’s death still had them. “On the ground, you head toward the wall. You on the ground, head this way. This way.”
“Girati dall’ altra parte,” Dr. Lecter explained from the forklift.
Carlo looked up at Starling, saw that she would kill him, and lay still. She cuffed them fast with one hand, their heads in opposite directions, Carlo’s wrist to Piero’s ankle and Piero’s ankle to Carlo’s wrist. All the time the cocked .45 behind one of their ears.
She pulled her boot knife and went around the forklift to the doctor.
“Good evening, Clarice,” he said when he could see her.
“Can you walk, are your legs working?”
“Yes.”
“Can you see all right?”
“Yes.”
“I’m going to cut you loose. With all due respect, Doctor, if you fuck with me I’ll shoot you dead, here and now. Do you understand that?”
“Perfectly.”
“Do right and you’ll live through this.”
“Spoken like a Protestant.”
She was working all the time. The boot knife was sharp. She found the serrated edge worked fastest on the slick new rope.
His right arm was free.
“I can do the rest if you give me the knife.”
She hesitated. Backed to the length of his arm and gave him the short dagger. “My car’s a couple of hundred yards down the fire road.” She had to watch him and the men on the ground.
He had a leg free. He was working on the other, having to cut each coil separately. Dr. Lecter could not see behind him where Carlo and Piero were lying facedown.
“When you’re loose, don’t try to run. You’ll never make the door. I’ll give you two pairs of cuffs,” Starling said. “There’s two guys cuffed on the ground behind you. Make ’em crawl to the forklift and cuff them to it so they can’t get a phone. Then cuff yourself.”
“Two?” he said. “Watch it, there ought to be three.”