The Silence of the Lambs (Hannibal Lecter 2)

May 2013

If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me, if the dead rise not?

—1 Corinthians

Need I look upon a death’s head in a ring, that have one in my face?

—John Donne, “Devotions”

CHAPTER 1

Behavioral Science, the FBI section that deals with serial murder, is on the bottom floor of the Academy building at Quantico, half-buried in the earth. Clarice Starling reached it flushed after a fast walk from Hogan’s Alley on the firing range. She had grass in her hair and grass stains on her FBI Academy windbreaker from diving to the ground under fire in an arrest problem on the range.

No one was in the outer office, so she fluffed briefly by her reflection in the glass doors. She knew she could look all right without primping. Her hands smelled of gunsmoke, but there was no time to wash—Section Chief Crawford’s summons had said now.

She found Jack Crawford alone in the cluttered suite of offices. He was standing at someone else’s desk talking on the telephone and she had a chance to look him over for the first time in a year. What she saw disturbed her.

Normally, Crawford looked like a fit, middle-aged engineer who might have paid his way through college playing baseball—a crafty catcher, tough when he blocked the plate. Now he was thin, his shirt collar was too big, and he had dark puffs under his reddened eyes. Everyone who could read the papers knew Behavioral Science section was catching hell. Starling hoped Crawford wasn’t on the juice. That seemed most unlikely here.

Crawford ended his telephone conversation with a sharp “No.” He took her file from under his arm and opened it.

“Starling, Clarice M., good morning,” he said.

“Hello.” Her smile was only polite.

“Nothing’s wrong. I hope the call didn’t spook you.”

“No.” Not totally true, Starling thought.

“Your instructors tell me you’re doing well, top quarter of the class.”

“I hope so, they haven’t posted anything.”

“I ask them from time to time.”

That surprised Starling; she had written Crawford off as a two-faced recruiting sergeant son of a bitch.

She had met Special Agent Crawford when he was a guest lecturer at the University of Virginia. The quality of his criminology seminars was a factor in her coming to the Bureau. She wrote him a note when she qualified for the Academy, but he never replied, and for the three months she had been a trainee at Quantico, he had ignored her.

Starling came from people who do not ask for favors or press for friendship, but she was puzzled and regretful at Crawford’s behavior. Now, in his presence, she liked him again, she was sorry to note.

Clearly something was wrong with him. There was a peculiar cleverness in Crawford, aside from his intelligence, and Starling had first noticed it in his color sense and the textures of his clothing, even within the FBI-clone standards of agent dress. Now he was neat but drab, as though he were molting.

“A job came up and I thought about you,” he said. “It’s not really a job, it’s more of an interesting errand. Push Berry’s stuff off that chair and sit down. You put down here that you want to come directly to Behavioral Science when you get through with the Academy.”

“I do.”

“You have a lot of forensics, but no law enforcement background. We look for six years, minimum.”

“My father was a marshal, I know the life.”

Crawford smiled a little. “What you do have is a double major in psychology and criminology, and how many summers working in a mental health center—two?”

“Two.”

“Your counselor’s license, is it current?”

“It’s good for two more years. I got it before you had the seminar at UVA—before I decided to do this.”