Hannibal - Thomas Harris [149]
They could only be Lecter's legs if he had been wheeled and braided, she thought for a bad moment. Carlo called into the barn behind him. Starling heard a motor start.
The forklift came into Starling's view, Piero driving, Dr Lecter raised high with the fork, his arms spread on the singletree and the IV bottles swaying above his hands with the movement of the vehicle. Held high so that he could see the ravening swine, could see what was coming..The forklift came at an awful processional speed, Carlo walking beside it and on the other side Johnny Mogli, armed.
Starling fixed on Mogli's deputy badge for an instant. A star, not like the locals badges. White hair, white shirt, like the driver of the kidnap van.
Prom the van came Mason's deep voice. He hummed “Pomp and Circumstance” and giggled.
The pigs, raised with noise, were not afraid of the machine, they seemed to welcome it.
The forklift stopped near the barrier. Mason said something to Dr Lecter that Starling could not hear. Dr Lecter did not move his head or give any sign that he had heard. He was higher even than Piero at the controls. Did he look in Starling's direction? She never knew because she was moving fast along the fence line, along the side of the barn, finding the double doors where the van had backed in.
Carlo sailed the stuffed trousers into the pigpen. The hogs leaped forward as one, room for two on each leg, shouldering the others aside. Tearing, snarling, pulling and ripping, dead chickens in the trouser legs coming to pieces, pigs shaking their heads from side to side with chicken guts flailing. A field of tossing bristled backs.
Carlo had only provided the lightest of appetizers, just three chickens and a little salad. In moments the trousers were rags and the slavering pigs turned their avid little eyes back to the barrier.
Piero lowered the fork to just the height above ground level. The upper part of the Dutch gate would keep the pigs away from Dr Lector's vitals for the time being. Carlo removed the doctor's shoes and socks.
“This little piggy went EEE EEE EEE all the way home,” Mason called from the van.
Starling was coming up behind them. All were facing the other way, facing the pigs. She passed the tack room door, moved out into the center of the barn.
“Now, don't let him bleed out,” Cordell said from the van. “Be ready when I tell you to tighten the tourniquets.”
He was clearing Mason's goggle with a cloth.
“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 whitehaired 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 whitehaired 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 pane,” Dr Lecter explained from the forklift.
Carlo looked up at Starling, saw that she would kill