Hannibal - Thomas Harris [150]
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.”
As he spoke the dart from Tommaso's rifle flew, a silver streak under the floodlights, and quivered in the center of Starling's back. She spun, instantly dizzy, vision going dark, trying to spot a target, saw the barrel at the edge of the loft and fired, fired, fired, fired. Tommaso rolling back from the edge, splinters stinging him, blue gun smoke rolling up into the lights. She fired once more as her vision failed, reached behind her hip for a magazine even as her knees gave way.
The noise seemed to further animate the pigs and seeing the men in their inviting position on the ground, they squealed and grunted, pressing against the barrier.
Starling pitched forward on her face, the empty pistol bouncing away the breech locked open. Carlo and Piero raised their heads to look and they were scrambling, crawling awkwardly together as a bat crawls, toward Mogli's body and his pistol and handcuff keys. Sound of Tommaso pumping the tranquilizer rifle in the loft. He had a dart left. He rose now and came to the edge, looking over the barrel, seeking Dr Lecter on the other side of the forklift.
Here came Tommaso walking along the edge of the loft, there would be no place to hide.
Dr Lecter lifted Starling in his arms and backed fast toward the Dutch gate, trying to keep the forklift between him and Tommaso, advancing carefully, watching his footing at the edge of the loft. Tommaso fired and the dart, aimed at Lecter's chest, hit bone in Starling's shin. Dr Lecter pulled the bolts on the Dutch gate.
Piero snatched Mogli's key chain, frantic, Carlo scrambling for the gun, and came the pigs in a rush to the meal that was struggling to get up. Carlo managed to fire the .357 once, and a pig collapsed, the others climbing over the dead pig and onto Carlo and Piero, and the body of Mogli. More rushed on through the barn and into the night.
Dr Lecter, holding Starling, was behind the gate when the pigs rushed through.
Tommaso from the loft could see his brother's face down in the pack and then it was only a bloody dish. He dropped the rifle in the hay. Dr Lecter, erect as a dancer and carrying Starling in his arms, came out from behind the gate, walked barefoot out of the barn, through the pigs. Dr Lecter walked through the sea of tossing backs and blood spray in the barn. A couple of the great swine, one of them the pregnant sow, squared their feet to him, lowered their heads to charge.
When he faced them and they smelled no fear, they trotted back to the easy pickings on the ground.
Dr Lecter saw no reinforcements coming from the house. Once under