Hannibal - Thomas Harris [7]
The caption beneath the pictures says, “FBI Special Agent Clarice Starling, slayer of serial killer Jame Gumb, adds at least five notches to her gun. Mother with babe in arms and two police officers among the dead after botched drug raid.”
The main story covered the drug careers of Evelda and Dijon Drumgo, and the appearance of the Crip gang on the wartorn landscape of Washington, D.C. There was a brief mention of fallen officer John Brigham's military service, and his decorations were cited.
Starling was treated to an entire sidebar, beneath a candid photo of Starling in a restaurant wearing a scoopnecked dress, her face animated.
Clarice Starling, FBI Special Agent, had her fifteen minutes of fame when she shot to death serial murderer Jame Gumb, the “Buffalo Bill” killer, in his basement seven years ago. Now she may face departmental charges and civil liabilities in the death Thursday of a Washington mother accused of manufacturing illegal amphetamines. (See main story Page l.) “This may be the end of her career,” said one source at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the FBI's sister agency. “We don't know all the details of` how it went down, but John Brigham should be alive today. This is the last thing the FBI needs after Ruby Ridge,” said the source, who declined to be identified.
Clarice Starling's colorful career began soon after she arrived at the FBI Academy as a trainee. An honor graduate of the University of Virginia in psychology and criminology, she was assigned to interview the lethal madman Dr Hannibal Lecter, dubbed by this newspaper “Hannibal the Cannibal,” and received information from him that was important in the search for Jame Gumb and the rescue of his hostage, Catherine Martin daughter of the former U.S. senator from Tennessee.
Agent Starling was the interservice combat pistol champion for three years running before she withdrew from competition. Ironically, Officer Brigham, who died at her side, was firearms instructor at Quantico when Starling trained there and was her coach in competition..An FBI spokesman said Agent Starling will be relieved of field duties with pay pending the outcome of the FBI's internal investigation. A hearing is expected later this week before the Office of Professional Responsibility, the FBI's own dread inquisition.
Relatives of the late Evelda Drumgo said they will seek civil damages from the U.S. government and from Starling personally in wrongfuldeath suits.
Drumgo's threemonthold son, seen in his mother's arms in the dramatic pictures of the shootout, was not injured.
Attorney Telford Higgins, who has defended the Drumgo family in numerous criminal proceedings, alleged that Special Agent Starling's weapon, a modified Colt .45 semiautomatic pistol, was not approved for use in law enforcement in the city of Washington. “It is a deadly and dangerous instrument not suitable for use in law enforcement,” Higgins said. “Its very use constitutes reckless endangerment of human life,” the noted defense attorney said.
The Tattler had bought Clarice Starling's very home phone number from one of her informants and rang it until Starling left it off the hook, and used her FBI cell phone to talk to the office.
Starling did not have a great deal of pain in her ear and the swollen side of her face as long as she did not touch the bandage. At least she didn't throb. Two Tylenol held her. She didn't need the Percocet the doctor had prescribed. She dozed against the headboard of the bed, the Washington Post sliding off the spread onto the floor, gunpowder residue in her hands, dried tears stiff on her cheeks.
Hannibal
Chapter 4
You fall in love with the Bureau, but the Bureau doesn't fall in love with you. -MAXIM IN FBI SEPARATION COUNSELING
THE FBI gymnasium in the J. Edgar Hoover Building was almost empty at this early hour. Two middleaged men ran slow laps on the indoor track. The clank of a weight machine in a far corner and the shouts and impacts of a racquetball game echoed in the big room. The voices of the runners