The X-ray match was old news.

THANKS To the consideration of one madman and the obsession of another,

Starling now had for the moment what she always wanted, an office in the

storied subterranean corridor at Behavioral Science. It was bitter to get the

office this way.

Starling never expected to go straight to the elite Behavioral Science section

when she graduated from the FBI Academy, but she had believed that she could

earn a place there. She knew she would spend several years in field offices

first.

Starling was good at the job, but not good at office politics, and it took her

years to see that she would never go to Behavioral Science, despite the wishes

of its chief, Jack Crawford.

A major reason was invisible to her until, like an astronomer locating a black

hole, she found Deputy Assistant Inspector General Paul Krendler by his

influence on the bodies around him. He had never forgiven her for finding the

serial killer Jame Gumb ahead of him, and he could not bear the press

attention it brought her.

Once Krendler called her at home on a rainy winter night. She answered the

telephone in a robe and bunny slippers with her hair up in a towel. She would

always remember the date exactly because it was the first week of Desert

Storm. Starling was a tech agent then and she had just returned from New York,

where she had replaced the radio in the Iraqi U.N. Mission's limousine. The

new radio was just like the old one, except it broadcast conversations in the

car to a Defense Department satellite overhead. It had been a dicey maneuver

in a private garage and she was still edgy.

For a wild second, she thought Krendler had called to say she'd done a good

job.

She remembered the rain against the windows and Krendler's voice on the phone,

speech a little slurred, bar noises in the background.

He asked her out. He said he could come by in half an hour. He was married.

"I think not, Mr. Krendler," she said and pushed the record button on her

answering machine, it making the requisite legal beep, and the line went dead.

Now, years later in the office she had wanted to earn, Starling penciled her

name on a piece of scrap paper and Scotch-taped it to the door. That wasn't

funny and she tore it off again and threw it in the trash.

There was one piece of mail in her in-tray. It was a questionnaire from The

Guinness Book of World Records, which prepared to list her as having killed

more criminals than any other female law enforcement officer in United States

history. The term criminals was being used advisedly, the publisher explained,

as all of the deceased had multiple felony convictions and three had

outstanding warrants. The questionnaire went into the trash along with her

name.

She was in her second hour of pecking away at the computer workstation,

blowing stray strands of hair out of her face, when Crawford knocked on the

door and stuck his head inside.

"Brian called from the lab, Starling. Mason's X-ray and the one you got from

Barney are a match. It's Lector's arm. They'll digitize the images and compare

them, but he says there's no question. We'll post everything to the secure

Lector VICAP folder."

"What about Mason Verger?"

"We tell him the truth," Crawford said. "You and I both know he won't share,

Starling, unless he gets something he can't move on himself. But if we try to

take over his lead in Brazil at this point, it'll evaporate."

"You told me to leave it alone and I did."

"You were doing something in here."

"Mason's X ray came by DHL Express. DHL took the bar code and label

information and pinpointed the pickup location. It's in the Hotel Ibarra in

Rio."

Starling raised her hand to forestall interruption. "This is all New York

sources, now. No inquiries at all in Brazil. "Mason does his phone business, a

lot of it, through the switch-board of a sports book in Las Vegas. You can

imagine the volume of calls they take."

"Do I want to know how you found that out?"

"Strictly legit," Starling said. "Well, pretty much legit - I didn't leave

anything in his house. I've got the codes to look at his phone bill, that's

all. All the tech agents have them. Let's say he obstructs justice. With his

influence, how long would we have to beg for a warrant to trap and trace? What

could you do to him anyway if he was convicted? But he's using a sports book."

"I see it," Crawford said. "The Nevada Gaming Commission could either tap the

phone or squeeze the sports book for what we need to know, which is where the

calls go."

She nodded. "I left Mason alone just like you said."

"I can see that," Crawford said. "You can tell Mason we expect to help through

Interpol and the embassy. Tell him we need to move people down there and start

the framework for extradition. Lecter's probably committed crimes in South

America, so we better extradite before the Rio police start looking in their

files under Cannibalism. If he's in South America at all. Starling, does it

make you sick to talk to Mason?"

"I have to get in the mode. You walked me through it when we did that floater

in West Virginia. What am I saying, `floater.' She was a person named

Fredericka Bimmel, and, yes, Mason makes me sick. A lot of stuff makes me sick

lately, Jack."

Starling surprised herself into silence. She had never before addressed

Section Chief Jack Crawford by his first name, she had never planned to call

him "Jack" and it shocked her. She studied his face, a face famously hard to

read.

He nodded, his smile wry and sad. "Me too, Starling. Want a couple of these

Pepto-Bismol tablets to chew before you talk to Mason?"

Mason Verger did not bother to take Starling's call. A secretary thanked her

for the message and said he'd return her call. But he didn't get back to her

personally. To Mason, several places higher on the notification list than

Starling, the X-ray match was old news.