TO SAVE A LADY – A STARSKY AND HUTCH / QUANTUM LEAP CROSS OVER
"Oh boy!"
"Did you say something, Hutch?" said the huge black guy sitting next to him.
"Erm...no. It's fine." Quickly, Sam looked around and took stock of his surroundings. It was a courtroom, and the Judge was just entering.
"All rise. The Court is now in session, the honourable Judge Arlan B. Jaegar presiding."
The Judge sat down and started to speak. Sam looked around for Al. He wasn't here yet.
He became aware of was the uncomfortable feeling across his back. He realised that he was carrying a weapon, and immediately felt even more uncomfortable.
Sam watched as the prisoner was brought in, a Simone Marcus, being tried for murder, amongst other things.
The Judge paused, as a piece of paper was given him. He read the note, and nodded. The bailiff stepped forwards and gave the note to Sam.
Sam opened the note.
WHERE IS STARSKY?
Sam's immediate problem was he didn't know who Starsky was. Where the hell was Al?
He had to get out of the court room. Sam stood and glanced behind him. Clutching the note, He left the room. The big guy started to get up, but didn't follow him.
He was surprised to see the corridor empty; he expected there to be cops around, and witnesses and lawyers. But there was no one.
Except Al.
Thank goodness.
"Ok, who am I?" Sam said.
"You are Detective Kenneth Hutch..." Al gave the handset a little bash. "...inson of Bay City Police. Dave Starsky is your partner."
Sam held up the note for Al to see.
"Seems he's been kidnapped, Sam. He was in the john." Al pointed to the door. "It's not very nice in there!" he shouted after Sam as he entered the men's toilet.
Al was right. It wasn't nice. There wasn't anyone in there, but emblazoned on the mirror in what appeared to be blood, was the single word,
STARSKY
Sam felt sick, which wasn't, he thought, the best reaction from a street cop. Al stood behind him.
"I guess I have to find him before anything happens to him." said Sam.
"That would have been my first thought." Al replied, "Except he survived anyway. It must be something else." He pressed some buttons. "I'll be right back." and he was gone.
-0-0-0-
All hell broke loose. If there weren't any cops around before, there sure were now. The building was searched from top to bottom for the missing man, and the CSU descended on the men's room.
But Starsky was gone.
Then came the phone call. Sam was in the lobby of the courthouse and was handed the phone by the big black guy.
Where are you Al?
Sam hated this first few minutes while he tried to get his bearings. But he had read about hostage situations, and had seen them on TV a few times.
"I want to speak to Starsky." he said, trying to keep his voice free from tremors. "I need to know that he is not hurt."
"If you sentence Simon Marcus, you will be sentencing Starsky to death."
The connection was cut.
They wanted the killer, Marcus, to be set free, or Starsky was going to be executed!
Sam went to see the man in his cell. Al stood beside him.
"Where is Starsky? Where is he being held?"
The man sitting in front of him started some insane prattle about dreams and death. He was starting to annoy Sam.
"This is the nineteen seventies, Sam." said Al. "You can be a little rough with him."
Sam grabbed the man by the front of his shirt and held him against the wall. "Talk!"
"Sam!"
"Where is my partner?"
"You need to get out of here, Sam. I have something to tell you!"
Sam pushed Marcus away and turned to leave.
"I had a dream, Hutchinson." Marcus said. Sam stopped and listened. It sounded like the ravings of a mad man.
"Begin your search at the ending." he said.
Sam knocked on the door.
-0-0-0-
"Ok, Al. What do you have for me?"
Sam was in a store cupboard at the end of the corridor.
"Starsky survived the kidnapping."
"You already told me that." Sam answered. "What do I have to do?"
"Ziggy says you have to not save him. Ninety five percent certainty that Starsky has to die."
Sam stared at Al in shock. "What? I can't do that! It goes against everything I'm trying to do!"
"And what would that be, Sam?"
He clenched and unclenched his fists angrily. "I'm trying to make things better for the people I meet on these leaps. How would letting someone die benefit anyone?"
Al longed to reach out and touch his friend. This was so difficult.
Ziggy hasn't got that information yet." Al said softly. "But we're working on it.".
Al vanished from in front of Sam.
There was no way he was going to let Starsky die. Ok, he had never met the man, but he felt he knew him. Somehow, the feelings and emotions of Kenneth Hutchinson were connecting with him.
It was making him a little dizzy. On all his leaps, he had always felt totally separate from the person he leapt into. This was different. He felt the love that Hutchinson had for his partner, and he knew there was the same feeling returned.
To hell with Ziggy. He was going to save Starsky.
Suddenly the door opened, and the big guy stared at him.
"What are you doing in there, Hutchinson?"
"Thinking!" Sam said quickly. Boy this could be difficult. Al said he had a Swiss cheese brain. He was probably right.
"Begin at the end." he said. "That would be where you and Starsky busted him."
"Yeah." Sam said. "I'll head over there."
He left the building, but he had no idea where he was going, or how he was going to get there. He looked at the cars parked along the street, and felt in his pocket for car keys.
He had keys, hanging on a Ford key fob. He looked at the cars again.
There was only one Ford.
Oh for heaven's sake! Please, not that one!
The key fitted. He got in and switched on the ignition. Actually, it sounded better than it looked. The engine purred softly. He tapped the accelerator, and the car leapt forward, leaving rubber in the road.
He tried again, hoping no-one was watching. The car smoothly glided forwards. This was nice!
Al sat beside him.
"Nice car!"
"Come on, Al, where am I going?"
"You and Starsky arrested Marcus in a disused store." Al gave him directions. "You won't find anything useful there."
"Has Ziggy come up with anything new?"
"Yes."
"And?"
"And nothing's changed. The man has to die."
Sam stopped the car. "Why? Has he got an answer to that yet?"
"In two months time, Starsky falls for a lady named Terry. The reason Starsky can not survive this has something to do with her, eighty three percent." Al said. "We're still working on it." Al lifted his hand to touch him. "I'm sorry, Sam."
"Al, this leap is different." Sam said. "I can feel a connection with Hutchinson. I can feel his emotions, the depth of his love for Starsky. It's making me feel sick."
"You mean 'sick' sick? As in throw up?"
"Yes. I don't feel very well. I keep thinking I'm going to faint."
"I'll check it out for you." Al said. "There's nothing at the store, but you might notice something I missed. " He vanished.
-0-0-0-
Al was right. Just another bunch of weirdoes who refused to do anything but chant. It was starting to get on Sam's nerves. He angrily kicked over a table and left them to whatever it was they were doing.
When he got back to the car, there was a box on his seat. A ticking box. Sam backed away from the car, expecting it to blow up at any moment.
When the lid opened, it was a child's toy, a Jack-in –the-box. And it was holding Starsky's shield.
Sam drove the car back to the Police Department. The big guy, who it turned out was the police Captain, Dobey by name, gave him the shield to take care of. When the phone rang, Sam picked it up. He was starting to feel a bit more confident in the role now. Although if past experience was anything to go by, that could soon change.
It was the lab. The blood in the men's room wasn't Starsky's. It was from an animal.
Sam felt relieved. He told Dobey what the lab had come up with.
"Didn't Marcus camp out on a ranch of some kind?" Dobey said. "The rancher only let them stay because he wanted to get close to Marcus's crazy ladies." Dobey opened a filing cabinet, pulling out a folder."They were mutilating cattle; the rancher had them thrown off." He passed the folder to Sam."There you go."
"Ah yes, I remember." Sam said. "I'll get right over there."
"How can you be sure they went back there?" called Dobey after him.
"I can't." Sam answered. "But I have to try!"
-0-0-0-
The rancher was burying a bull when Sam arrived. He was clearly terrified of Marcus and his followers. He wouldn't tell him anything. Sam was getting frustrated.
"My partner's life is at stake here!" Sam yelled. "Just give me something! Anything."
He shook his head and went into the barn, closing the door behind him, effectively ending the conversation.
Sam started to walk away, wondering what the next step would be, wishing Al would come back.
The explosion knocked him off his feet. He could hear Al calling him, but it sounded as if it was under water. He turned over, wondering if he was still in one piece.
"Sam! Sam, are you alright?"
Sam stood up on wobbly legs.
"Yeah. I think so." He looked around. "They killed the rancher. He didn't say anything!"
"Sam look!" Al pointed across the scrubland. There was a van stopped on the top of the hill.
"It's them, isn't it?" Sam ran to the car.
"Sam, leave it!"
He was in the car following the van when Al appeared next to him.
"Ziggy has worked it out. We know why Starsky has to die."
"Not now, Al. Not now. I need to catch up with the van."
Al sighed heavily, and left the imaging chamber.
Sam tore along the dusty roads after the elusive vehicle. It was so close. He wasn't going to let it go.
Then he saw it. Stopped off road.
Sam stopped the car and crept over to the van. He could feel the gun against his side. But Sam had never used a gun, and he wasn't about to start now. Slowly, he walked round the van and peered inside.
Empty.
So where were they?
He suddenly realised how vulnerable he was. He threw himself into the long grass and crawled back to the car.
He radioed in to Dobey and told him what had happened.
"I'm sure we've missed something." Sam said. "I'm going back to speak to Marcus."
"I'll get a team onto the van, Hutch." Dobey said. "We've only got seventeen hours."
"I know." Sam said, putting the handset down.
As he drove back to the Police HQ, Al started to tell him what Ziggy had found out.
"I don't want to know!" Sam said, raising his voice.
"Well I'm going to tell you." Al said softly. "Listen. Like I said, Starsky falls for a lovely lady called Terry. In a revenge attack against Starsky, Terry is murdered."
"That's awful." Sam said. "But that doesn't explain why I have to let Starsky die."
"Wait a minute. I've not told you everything." Al said. "Terry must be allowed to live. She is a campaigner for the rights of unborn children with disabilities. Her tireless work saved thousands of children who would have otherwise never have been born. One of those children grew up to be an important figure in the human rights arena."
"I can't let Starsky die!" Sam said. "He's my partner, and my buddy, and I love him. I can't...no! I won't let him die!"
"Sam! He's not your partner! You have never met him! You can't love him! You are Sam Becket. You are not Ken Hutchinson!"
Sam looked across to where Al was sitting. He couldn't see him.
"Sam! Sam!" Al yelled. "Sam, can't you hear me? Sam!"
Sam carried on driving.
-0-0-0-
The talk with Marcus was a waste of time. Sam took a tape recorder in with him, and played it back to Dobey, and an odd chap called Huggy. He recollected that Huggy had often helped them out when he and Starsky worked the streets.
Together they listened to the tapes play through again.
"He's a nutcase!" Dobey offered.
"Great help, Captain!" Sam said. "Look. He speaks in riddles. There's a clue somewhere in this."
Sam rewound the tape, and got ready to play it again.
"Let's try synonyms." He suggested. Huggy grabbed a sheet of paper, and they played the tape a bit at a time.
Now they were on the right track, it took minutes to decipher the clues.
They had Starsky in the old deserted zoo.
Sam rushed out of the office, and ran down the stairs two at a time. Al was standing at the bottom of the stairs.
"Sam! Stop!"
Sam ran on through the hologram and got in the car, and this time when he burnt rubber, it was deliberate.
-0-0-0-
Starsky's arms were hurting. He could just reach the ground with his toes, hanging by his tied wrists. His eyes were sore where the flaming torch had been swung in his face, and his belly was cramping from some poison they had given him to drink. The people who were standing around looked blurred to him. He hoped the damage to his eyes wasn't permanent. But if Hutch didn't hurry with the rescue, it wouldn't matter anyway. He saw that the ones in the circle were carrying weapons, and he wondered which one was going to kill him.
Gail. The girl who had been assigned to 'prepare' him, she was here. She had a knife.
The circle began to chant.
"Simone...Simone...Simone..."
Gail stood in front of Starsky.
"You're going to kill me while your friends watch."
"No." she said. "'Thou shalt not...kill'. I only make the first stroke."
"Gail...Please...You don't have to do this!"
Starsky heard the sweet sound of his car screech to a halt. They were here. Hutch was here...
He tried to swing round to see. He took his eyes off Gail, and as he did so, he felt the knife slide smoothly between his ribs. He cried out softly as she pulled the blade out again. Blood sprayed from the wound across Gail's face and she dropped to the ground weeping.
Starsky's head fell forward and he closed his eyes as his life blood poured onto the ground.
"Hutch..." he whispered. "Where are you?"
He felt hands on him, and the ropes holding his arms were released.
Gentle hands lowered him to the ground.
"I've got you Buddy. You're safe now."
"Hutch?" Starsky breathed. "Hutch, is that you?
"I'm here, Starsk. It's ok now."
Starsky opened his eyes slowly. "Hutch?"
He lifted a hand, and Sam held it tight.
"Hutch...I love you, man..."
Starsky's eyes closed and he died there in Sam's arms.
Sam's tears fell freely and wetted Starsky's face.
"No, Starsk. No. Don't leave me!"
He held his friend's body close, and rocked, tears of misery and distress falling from his eyes.
"No, Starsk. Please don't die! How will I carry on without you?"
Strong hands gently pulled Sam away from him. He was crying.
"I was too late. Oh god, Dobey, I was too late!"
He clung onto Dobey and felt his arms holding him.
Al stood by and watched, his own tears starting to fall. Sam looked up and saw him.
"Sam. You have saved thousands of children. Children who would have never lived."
Sam leapt.