The Major Redemption

Chapter 8

Starsky surveyed the long queue of crewmembers lined up outside the makeshift incident room. They had taken over a bar area on deck seven and one by one each person was going through a carefully worded questionnaire as to their whereabouts over the past couple of nights. Alex's staff were cross checking answers with staff rotas and work patterns as each questionnaire was completed, eliminating those members of crew who had been on duty with others and those in sick bay.

The process was necessarily lengthy and with each passing moment the brunette's heart rate increased. He was used to running the streets. He was used to action; getting into his Torino and giving high speed pursuit down crowded Bay City Streets, not standing around and waiting. He was used to working with his partner. He had never been any good at the paper work. That was why he and Hutch made such a perfect combination. Starsky was the hotheaded go get 'em type, ready to charge off at a moment's notice whilst Hutch had always been the one with the calming influence. The one who had paused and thought things through. The perfect cool foil to the brunette's fire. Starsky's gut knotted at his thoughts. He missed Hutch with an emotion so powerful that he couldn't put words to it. If he had his left arm cut off, he wouldn't miss it as much as he missed the presence of the blond. He paced backwards and forwards. Finally he could stand the inactivity no longer and searched out the Bosun.

Alex was with a member of the catering staff, filling in the final bit of their questionnaire. He looked up at Starsky's approach, heedful of the pain the dark haired man was so evidently feeling.

'How's it going' asked Starsky

Alex sighed. 'Slowly, but we are eliminating people as we go on. We just need time'.

'Yeah, well that's one luxury Hutch might not have' spat Starsky, hammering his fist down on the table. Pausing to compose himself he continued 'Alex, I'm sorry. You're doing everything you can, I know. But I gotta do somethin'. I'm no good at just sittin' and waitin'. I gotta go look, poke around, anythin' other than standin' here'. His dark eyes pleaded silently with the Bosun.

Alex nodded, feeling the depth of commitment the man had for his missing friend. He had noticed it right from the very first meeting in the casino and bar, when he had seen the interaction between the two. They seemed joined almost symbiotically. Starsky would start a sentence and Hutch would finish it. They would both smile at the same time at something as yet unsaid, as if a moment of telepathy had occurred. At first, Alex had wondered at their relationship. Were they gay? Seeing them out on deck eyeing up the ladies, and the way they were around the opposite sex at dinner, or in the casino, however, he had come to the definite conclusion they weren't. He was almost envious of the relationship they shared, and wondered at what experiences they had had to make them so close.

The Bosun rose and walked with the detective to the door of the bar. He handed Starsky a bunch of keys. 'These are the keys to all the private areas on the ship. This one', he pointed one out, 'is the master key to all the galleys, laundries and porterage areas. Help yourself, but take this with you. If you're stopped show them this'. He handed Starsky a credit card shaped pass. 'Tell them to check with me if they're in any doubt, but they shouldn't stop you'.

Smiling his thanks, Starsky grabbed the keys and pass and exited the room.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Down on deck five, Hutch eyed the approaching Russian, licking dry cracked lips. The knife seemed to take on a malignant life of its own, as it came nearer and nearer to the bound blond. The pain in his arms stomach and hands temporarily forgotten, Hutch tried once again to reason with the little man.

'Ivan, there's no one else here. Its just me an' you. You don't wanna do this. I wasn't in Auschwitz. I'm too young to have been there. Look at me, we can work this out', he pleaded.

The Russian however, was listening to a different voice, his Father's commands ringing loudly in his head. That's it, my son, mark him, like he marked us. Ivan looked towards his left forearm, seeing the pale blue numbers indelibly carved into his skin – his serial number. He had been reduced from a human, to a Jew, to a number and now this Nazi would pay.

He brought up the knife and as if caressing a lover, held it against the skin of Hutch's immobile left forearm, looking all the time into the ice blue eyes above him. Slowly he pushed the blade into the flesh and drew it downwards, leaving a long bloody trail behind it. Hutch closed his eyes, feeling a tired sickness spread through his body. At the first movement of the blade, his eyes flew open again as he hissed through his teeth at the sharp, insistent pain. Blood started to flow down his arm, a thin trickling which tickled and annoyed, feeling warm and sticky against his skin, damp from sweat.

The Russian drew back as if to admire his handiwork. 'That one was for my Father', he explained softly. He brought the blade down, now, to Hutch's chest, and held it there a moment. Hutch tried not to breathe, so that the blade would not pierce his skin, but the small man once again pushed the point into the blonde's flesh. Starting high up between the bound man's nipples, he traced a horizontal line, then drew the blade away. The pain, in itself was nothing compared to what Hutch had already suffered, but it had him teetering once again on the brink of unconsciousness. He was sweating now, and the salty fluid was stinging the wound on his arm and that on his chest. The Russian chose a point midway in the slash he had just made, and drew the blade once again over Hutch's taught skin in a downwards movement, making a crude T shape on the blonde's body.

The pain was enough to send Hutch spiralling down into blackness again as he let out one, gut wrenching scream.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Wondering where to start, Starsky decided to work his way up from the bottom decks of the ship in systematic fashion. He ran down the stair well as fast as he could finding his way to the lowest deck – deck three. Checking what was there, he realised these were crew quarters, and those had already been thoroughly checked by the ships own security detail.

Backtracking he went up one level to deck four. OK, sickbay to the left. Starsky walked into the room, just as John Jackson was exiting his office.

'Ah, Mr Starsky. Having trouble with those wrists?' he asked pleasantly.

'No, nothing like that Doc, they're fine', he lied, as he felt the skin on the palm of his hand pulling uncomfortably. 'My friend is missing and I'm just tryin' to search all the room to see if I can find anything. You seen anyone odd hereabouts? Anyone new?'

The doctor paused. 'We took on a bunch of new crew at Canaveral. I haven't seen all of them yet, but can't say I've noticed anything out of the ordinary. I'll go through the manifests, and if I find anything I'll let you know'.

The brunette nodded his thanks and left, searching next the morgue and vast refrigeration rooms on the fourth deck. He found nothing as he moved from room to room, frustration growing with every door he closed. God Hutch, where are ya, buddy. Just hang on an' I'll find ya, but ya gotta hang in there.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

One deck up, Hutch was no longer hanging, though. Taking his chance whilst the blond was unconscious, the small Russian had cut him down, letting the body fall to the deck with a satisfying thud. Now was the time for the coup de gras. He wanted so much to see the Nazi suffer and to finally watch the light in those pale blue eyes die for the last time.

He manhandled the dead weight of the blond into the middle of the deck, and began to secure Hutch's feet to two of the fixed racks opposite, so that they were spread about 24 inches apart. Moving to the blonde's head, he pulled the arms once more over the head and a little to the sides and secured those too to the racking behind him. He stood back to gaze down at his captive, bound now like a starfish, but not so tightly that there was no play in the bonds. There was a purpose to his actions.

He sat back on his heels and waited, watching the Blonde's chest rise and fall, the breathing uneven and ragged. The wound on the left arm gaped open a little and was still bleeding freely, as were the wounds on the chest. Hutch's stomach was now a mass of purple and blue bruises and was swollen on the right hand side. Ivan stared at the skin before him, the very paleness seeming to mock him, reliving over and over again every injustice he had ever felt, until he felt he would burst with the emotion. He was so close to making this Nazi pay for everything done to him, his father and the entire Jewish race.

Very slowly consciousness returned and Hutch forced his eyes open a little. It took a moment to register that he was no longer in a vertical position. Although he realised he was still bound, he found the hard metal deck pitifully comfortable against his aching body. He tried to raise his head a little to see if he was alone, sensing that he probably was not. The small movement caused a myriad of pains to blossom across his body, from the sharp, insistent pains from the cuts in his chest, to the now almost unbearable ache in his abdomen.

Great, there's the little weasel. Now what's he gonna do? Shit. Starsk, if you're gonna find me buddy, now would be a real good time. I hurt too much to keep this up much longer. Hurry.

Ivan saw that his captive was awake, and excitedly stood to put in place the last part of his plan. Hutch watched with a fatalistic interest as the small man busied himself with a plank of wood and the knife. The wood was perhaps six inches wide and 24 inches long. Set into its flat surface was a tube fastened in a vertical position, so that it protruded from the surface of the wood by a couple of inches. The Russian flicked open the wicked four inch blade of his knife and inserted the handle of the knife into the tube to that the blade stood up proud from the tube and wood.

Ivan pushed the whole assemblage over to the blond, and once again, in a conversational manner, began to explain what would happen next.

'Father says that you must arch your back for me now, please' the polite ending to the order seeming incongruous against what Hutch was being asked to do.

'Fuck you' rasped the blond, patience with the small man gone.

'Father says if you don't the knife will cut you all the quicker. Father doesn't want that to happen, and neither do I' he pushed his hand under Hutch's body and hefted upwards, sliding the wood, knife and all into place in the centre of Hutch's back, a little way from the blonde's arched spine.

Hutch suddenly realised that to relax even an inch would push the blade into his back. He was tied down, arched over the infernal metal as the Russian smiled down at him.

'Eventually, your muscles will tire and you will start to collapse onto the knife. As you do, your own weight will stab the knife into your back. You seem like a very fit man, so I wonder how long that will take. I'm sorry I can't be here to see all of the show, but I have work to do and cabins to clean, so goodbye for now, I shall be back to see you later'.

And with that, he rose, leaving the room and closing the door behind him, leaving Hutch in the darkness once more.