####

CHAPTER EIGHT

#
"Remember there's always a voice saying the right thing to you
somewhere, if you'll only listen for it." -- Thomas Hughes
#
Galleria Park Hotel   
Monday, March 13th
#

Mulder returned to the hotel. A long night of staring at files,
drinking stale coffee, and chomping sunflowers seeds had done nothing
to brighten his disposition or advance the case. He needed a nap. A
shower. A change of clothes. And a run. Most especially, a run.
Running helped him think.

Scully was standing outside her door, as if waiting for him. As if she
had known to look for him at just this time of the morning.

"Hey, G-woman," he said half-heartedly as he slouched against the wall
between their two rooms to run his card-key through the magnetic
reader spanning the door and jamb. "What's up?"

"I'm worried about Skinner," she said, as she followed him inside his
room.

"What about Skinner?" Mulder asked as he headed into the bathroom,
stripping off clothes as stale and smokey as the air at the Federal
Building.

Scully folded her arms and leaned against the bathroom door jamb,
inured to Mulder's naked charms. "Well, I called room service to send
up some bubble bath, and when the bellhop arrived, he had a bottle of
scotch on his tray, too. I told him I hadn't ordered any scotch, and
he said that it was for the man in 317. That's Skinner's room," she
added unnecessarily. "I glanced over that way, and there was a tray on
the floor filled with empty honor bar bottles."

"Wow," Mulder said mildly as he turned on the bath spigots and tested
the water. "I didn't realize he was a closet alcoholic."

"It's Krycek," Scully said. "He blames himself for losing him."

"Yeah. I noticed he was taking it a little personally. Wonder what's
up with that?" Mulder speculated as he stepped under the spray and
lathered up.

"Does it matter?" Scully challenged, shouting over the roar of the
water. As per usual, she went directly to the heart of the matter, no
digressions, no sidebars. "I've got to hook up with Stanley. Inspector
Graham is working out a deal with the Oakland PD so we can ride-along
to execute his warrants. That means it's up to you to get our Fearless
Leader back on his feet and functioning on all cylinders," she
explained. "There has to be something you can do to get Skinner out of
his 'mood.'"

Mulder sighed. But she was right, of course. It wouldn't do to let the
locals witness Skinner losing it on duty. "OK, Scully. I'll see what I
can do."

She smirked and resisted the urge to slap his naked ass. Stanley was
waiting for her downstairs, and there was no *way* she was explaining
wet suit coat cuffs to the agent. "Good enough, G-man. See you later."
With a final sigh for lost opportunities, she let herself out of his
room.

After his shower, Mulder changed into his running clothes. Then he
went over to Skinner's room and knocked until the man opened the door.
He didn't actually look too worse for wear, and Mulder had a sudden
insight: Skinner wasn't unused to binging on booze of a night.

He convinced Skinner that he needed him up on the roof to take
messages and updates and pass them on to Mulder as he lapped his
position at one of the umbrellaed patio tables next to the rubberized
jogging track.

When Skinner confided that Spender had called about Krycek, Mulder
brightened perceptibly. "Sir, that means Krycek is still alive, and
still in the area. If he'd been spirited out of reach, Spender
wouldn't have bothered to threaten you. And if Krycek was already
dead, he wouldn't have bothered calling at all. That's *great* news."

At Mulder's confident declaration, Skinner decided that drinking
himself into a stupor had been a mistake. He needed to be alert, at
his best when Mulder figured out where Krycek was being held --and he
now had every confidence that Mulder would indeed figure it all out.

So he followed Mulder up to the roof-- bottle of aspirin in hand-- and
allowed the agent to ply him with pitchers of iced tea. A subtle
subterfuge. Mulder's preference for iced tea was well known, and his
stopping every so often to enjoy a sip or two between laps around the
roof allowed them the illusion that the drink was primarily for
Mulder's benefit, rather than Skinner's.

The task force as a whole had agreed at the debriefing last night that
Bailey Pharmaceuticals bore watching, so Inspector Lloyd had contacted
the Oakland PD. By now, agents Wong and Scully should be across the
bay with the surveillance team stationed discreetly near the railroad
spur that lead to Bailey Pharmaceuticals.

They had taken a homing signal receiver with them, in case their
suspect, now positively identified as Piotr Kapustcha, decided to join
the train that was being loaded with sealed containers even as they
spoke, with Krycek in tow.

Lloyd himself was with a couple of his men exercising the warrant he
had received that morning on Kapustcha's house and office, looking for
bread crumbs after the picnic had been packed away.

Skinner took a call from Lloyd, then Scully, both with the same
information: the train had left the building. No Kapustcha in sight.

"Of course," Scully added, "he might be holed up somewhere further
down the rail line, planning on joining up with the train where we're
less likely to spot him."

That was a possibility Skinner allowed. But when he broached the idea
to Mulder on his next lap, Mulder had jogged in place long enough to
nix the idea.

"Spender wouldn't allow Kapustcha to compromise the safety of his
projects while there's a remote chance that we'd raid the train
thinking Kapustcha would sneak onto it. He wouldn't risk having his
project confiscated. He might not want to lose Kapustcha, but he'd
rather lose Kapustcha than lose Kapustcha's work."

Skinner agreed. He called Lloyd and Scully and told them what Mulder
had said, so they had let the train roll by unchallenged and without
surveillance. Lloyd then proceeded to pull his men off the building
and they retreated back across the Oakland bridge, to PD headquarters.

Scully and Wong were on their way back, as well, but they had to stop
off at the Oakland PD precinct house first, to fill out their reports
for the Oakland brass.

Skinner was surprised when Scully called again, some twenty minutes
later, still at the precinct house. Seems that a Kenneth O'Mally, who
just happened to be Kapustcha's neighbor, had come in to report his
boat stolen. One very helpful Oakland desk sergeant, noticing the home
address, had brought it to their attention. Did Mulder think it was
relevant to their case?

Mulder did. He was so impressed, he stopped dead in his tracks, not
even jogging in place to keep his muscles warm. "Yes!" he yelled, loud
enough to turn heads from across the rooftop. He grabbed the phone.
"Scully! Kiss that man!

Mulder started to dance in circles around Skinner's table. "He took a
boat! Kapustcha took a boat! *That's* how he escaped detection. He was
on the water! But where would he land?" he brought himself to an
abrupt halt while he pondered the question. "Scully? Put Stanley on!

"Stanley? Run off the grid patterns of the search we did, with the
times we ran them."

Stanley obliged. 

Mulder mulled the info over for a moment and grinned. "Yes!" he
exulted once more. "Kapustcha took Krycek to Oakland. We didn't pick
him up because his signal was too far away while he was over the
bridge. Then Kapustcha stole the boat, thus avoiding the bridge and
any interior land searches, but it took him two hours to cross the
bay, and by that time, we had already run our scans at his eventual
landing site."

"Meaning you know where he is?" Skinner asked, perking up. "So spill
it, already!" Skinner demanded.

"Kallenchuk's salvage yard," Mulder grinned smugly. 

"Kallenchuk's?" Skinner echoed, knowing he'd heard the name before.
"Why Kallenchuk's?"

"It's convenient, being on this side of the bay. It's near the Naval
Base, so Spender has the option of sneaking him onto a transport or
having him rendezvous elsewhere using the boat as transport. The place
has been abandoned since Kallenchuk's death, it's isolated, it has a
private dock and boathouse, so he could hide his boat there, it has
personal history for Krycek, giving it a sense of irony, and it has a
sizeable warehouse with all the amenities--home sweet home to
Kapustcha. It's perfect."

Skinner leaped up from his seat, tipping his chair over in his haste
to get to the elevator. "Give them the address!" he ordered Mulder.
"We're heading out!"

Mulder barely had time to relay the address to Scully before Skinner
grabbed the phone back in order to call Lloyd and arrange for a strike
force to amass at the location.

Lloyd wanted a definite confirmation before he mobilized his men, and
he wanted to organize the strike, first, so Skinner called Scully back
and instructed her and Wong to drive near enough to the location to
pick up the signal, but far enough away that they wouldn't alert their
prey that they were onto him.

Skinner almost didn't give Mulder time enough to grab his 'working'
clothes before they headed to the hotel parking lot, and thence the
Federal Building, where they could gear up for the assault.

Skinner had the keys. He tore out of the lot, fishtailed onto the
boulevard against the light, and sped the twelve blocks to the
Bureau's Field Office. Once inside, he ran up to the armory, stripped
off his suit coat in favor of a Kevlar Jacket and dark blue F.B.I.
windbreaker, with the big white F.B.I. stenciled on the back. Then he
checked his gun, signed out some spare ammo clips, and headed out.
Only Mulder's shout about getting gear for Scully and Wong made him
pause his march back to the garage.

Mulder scrambled inside the elevator, three Kevlar vests, three
official F.B.I. windbreakers, and one gun in side holster in hand. He
finished dressing as the elevator descended.

Skinner was grim and loaded for bear. "I'm driving," Mulder insisted
as he threw the extra gear into the back seat. He did *not* want a
repeat of Mr. Toad's Wild Ride this late in the game. Even if they
*were* only going four blocks.

Skinner nodded. After his performance getting them this far, he had to
admit he was too worked up to sit behind the wheel. "I just hope we're
in time."

"We ought to be," Mulder assured him. "He's only had him a little over
a day. He usually likes to toy with them longer than that."

Skinner hoped Mulder was right about that, //but it's Krycek,// kept
running through his head. God alone knew the many ways Krycek could
piss a man off past all reasoning.

They practically ran up to Lloyd's office. They greeted the assembled
officers, exchanged hopeful sentiments as to 'Val's' disposition, then
it was sit on their hands until Scully called in to confirm that they
had indeed picked up the signal. They couldn't pinpoint it precisely,
because Kallenchuk's place was on a spar of land almost at the limit
of their locator. There was nothing but dirt, mud, and weeds between
the salvage yard and the first crossroad. Not a good  place to stage a
surprise assault.

Mulder located the property on a wall map. He then detailed, from
memory, the layout of the building, as regards the road leading up to
it. Since he had never been farther inside than the front office, he
could give no advice about sniper placement, or internal layout.

The Coast Guard was called in to handle the sea cordon. The South San
Francisco PD was called to explain the intrusion into their balliwick.
Nelson, the SWAT commander, had blueprints of the building sent over
from the Hall of Records. He and Lloyd decided where they would place
their men.

Lloyd called the hospital closest to the salvage yard and had them
agree to send a paramedic team, since the victim, if he was still
alive, would be sure to need first aid, if not major emergency
surgery.

Then Skinner told them he and Mulder would lead the charge. It was an
F.B.I. operation, it was an F.B.I. witness who had been kidnapped. No
negotiations.

Mulder looked concerned and troubled.

Lloyd hesitated about a millisecond, then nodded agreement.

They headed to their cars.

###

Kapustcha returned to the warehouse carrying a 'zip tie' dispenser,  a
handheld device that secured plastic cord around things like bundles
of paper. He was not happy to discover that his prisoner had migrated
in the night, even if he was still securely enclosed in his suitcase.

Krycek fought him at every turn, over every little detail. Who was in
charge here, anyway?

He dragged the suitcase over to the table, unlocked and unzippered the
bag, and upended it, spilling Krycek onto the concrete floor.
Kapustcha grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and threw him, stomach
first, onto the table. He spread Krycek's legs so his penis --still
encased in the gates of hell cock ring but mercifully flaccid-- and
balls lay open and exposed below his ass and zip-lined his limbs to
the table legs, trussing Krycek's stump in a series of ring ties all
the way to the shoulder to restrain it, then he delved into his bag of
tricks and drew out his flogger. Then he stripped.

Naked, he whipped the multi-lashed weapon over Krycek's back, his
already abused genitals, --although all but his penis's glans was
protected by the leather understrip that secured the cock rings into a
functional unit-- his ass, and the backs of his thighs. He slashed and
whipped till Krycek screamed for mercy.

Then he ran his hands over the bleeding wounds, anointing his naked
body with the precious fluids, rubbing the blood all over his body:
face, chest, genitals, and legs, then he sodomized Alex with the
handle of the flogger and, when his ass was bleeding freely, he shoved
his dick into Krycek's ass and fucked him till he came in great,
shuddering globs, all the while berating him for daring to move,
defying Big Daddy's wishes.

After he wound down, he cut Krycek loose and dragged him across the
floor to the showers, hosed him off and shaved him, gave him his
enema, and made him crawl to the jury-rigged 'vanity' where he was
zip-lined to the stool like a drowned rat while Kapustcha sprayed his
wounds with liquid bandage and left him to air-dry.

Beating the boy had put Kapustcha in a good mood, so, after lunch, he
eagerly dressed him up. He ran a little eye shadow and foundation over
Krycek's smooth crotch, too, to create the illusion of lips. To make
it look more convincing when, after their dances were done, Kapustcha
stripped him down to his fishnet hose and underwear and had him run
his fingers across the fake lips and fake an orgasm.

Krycek's body was so sore, aching and smarting all over he hardly
noticed the pain in his balls when Kapustcha put him through his
paces. He let Kapustcha run his hands over his smooth-shaved groin.
Let him fondle his caged penis and bound balls, balls too sore to risk
orgasm. They were almost too sore to suffer Kapustcha's touch. They
might be swollen to grotesque proportions, but they had no interest in
sex play of any stripe.

"Have you got a kiss for your Daddy?" Kapustcha asked him, once he'd
writhed his fake 'orgasm' out.

Krycek sighed. "Yes, Big Daddy." He kneeled up, undid Kapustcha's fly
with his teeth, stuck his face into Kapustcha's crotch and snatched
out his penis. He peeled back the foreskin and planted a kiss on the
little worm head of an exposed glans.

"And what do you have to say to your Daddy?"

"I love you, Daddy. Please show me that you love me, too. I need you
so much. Oh, Daddy, my hole is aching for you. Fuck me like a bitch in
heat. My cunt is so empty. Fill me up, Daddy. Fuck me so hard I'll
feel it for days. My big, strong Daddy. Let me ride your hard, manly
pole."

"Now, show Daddy how much you love him."

Krycek wrapped his lipstick stained mouth around Kapustcha's turgid
penis and sucked him off, then, at Kapustcha's insistence, he crawled
over to the table and sat at Kapustcha's feet with his arm bent and
hand folded over, like a little terrier begging for leftovers, eating
tidbits from Kapustcha's fingers.

Afterwards, he went up on the table, belly to the tabletop. "Fuck me,
Daddy! Fuck me so hard I'll leak seed for a week! Oh, Daddy! Plug my
hot, little hole!"

Kapustcha fucked him, then fisted him, brutally pushing his thick hand
into the bed of inflamed tissue that had almost swollen past the point
of entry. Then it was back to the shower, where he was cuffed to the
pipe.

Free of the garrote, something inside Krycek snapped. If he was going
to die anyway, he'd rather is was sooner than later, fast rather than
slow. He put on his best sneer. "It's always the same script with you,
over and over," he snarled insolently. "Why is that, Kappy? What sick,
perverted episode burned itself into your brain so deeply that you
have to repeat it religiously again and again? Don't you ever get
tired of the same old, same old? Haven't you ever heard that variety
is the spice of life?"

Kapustcha froze, shower hose in hand. "I should think you'd have had
your fill of discipline for one day, Cunt."

"Maybe. Maybe I've just had my fill of you," Krycek retorted
defiantly. "What is it with you, anyway? Did Baby Boy blunder onto his
own Daddy in a dress at an impressionable age? Did your Daddy like to
get down onto his knees and beg Mommy for mercy while she fucked him
with the handle of a flogger? Is that what twisted your knickers into 
a permanent knot?

"Or, maybe, when you were a hot little virgin boy eager for some real,
live pussy, and you thought you'd found yourself the perfect whore,
and you'd laid your money down, 'she' pulled off 'her' panties and
showed you his meat --and you wanted to suck it so bad your mouth
puckered --is that what tripped your fuse, Kappy?

"I know you've been killin' me for years. Playing your sick little
head games. And maybe the substitutes caved --but I'm not playin' any
more, you hear me? Gun or no gun, garrote or no garrote, the next time
you wave that cocktail wienie you call a dick in my face I'm biting it
off! Do you hear me?!" he roared.

Kapustcha puffed up, blood rushed to his head, turning the whites of
his eyes crimson, his teeth barred and he swung the plastic and metal
coil shower hose like a strap, whaling into Krycek like frustrated
child after three rounds with a too-sturdy pinata.

Krycek tried to avoid the blows. Several landed on the platform,
snapping the slats like twigs. He gripped one in his fist and wrenched
it free and started batting and poking at Kapustcha, though he was in
no way getting his own back. He jabbed the shattered end of the stick
at Kapustcha's groin and shins, and parried the whip-like blows of the
hose till the slat snapped again, leaving only stubs.

Krycek grabbed another slat, using his body to block the blows to his
hand, but Kapustcha clamped down on his temper long enough to see his
tactics were getting him nowhere, that Krycek was merely arming
himself again. He threw down the hose, grabbed Krycek around the neck,
and heaved him into the middle of the room.

Krycek tried to get up, tried to stand, to move, but his legs wouldn't
hold him. He started to crawl for the wood pile, but Kapustcha leaped
into his path, blocking him.

Krycek lay on the concrete floor, panting and spent. "You can kill me,
you son of a bitch, but you can't win. *I'm* going to win. I *always*
win in the end. That's why you've needed to kill my substitutes all
these years. 'Cause you can't beat the real me. Never me. You'd have
to walk away to beat me, and you can't do it. You sad, pathetic homo
pervert freak!"

Kapustcha stared down at his victim. Bloodied. Too weak to stand, and
hissing like a kitten facing down a pit bull. He threw back his head
and guffawed. "You're trying to manipulate me, again. But you've
failed. *I* am in control here. *You're* the pathetic fag, Twat. Not
me. You think I can't beat you? Let's see what you say after a few
hours on the hooks, hm?"

Krycek would have liked to bite his lip to keep himself from crying,
but he was all out of tears, and his lip was torn and bloody and
didn't need the abuse. He was going to die, but he was too tired to
care. His life had never been so good that the prospect of leaving
this mortal coil abhorred him. He just hadn't wanted to give Kapustcha
the satisfaction of taking him down on his terms.

//Should have kept that stub of wood and shoved it up my own guts,//
he thought. *That* would have taken the thrill of killing him away
from Kapustcha. Why could he never think of these things when they
could do him some good?

The Butler had tried to tell him that that was why he was such a lousy
chess player. He'd tried to explain to The Butler that, in his
opinion, all the really good chess players did was play somebody
else's moves, memorized from some celebrated, long ago game. He made
up his own rules and his own moves --and his own game-- whenever
possible. Mostly in the heat of the moment, on the fly. He had never
been able to think far enough ahead to actually plan an intricate
series of moves, or had ever been able to lure the other players into
moving their pieces in such a way as to set up those strategies.

It was like that in real life, too. 

Kapustcha had gone, stepped off to get whatever it was he needed to
make good on his threat. //Time to move,// Krycek thought. Moving hurt
his ribs. Hurt everything. //Won't have to worry about that for long,
if you get your ass in gear,// he chastised himself. And he moved.
Scooting himself towards the wood pile. Towards ultimate freedom.

Too slow. Too late. 

Kapustcha came back and zip lined his arms to a piece of rebar.
Dragged him back to the shower and hosed him off. Put on his fishnet
stockings and garter belt, and red stiletto heels. Put on his wig and
make-up.

Then Kapustcha pierced Krycek's breasts with deep sea fish hooks, the
kind you could have reeled a tuna in on, or a marlin. Huge, four inch
diameter hooks. Right through his breasts. Then he hoisted him up on a
winch. Till Krycek's ass was six and a half feet off the ground. High
enough for Kapustcha to stand underneath without bending.

The metal was cold, yet it burned as bad as being fisted. Protesting
muscles stretched in ways they had never been intended to stretch.
Endured weight they had never been fashioned to hold. He felt his
flesh tear off his ribs. His breasts distended, leaking blood in twin
trickles.

Kapustcha zip-lined Krycek's ankles to a piece of rebar, next, then
chained the bar to the floor, so he couldn't kick at him. So he
couldn't close his legs. Couldn't hide the treasure of his rosebud of
an anus from his sight. Then he flashed the four-bladed knife.

It was shaped like a eucalyptus leaf: long, with a sharp, pointed end,
rounded at the hilt end. No more than three inches in diameter at its
widest point, a bare pencil point at its thinnest. Open in the middle,
like an ornament cage. With a hollow, cylindrical handle to let the
blood flow through it.

"Weren't you supposed to have given up murder for Lent?" Krycek asked
lazily, as if he didn't care whether Kapustcha answered him or not.

"I gave up coffee for Lent, Cunt. I sanctified my victims with the
blood of the lamb, so their blood would be fit enough to cleanse me
and sanctify my Holy Cause."

"Oh..., silly me."

"How does it feel to be strung up like a side of beef, hmm? Do you
think your flesh will tear and drop you off the hooks? It's happened.
But let me reassure you; I took the precaution of wiring the rebar
strapped to your arms to a secondary winch. There's just enough slack
in the line to drop you down about a foot. No more than that." He
chuckled. "Of course, I imagine it would hurt like a son of a bitch.
But it won't kill you, no, no. *This* is what's going to kill you," he
said, raising the blade up at arm's length for Krycek to admire. "Just
think how it's going to feel sliding into your hole. It's quite the
heady experience. Gave a few of your predecessors the erections of
their lives!" he leered. "Not that they got to use them."

"Ooh! The suspense is killing me," Krycek said flatly. "Oh, no, my
mistake --it's just boredom!"

"Enough!" Kapustcha batted the rebar attached to Krycek's ankles, and
he twirled violently, the chain coiling over onto itself, pulling him
down.