Vicky Peterwald: Target by Mike Shepherd Page A

earnest, before Vicky finished the question. “Admiral Gort would never take a bribe, ma’am. The man is as incorruptible as . . . well, as they come.”
    “If he had not accepted the bribe, Captain, he would not have gotten this command, and the dead body in the morgue would likely be mine. You might want to take a seat for the rest of what I have to tell you.”
    The captain sat.
    “Before he sailed, your admiral was offered two contradictory bribes. Each of the eight admirals dispatched to show the flag and collect any survivors from Kris Longknife’s latest misadventure were offered a bribe by my loving stepmother to assure that I did not return alive.”
    Vicky eyed him. His face remained Navy bland.
    “You do not seem surprised,” Vicky said.
    He did not rush to answer her. When he did, he spoke slowly, carefully, as one might when crossing a minefield.
    “The Empress has made no secret that she is pregnant and carrying a boy. She does not strike me as someone who would play second fiddle to anyone, nor accept that her child would do the same. I had assumed the matter would be settled by a decree from the throne saying only males could inherit.”
    “I don’t think my loving stepmom trusts my dad that much. The Bowlingames are quite intent on assuring their primacy.”
    “Only a blind man would miss how grasping they are,” the captain agreed.
    “I am getting used to my stepmom’s grasping at me,” Vicky said. “What with this shooter and the bomb before, that makes five attempts on my life in the last few months, doesn’t it?”
    She eyed Mr. Smith. He shrugged as if he was not into counting.
    “Yes, Your Grace,” said Kit. “Five attempts and five failures.”
    “It’s a game where we have to bat a thousand,” Vicky noted dryly.
    “I see your point. Oh, about the bomb, I’m afraid the report to, ah, the admiral had nothing worth noting in it. No fingerprints. The explosives had no tags in them.”
    “I wouldn’t expect there to be any,” Mr. Smith said, and changed the topic. A bit.
    “What about the flowers? I can’t imagine two dozen red roses are easily found lying around any compartment on a battlecruiser. Did anyone notice them before they became the subject of an attempted murder investigation?”
    Realization dawned in the captain’s eyes. He quickly tapped his commlink. “Captain Kittle, the roses. When did they enter your ship? Or have you taken to growing roses in your garden?”
    “I most certainly have not,” the captain of the
Stalker
shot back. “I’ll have my people get right on it. Yes! The damn flowers themselves.”
    The chief of staff turned around in his chair to eye Mr. Smith. “Do you have any further suggestions?”
    “Not at this time.”
    “But I have more questions,” Vicky said, and drew him back to facing her. “The admiral had an e-mail address to use, should he choose to accept the second, smaller bribe. It involved his delivering my delicate body to person or persons unknown, for use not identified in the contract. Do you have any idea where he might have left that address?”
    “His computer? Just before we sortied on this mission, he added several layers of security to his personal computer,” the chief of staff said, and so saying appeared to hear what he was saying and connect it to what Vicky had said about the unusual new aspect of the admiral’s corruptibility.
    “His computer now responds only to his voice and a rather long access code. If tampered with, the mass storage will destroy itself. He said it now had an acid ‘suicide’ vial included in the equipment. I thought he was exaggerating. Now, I think not.”
    “Not likely,” Vicky said. “Mr. Smith, is there any chance that you might delude the computer into mistaking you or me for our dead admiral?”
    “Unlikely, ma’am. I will try if you ask, but the outcome would probably be a very smelly mess.”
    “We’ll wait for that. So, I can’t deliver myself to my unknown