Vicky Peterwald: Target (19 page)

T
HERE
were several cars out front. A nondescript four-door sedan matched the emblem on the keys in her hand.

It started the first time she tried.

She was several blocks away, carefully obeying the speed limit for a quiet residential district, when she had her computer contact Admiral Waller.

“Captain Morgan is dead,” she said by way of introduction.

“We know. We found his body. How are you?”

“Not dead yet. But not for the lack of some very intent trying.”

“Where can we get you?”

“I’m moving. I’ll contact you again later. Maybe by then we can figure out what we do next. I am not going back to the palace.”

“No. No need for that. I think some people were excessive optimists if they thought you could find anything out in this hellhole.”

“I was one of them,” Vicky said with a sigh. “Good-bye for now.”

“Good luck.”

“I suspect I’ve used up a whole year’s allotment of luck tonight,” Vicky said, and had the computer ring off.

She drove, choosing right and left turns without any apparent reason. She stayed off the main roads but worked her way out of the suburb she’d found herself in.

She heard no sirens. One would think that automatic-weapons fire in the house next door to you would merit at least one call to the local constabulary. Apparently, the rule of “hear no evil, see no evil, speak nothing at all,” was working for her tonight.

Then again, maybe the palace, or at least the Empress’s family, had its thumb in even the local beat cops and was answering that call with silent alarms.

No way to tell on Greenfeld.

Vicky drove to a trolley stop. Even this late at night, it was running. The city worked twenty-four/seven. She caught the next trolley and rode it for a couple of stops, found a cross-line and switched to it. She kept her collar up. There was a felt hat in one pocket. She put it on and kept it pulled down over her face.

One stop brought her to a subway station. She switched there for a fast express to downtown. One change there, and she was on a fast express for the business center to the south of town.

She saw only one sleepy cop the entire time she was on the lines.

Clearly, no alarm had been raised about her disappearance. Either one of them.

It was sad to think about how unimportant she was.

Or could be made to be.

As the sun came up the next morning, Vicky was exhausted but alert and standing a few doors up from a Navy-Marine recruiting station.

A Gunny arrived first and began unlocking the door.

Slowly, Vicky approached.

“Morning, Gunny,” she said.

“Morning,” he said, over his shoulder, then turned. “You look like shit, Your Grace,” he added as he got a good look at her.

“Feel like it, too,” Vicky admitted.

“You got blood all over you,” he said, opening the door.

“It’s someone else’s.”

“Ooh-rah, and outstanding, ma’am.”

“What do you know about my situation, Gunny?”

“Only that you disappeared. That the Marine captain escorting you had more holes in him than a sieve. And that we should be on the lookout for you.”

“Captain Morgan didn’t have a chance,” Vicky said, letting the words empty her.

“Damn bastards were smart not to give him one. They’ll pay.”

“They already have. But not enough.”

“Yeah. You want to come in?”

“I don’t think I ought to. Gunny, could I borrow your car?”

Without a word, he produced his keys.

“I need a way to come in out of the cold,” Vicky said, taking the keys.

“In an hour, come back here. If that poster”—he pointed at two eager kids listening to a bemedaled Gunny—“is still in the window, keep driving and don’t come back. If it’s down, come in.”

“It’s a risk, Gunny, getting close to me.”

“I didn’t put on the scarlet and blue to be bored, ma’am.”

“Ooh-rah,” Vicky answered. “Thanks, Gunny.”

“Thank you for avenging our captain, ma’am.”

Vicky left. She was starved, but if the Gunny could spot the blood on her, so could anyplace she went, even a drive-thru.

She meandered through quiet streets and listened to her stomach growl for an hour.

There were few cars in the strip mall when Vicky drove back an hour later to the recruiter’s office. The poster was down.

She drove around back and checked that parking lot. Only three cars, all behind different stores. She parked behind the recruiting station and knocked on the back door.

It opened in a second, and a Marine colonel drew her inside.

“I am so glad to see you, Your Grace.”

“No less than I am to see you.”

“Are you okay?” he asked as he frowned at her.

“The blood’s not mine.”

“Of course not. I should have known.”

“Where’s Admiral Waller?”

“Leading some lowlife on a merry chase up north of town. We’re all scattered. The Empress will need a lot more lackeys than her family has to chase us all. I was not followed.”

“I’m sorry about Captain Morgan,” Vicky said.

“We found his body almost immediately. Someone at the diner called it in, but an SP wagon was already headed that way. It heard light-weapons fire. We found where they had you about an hour after you left, judging from the temperature of the bodies. By the way, did you find any commlink on any of them? We didn’t find a one.”

“The guy in charge had one. I took it. I’ve had my computer try a few times to get in, but it’s locked down to me.”

“Could I have it? We have some people who really want to get their mitts on it.”

Vicky produced it. The colonel passed it along to the Gunny, who nodded to a staff sergeant to take over and, retrieving his keys from Vicky, hopped in his car and left.

Another car pulled in right as Gunny left.

“Our ride has arrived,” the colonel said, and opened a rear door for Vicky. Quickly, he settled into the front, and the car took off, driven meticulously by a command sergeant major.

Still, the colonel said nothing to Vicky while they drove.

Their destination turned out to be a comfortable-looking home in a quiet neighborhood. The garage door opened as they drove up, and the car stopped inside. The colonel didn’t move until the door was closed again.

“Thanks, Sergeant Major, for the loan of your car. This, of course, never happened.”

“Of course, Colonel. Glad to be of service, Your Grace.”

The colonel helped Vicky out of the car and ushered her toward the door into the house. The garage door began to open only when she was inside.

“Good God, girl, you look horrible,” was Vicky’s introduction to the colonel’s wife.

“None of the blood is mine,” Vicky said.

“Well then, amend my last message to just good.” The woman smiled.

“We were both lieutenants when we met,” the colonel offered. “She kept her reserve commission even when the kids started coming.”

“Damn straight I did,” the woman said. “Now, Your Grace, you need a bath, some food, and a bit of a nap. What order do you want them in?”

“Maybe I better start with a shower,” Vicky admitted.

“Good, Colonel, you can make yourself useful by fixing a sandwich. That shouldn’t exceed your allotment of household skills, and pull some decent clothes out of my closet. Find one of the large shirts I use when my boobs were oversized with milk for your latest hellion.”

“Aye, aye, ma’am. Your orders will be obeyed,” he said with a grin and stiffly rendered salute.

The wife directed Vicky in one direction while her husband retreated in another. The leather coat came off, then the machine pistol. The wife expertly checked to see that it was safetied, then sniffed the barrel. “Been put to good use, I assume.”

“Shooting scum,” Vicky admitted.

“Ooh-rah. I like your dress. Is it supposed to be a uniform?”

“Formal dinner dress. First time out. Likely won’t be worn again.”

“Not what I heard through the wives network this morning. Mrs. Waller thought you were lovely in it. Word is that they want to make it the Grand Duchess Victoria Formal-Dinner-Dress Uniform. Once the story of how you saved yourself gets out, there’s no doubt it will be officially approved.”

“Can the story get out?”

“Hon,” the wife said, starting the shower and checking the water temperature, “we already know, some of us, what you did to the guys that snatched you. Didn’t my husband tell you, they were there an hour after you left?”

“He told me. I didn’t know it was widely known.”

The woman chuckled. “What with the Empress’s security folks scattered to the four winds trying to chase you down, why should we keep what we know a secret from those of us who have a dog in this fight? And remember, we all have a dog in this fight, whether we like it or not. It’s our Greenfeld that’s at stake. Now, get in the shower and cry if you need to.”

With the water running, Vicky found that she did indeed need to let it all out.

She wept for Captain Morgan first, and what she hadn’t been able to share with him. She wept for herself, then, and her lost innocence.

Yesterday she would have laughed if someone had said she had any more innocence to lose. But now she found that she had lost something. Something she couldn’t put a name on, but something that she’d had yesterday and today left nothing behind but a void in her gut, her heart, her soul.

“The clothes you asked for are in the hall,” came through the door.

“Thanks, love,” was casually and lovingly said in reply.

Vicky found more tears coming. Would she ever have something like those two had? Could she ever find someone like the colonel? Someone like Captain Morgan, who wouldn’t be blown away before her eyes?

Enough of this,
she scolded herself.
You’re a big girl now. You’re a Peterwald, and you got those bastards.

Vengeance had always been something that Peterwalds got. Strange how no one ever told her Peterwalds got loved. Well, she’d gotten vengeance, and it was a damn sight overrated as far as she was concerned.

She wiped her face again, scrubbed herself once more to make sure all the blood was gone from her outsides.
Will I ever get it off of my soul?

Stupid question. Those scum didn’t have blood, real blood, and they certainly weren’t worth crying for. Captain Morgan, yes.

Them? Forget it.

Vicky turned off the water with a decisive twist and pushed aside the shower curtain. The wife was waiting for her with a towel. Vicky toweled herself briskly while the wife opened the door and brought in a pile of clothes that turned out to be a simple pantsuit and necessary underwear.

“This may be a bit tight on you,” she said, offering Vicky the bra and panties.

Vicky noticed that someone had cut the labels out of them. Smart. She didn’t want anyone to be able to trace her clothes back to these good Samaritans.

The same had been done to the pants, blouse, and blazer. Apparently the colonel was either practiced at this cloak-and-dagger stuff, or smart and gaining experience fast.

“Do you want to keep these boots?” the wife asked.

“I like the accessories that came with them,” Vicky said.

The wife half drew the knife. “Good accessories,” she agreed. Leaving Vicky to wonder just what the woman had done in the Corps. Maybe Greenfeld wasn’t as down on fighting women as Vicky had been led to believe.

The colonel was waiting for them with a sandwich as they opened the door. “Sorry, but I don’t think you can risk a nap. I’m told things are starting to happen at the palace, and we need to get you out of here, pronto.”

Vicky noticed that he didn’t define “out of here” in front of his wife. Good. No need to put her at any more risk than they had to. Vicky had caught sight of a family portrait. There were two boys and two girls surrounding the colonel and his bride.

They didn’t deserve to be orphaned.

“I’m sorry I’ve put you at risk,” Vicky said.

“I’m glad I’ve had a chance to kick the hornets’ nest, gal. Thanks. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.” The wife gave Vicky a hug and pointed her back toward the garage.

Then ducked back into the bathroom. “You forgot your automatic. It’s not a type I’ve seen.”

“No, I got it on Wardhaven,” Vicky said.

The colonel’s wife also handed Vicky the machine pistol. “Don’t leave home without it. Sorry I couldn’t clean it while you were bathing, but the colonel keeps his private armory under lock and key with the kids around.”

“Thanks for remembering it,” Vicky said, slipping the strap over her shoulder.

“That is not the right fashion statement to make on the streets today,” the colonel said, and opened the hall closet. He produced a light blue cloak, as well as a pair of scissors and snipped out the label.

“Now you have a cloak
and
dagger,” the wife said, grinning.

The machine gun vanished under the cloak, which fell to midthigh on Vicky.

“Here, take my hat, too,” the wife said, and Vicky found herself sporting a floppy, wide-brimmed hat that put her face in the shadows . . . after the colonel had removed all tags.

They headed out to the garage, where a family van waited. It clearly was the worse for wear and smelled of sweaty hockey uniforms and gear that lay in the space behind the last seat.

“Sorry about the ride, but we don’t want to look obvious.” Sometime during Vicky’s shower, the colonel had changed into jeans and a simple flannel shirt.

No military here. Move along.

“Where are we going?” Vicky asked as she took a big bite of the sandwich.

T
HE
colonel said nothing as he backed out of the garage and headed sedately down the road. “There’s a purse under the seat. It’s for you. It has several IDs you can trust to pass any inspection. We got them directly from the source. The three envelopes are yours as well. That’s the money we took off the scum who grabbed you last night. The bills are unmarked and not in any sequence, but we wouldn’t suggest you use any of it until you’re well off planet.”

“Is that where I’m going?” Vicky said as she retrieved the purse and added the fourth envelope that she’d taken herself from the dead man in black to the other three.

“It’s too hot here. Once you decided not to go back, and by the way, Admiral Waller had already decided that he wasn’t going to let you go back into that snake nest. Your call was just what he wanted to hear. Anyway, Greenfeld is too hot for you. You’ve got to run.”

“Where to?” Vicky asked.

“We’re still working on that one. We’ll get you something before you ship out from Greenfeld.”

“How will I know it when I see it?”

The colonel looked at her sideways. “You’re alive and causing trouble for your loving stepmum, aren’t you? We have faith in you.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Vicky said, finishing up the sandwich. It was good, if not enough. “How do I get two jumps from here?”

“Your stepmum and her illustrious bunch of villains aren’t the only ones who know how to hire trash and scum. You’ll be using a couple of guys that likely lost the bidding on grabbing you last night, but they’re our bunch of scum and villainy, so don’t kill them if you can avoid it.”

“I’ll try not to,” Vicky allowed.

“By the way, one of them is our man, so we really don’t want to come across all of them dead.”

“A Navy guy is in with them?”

“Why not? One of the guys you killed last night was a light colonel in the Imperial Guard.”

“Let me guess, the guy in black.”

“They were all in black.”

“The thin guy in black. He had a mighty straight back for a scumbag.”

“Good guess.”

They pulled up to a large shopping mall and parked beside a common four-door sedan.

“These are the easiest cars to hot-wire. You’re going to steal it.”

“Won’t the security cameras spot us?” Vicky asked.

“Not this far out. The car belongs to one of our Navy’s civilian employees. He was told that parking it here could lead to his having Imperial problems. He just grinned and asked if he’d be charged annual leave for going shopping in the middle of the day.”

Vicky couldn’t help but laugh at the question. “Will he?”

“Of course he will. He needs the cover. Now, let me show you how to hot-wire a car.”

He popped the lock with a metal fingernail file, settled in the car, did something to the back of the steering wheel that Vicky couldn’t follow, and the engine came to life.

“I don’t think I could duplicate that,” Vicky said.

“You shouldn’t have to. There’s a bar two blocks from the space elevator. The Shipwrecker’s Hideaway. Find a booth in the back and order a beer. It may take a while before they contact you, but wait until five if you have to.

“Okay, but wait a second. Where did you learn to hot-wire a car?”

The colonel tried to look innocent and injured. “I wasn’t always a colonel. Don’t believe everything they tell you about how peaceful and nice everyone is on a Navy colony. Some of us kids are as rotten as they come.”

“No doubt. I won’t tell your kids if you don’t want me to,” Vicky offered with a wide grin.

“I fully expect them to be as rotten as I was. Would be disappointed if they weren’t. Okay, Your Grace. You’re on your own. Good luck and Godspeed.”

“And a fair wind to you and Admiral Waller,” Vicky said as she settled into the car. She had to adjust the mirrors, but she was off before the colonel left.

The Shipwrecker’s Hideaway looked like someone had done a good job of wrecking it. The three-story wood-shingle building it was in appeared dearly in need of help staying upright. Apparently building codes on Greenfeld were not always as tightly enforced as state security.

Vicky parked the stolen car next to a used-car lot three blocks over. With luck, it would be assumed to be just more of the stock although it looked a good deal better than most of what huddled there. If there was a salesman on-site, he wasn’t in evidence.

She kept her hat well over her eyes as she passed several street security cameras high up on poles. Most didn’t look like they were working, but you could never tell if that was just part of the camouflage or if trucks actually had knocked them askew.

From the look of all of them, the locals didn’t much care to be on camera any more than Vicky did.

The bar was an uneven two steps down to a concrete floor that was cracked and uneven itself. The tables might have been salvaged from several shipwrecks; no two looked the same. Ditto with the chairs.

She settled into the rearmost booth, only to have to leave it when the bartender shouted, “We ain’t got no service until the girls come on at five. You want a beer, you better come and get it from me.”

Vicky did, feeling a dozen or more pairs of male eyes take her measurements and no doubt decide they wouldn’t kick her out of bed if she got in one with them.

She wondered how they’d react to her pulling her little machine pistol on them but squelched the urge as quickly as it came up. Her attitude toward the male half of the human race was low at the moment, but she was too much a hardheaded woman to let that get her ass in more trouble than she could afford to get out of.

A foaming beer in her hand, she did her best to walk evenly back to her booth. She was a woman in a man’s clubhouse. She didn’t want to advertise what she was damn well not going to sell, give, or let be taken from her.

A few guys caught her eye. She gave them a look that left them staring down at their beers.

Still, over the next half hour, she had to put up with three guys coming up at different times and asking her if she wanted company. “You really don’t want to be sitting with me when the guy I’m waiting for shows up,” she said.

Only one of them didn’t immediately retreat but said he’d take his chances. “He’s a professional wrestler and weighs in at three hundred pounds,” sent even him on his way.

By process of elimination, Vicky dropped most of the chaps in the bar from her list of potential contacts. There were two guys at a table near the door who neither made a pass at her nor studiously ignored her.

One was short and as round as Otto was from last night. The other was taller. Just exactly how tall was hard to tell, his shoulders were stooped and his ratty sweatshirt bulged at his belly. It might be covering a bulging belly. Or it might not.

Hard to tell from across the room.

The two of them nursed their beer as if it had to last all night.

Vicky nursed her own. She was starting to feel the lack of sleep for the last thirty-six hours and didn’t want to have a buzz on if, no, when, things got interesting.

Finally, the two got up and sauntered toward her. The shorter of the two continued past her to the head. The other one, who was in dire need of a shave and a shower, slipped into the booth across from her.

“Put on whats you finds in this bag, okay, doll?”

She’d killed the last guy who “dolled” her, but, apparently in the Greenfeld underground, doll was as good as a girl could hope for.

She took the bag as he handed it to her under the table and headed for the restroom.

The place looked like it hadn’t been cleaned since it was built, but there was a stall, and the door closed almost completely. In the bag she found a pair of dirty coveralls and a baseball cap.

The coveralls were large; she slung her gun as well as her purse in front of her and still had no problem zipping up the front. It did give her a paunchy or maybe just-pregnant look that made her boobs disappear in the general mass.

Never thought those melons would be out of sight,
Vicky thought with a silent laugh.

Before she hid the purse in her gut, she pulled a makeup kit from it and with only the mirror in the compact, added age and worry lines to her eyes and mouth. She then put a few to her cheeks and forehead. She wouldn’t pass close examination, but she hoped not to get close to anyone who wanted to find her.

There were two rolls of cotton in the purse as well. She slipped them into her cheeks and suddenly developed jowls.

She opened the stall door to find the tall one waiting for her, leaning on the sink.

“Not bad. Yous gots a brain for a doll.”

Vicky scowled at him, but he was already turning for the door.

The short one was just leaving the men’s room, hitching up his britches. They headed out the back door.

She followed them.

Outside, she trailed them for a good half block before they turned into an alley and waited for her. Two more men joined them. One looked like a big brawler who might just be dangerous in a fight. The other was the shortest of all four and had a hungry look on his ratlike face. He swaggered and bossed the others, apparently considering himself to be what passed for the brains of the band.

God help them if they actually had to think their way out of anything more difficult than a wet paper bag.

But one of them was Navy, she’d been told. Which one, was still a mystery to Vicky.

Well, the stoop-shouldered guy in the sweatshirt might be hiding more than he was showing.

Until she had a better idea who was who, she’d just have to let all four of them live.

So far, they really hadn’t done anything to make her want to cancel their breathing permits.

The fighter handed Vicky a toolbox. The stoop-shouldered one said, “Yous got the hat on wrong. Turn it around. Nosbody wears it straight.”

Vicky had the baseball cap pulled down over her face to cover it. Now she swung it around.

The tall guy came up and smoothed something over her forehead that stuck there. Then he added something else to her cheeks. “Thats’ll help. Yous ain’t so pretty now.”

He also stooped down and slipped something in Vicky’s boot.

The putative smart one handed Vicky a card. “That’s your pass up the beanstalk. Don’t say a word, just do what we do. You got it, doll?”

Vicky nodded silently.

“What does yous knows?” the stoop-shouldered one said. “A skirt thats can do whats she’s told.”

The others laughed.

They started walking.

Vicky followed them, then had to suppress an outcry. That something in her boot felt like a small mountain. And it hurt. Still, she kept up with them, limping the whole time.

Vicky decided that if push came to shove, the stoop-shouldered one died first.