The Englor Affair (12 page)

“About half of the House of Lords from what I gather. He wants to appropriate funds going to the Marines for interplanetary trade and moral reform.” Aldred took a bite of his bacon.

“Moral reform? Yes, Dru mentioned that. She didn’t think too highly of him.” Simon pushed his eggs around his plate. “She was under the impression Mother had something to do with Baymore getting his barony.”

“I believe so, yes. Gambling debts if I had to venture a guess. Baymore doesn’t say much, just follows Markham’s lead.”

“Hmm…” That was the impression Simon had as well. “What’s Markham against?

Drinking, gambling or sodomy? Or all of the above?”

Aldred met his gaze. “I don’t know.”

“Have they no sense? Do they not realize how vulnerable Englor will be without their own defense?”

“They claim that is what the IN is for. Hawthorne, Oxley and I are rallying support against the proposal. Your father has not weighed in yet. With Hawthorne’s help I plan on cornering the king at the dinner Saturday night in honor of Admiral Hawkins. You will be in attendance, won’t you?”

Simon groaned. He hated formal dinners. “If I must. But in the meantime, we need to find out everything we can about Markham. I’m not above blackmail.” Simon set his fork down, his appetite gone. Whatever he ate would likely sour in his stomach. He should have pressed Dru for more information about the man.

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“I’ve already got people on it, and for the record, neither am I, my boy…neither am I.” Aldred lifted his glass of juice and took a drink. “Tell me your news. Does it concern your man Benson?”

“Yes. I’m sending someone to look into his disappearance. There’s been no word from Benson in several months.”

Aldred thought about it for a moment, his dark brows pulling together. “Do you suppose Admiral Hawkins has learned something and that’s why he’s here?”

The thought had crossed Simon’s mind. Admiral Hawkins was in deep with the Regelence royal family. He would not take kindly to finding a spy in the palace. “I don’t know. I wish I knew more. If I could figure out who, why and what mother was trading…” Simon shrugged. “You haven’t heard of any schematics, have you?”

“No, I’ve asked around. If we have something in the works, it’s top secret and no one outside of the Marines knows about it.” Aldred raised his glass and gave Simon a pointed look. “And that is your field, my boy. I believe it’s time to start talking to generals.”

Simon groaned and slumped back in his seat. “Are we really ready to let it be known that the queen may or may not be a traitor?”

“Are we ready to let the security of Englor be compromised? Assuming that this asinine proposal goes through, it would be.” Aldred picked up a piece of bacon. “Do you trust the IN to protect us? Are you certain it is not they who are involved in this mess on Regelence?”

Nothing was certain, but Simon couldn’t shake the feeling that Admiral Hawkins was here for more than to inspect the base. The question was, who was Hawkins loyal to?

Regelence, the IN or Englor? “I don’t know, Uncle. I don’t know. Benson mentioned the IN in his last message, but he didn’t say anything about them.” Simon pushed back from the table and stood. “Do you think it might have something to do with this new movement in parliament? Maybe Benson got wind of the IN wanting to take over the Marines?” That didn’t make sense though. As base commander, if the IN were negotiating with the Marines, Simon would have heard of it already. Wouldn’t he?

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He shook his head and sighed. “Find out what you can about Markham. I’m going to send someone to look into Benson’s disappearance. In the meantime, I’ll keep trying to find out what schematics the note was referring to.” As he turned toward the door, a thought occurred to him, making him pause and look back over his shoulder. “Don’t trust anyone until we find out what’s going on, Uncle.”

Aldred shook his head. “I won’t. Be careful, boy.”

Simon nodded. “I’ll be in touch. You know where to find me.”

He met Dudley at the front door with his belongings. “Thank you, Dudley. Will you call someone to bring Cirilo around?”

Dudley dipped his head. “I already have, Colonel.” He tossed Simon’s cape around his shoulder and handed him his gloves.

“Thank you.” Simon fastened the frog on his cape and put his hands in his gloves.

He needed to know more about Admiral Hawkins. Instinct told him if he found out why Hawkins was here the rest of the unanswered questions would fall into place.

As he opened the front door of St. Albins House, the wind whipped across his body, bringing forth a shiver. He glanced down into the startled eyes of his aide, Jonah, who was making his way up the steps.

“Colonel, I have that information you wanted. I thought you’d want it immediately so I brought it here.”

Information? What information had he asked— O
h. Payton.
Bloody hell, he’d nearly forgotten. He closed the door and stepped outside. “Who is he?”

“Admiral Hawkins’s aide, Sir.”

~ * ~

Payton frowned down at his screen, then leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. He was tired. After the Si-induced, mind-numbing, orgasm at the gym last night, he’d returned to his quarters and gotten back to work on cracking Englor’s encryption.

Sadly, he hadn’t accomplished a lot because his mind kept drifting back to Si. Payton was 82

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in way over his head and didn’t feel as panicked as he should, which scared him. What had he been thinking last night? They could have gotten caught.

Stretching his arms over his head, Payton turned his attention back to his computer.

He’d made no progress with the encrypted message Trouble had stolen from the ship he and Aiden had been held hostage on. It seemed to be a message to Colonel Hollister from Benson that Caldwell the IN spy intercepted, but Payton wasn’t positive. Damn, he wanted to meet the man who wrote this code.
I’ll either propose marriage or run him
through.

A series of beeps sounded, startling Payton, then a window popped up on his com-pad that read,
IN Intelligence access granted
.

“Yes!” Payton laughed, a thrill of excitement shooting through him. He’d been working on getting in for the past three days. The program he’d had running in the background had finally managed to find a password for the login, he guessed. He’d tried
Caldwell
—the last name the IN spy who had kidnapped Aiden and Trouble was using—

Daniel—the man’s supposed first name—and as many variations of the two combined names he could think of as logins. None of those had worked. So, on a whim, this morning he used
The Valet.
Who would have thought it would be something so obvious?

Or maybe that was the point, it was too obvious, so no one would guess it.

Bouncing in his seat just a little, Payton checked the spy’s email. Several recent ones appeared on the screen. Which meant the man had not been killed when The Marchioness self-destructed in space after Aiden and Trouble were recovered.

Someone named
Vretiel
corresponded several times with
The Valet
.

By five o’clock in the evening and with a lot of snooping Payton learned the schematics the IN spies referred to had not been obtained. There was nothing definite, but several obscure references to the schematics belonging to the EMC. Most of the mails were times and places for meetings. They obviously didn’t feel secure enough to discuss things in their mail. Smart of them, but really aggravating for Payton. Was EMC the Englor Marine Corp? He frowned and leaned back in his chair. He couldn’t think of www.samhainpublishing.com 83

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anything else EMC might stand for even though he’d never heard the Englor Marines referred to as EMC.

Stretching out his stiff neck, he got busy again. He needed to know who
Vretiel
was and see if he could pinpoint his or Caldwell’s location.

Payton became so immersed in trying to answer those questions that he’d have missed the door clicking open if it hadn’t been followed by a brief knock. He glanced up just as Nate’s head popped through the doorway.

“Have you seen this?” Nate came in holding a cup of something steaming—probably tea, it was teatime—and a paper and closed the door behind him. Tossing the paper onto Payton’s desk, he sat in the chair across the smooth mahogany surface from Payton and took a sip from his cup. “Ah…”

The headline read: Parliament proposes IN absorb Englor Marines.

“Why?” Payton picked up the paper, skimming the article. “Do you think The Englor Marines are in league with the IN?” This didn’t fit with what he’d found out today. Why would Englor allow this? Was this an attempt by the IN to obtain those schematics—

whatever they were of—by other means?

Nate sampled his drink and shook his head. “I don’t know, but I can’t imagine Englor being stupid enough to disband their only armed force. The article says it’s for appropriations to be allocated elsewhere.”

“Did you know about this?” Payton set the paper down.

“I’m glad you asked.” The smile Nate gave him was downright evil. “I read it in the newspaper this morning like everyone else. It seems to me though that someone in the IN

must know something about it. Which in itself is suspicious, one would think as an admiral I’d be consulted. Think you can figure out who knew and what they expect to gain from the situation?”

Payton grinned, thinking maybe he already knew. “Would EMC by any chance stand for the Englor Marine Corp?”

“It’s rarely called that by anyone but IN. But yes, EMC
is
the Englor Marines.”

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Feeling ten feet tall, Payton chuckled, stretched his legs out under his desk and crossed his hands behind his head.
Go me.

“What?” Nate frowned. “What did you find?”

His victorious, I-know-something-you-don’t-know pose lasted all of two seconds.

Payton sat forward and told Nate what he’d found today, barely holding in his need to shout with excitement. When he finished, Nate sat back, staring at him like he’d seen a ghost.

“You are scary. I may have to make you my aide for real.”

Now that was an idea. It would certainly give him something to do. More to the point, something he enjoyed doing. Payton bit his bottom lip. Could he talk his parents into it though?

Nate took another sip from his cup, his face unreadable. “How about the message to Hollister? Have you made any headway with the encryption?”

“No. Any chance you’ll let me break into Hollister’s office?”

“Absolutely not. Your investigation is limited to what you can pick up on the computers here and from other officers. If I put you in danger, your sire would have my head.”

Damn.
At least he’d tried. If he couldn’t find anything through those channels he was going to break into Hollister’s office—with or without Nate’s permission—but he’d play it Nate’s way first. “Okay.”

“I’m thinking about sending you home next week. You already helped so much and I’m not sure what else you can learn being here. You can continue to work on decoding that message at home.” Nate crossed one foot over his knee, getting comfortable.

No. You can’t.
Payton took a deep breath and pushed the panic aside. He knew he would have to go home sooner or later. Really, Nate was right. If Nate wasn’t going to allow him to break into Hollister’s computer, then there wasn’t much he could do here.

But the pang of regret wasn’t for missing the chance to hack into computers like it should be. The ache in his chest was from giving up Si so soon.

“How is the working out going?”

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“Uh. Good.”

Nate lowered the cup he’d just raised without taking a sip. “Have you met anyone?”

What? Did he know?
Payton’s mouth felt like he’d swallowed cotton. No, Nate couldn’t possibly know, he was only asking if Payton had found any info from other soldiers. If Nate had suspected anything, Payton would have already found himself with a chaperone, likely Nate himself. “No, not really. I’ve been going late and it’s been pretty cleared out.”
Please drop it.
Technically it wasn’t a lie, he had waited until nearly everyone else had left. Payton’s stomach clenched almost painfully. He didn’t want to lie to Nate. Nate had been so fair to him, treating him like an adult and even allowing Payton to help defend his planet with this investigation.

Nate stared at Payton a few more seconds, in which Payton swore Nate could see right through him, then he stood. “Let me know as soon as you find anything else on the IN and Marine merger.”

“Yes, sir.” Payton wiped his sweaty hands on his pants under the desk.

Stopping with his hand on the door, Nate turned his attention back to Payton.

Payton’s heart rate kicked up a notch.

“Don’t forget about the dinner Saturday night.” Nate opened the door and left.

Sagging into his chair, Payton made himself relax. Maybe Si would know something about the IN and Marine merger. Nah, probably not, if Nate didn’t know. Si would have to be really high up in the Marines and Payton didn’t think he was. Besides, Payton shouldn’t go back to the gym. He was leaving soon and going back would do nothing but make him mourn the loss of his freedom. Nothing could come of his and Si’s relationship.

Speaking of the gym… He should check the gym log from last night and find out if Hollister had been there. Actually, come to think of it, he really ought to find out more about Si. Just in case he ran into Si on the base during the day.
Yeah right, Pay.

It only took seconds to log into the base computers. Pulling up the gym log, Payton searched for Hollister’s name. It registered at the gym seventeen minutes after twenty hundred hours. That was after Payton had gotten there.
Hmmm…

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