His chin jerked up in defense. He knew women. He’d met plenty of them, here and there. But he knew of only one woman who came to his mind when he’d originally thought about this idea of bringing a date.
No, not a date, an escort, he corrected himself.
It sounded better, more adult, not so…so…teenaged. She was the only one he wanted draped across his arm, and the realization surprised him. He stared at the console again, let out the breath he held, and punched in the numbers. Better to do it before he lost his nerve.
A woman’s face appeared on the screen, and Jonathan spoke, “Good afternoon, is Lady Brandon in?”
“Can I ask who is calling, sir?” she wasprobably Lady Diane’s maid.
“Ambassador Butler, if she’s not too busy.” The screen went gray and he was left to wait, staring at the Brandon crest.
A moment later the screen flickered back to life. “Hello, Ambassador, good afternoon.” Lady Diane smiled back at him, her voice a melodious soft alto. “How can I help you?”
He swallowed and began his invitation. “Well, I know it’s late notice, and I fully understand if you have other plans, so you needn’t worry about offending me if you say no.” He paused to take a breath, all this being said rather rapidly. Lady Diane’s head tilted slightly to the side as if trying to understand what he was getting at.
“You’ll understand if I say no to what, Ambassador?” She raised her eyebrows in question.
“I’m afraid I’m making a mess out of this.” He blew out his breath and started again, this time slower. “I have an embassy dinner tomorrow evening and was wondering if you would do me the honor of accompanying me?” That was better.
Now he just needed to remember to breathe as he waited for her answer.
•●•
Lady Diane sat back and smiled. This was an unexpected turn of events, but a pleasant one. She gazed at the man on the screen. He looked nervous, and somehow shy. Those intriguing green eyes looked back at her, waiting, not with hope but…Good Lord, he was waiting for a rejection.
Again she was struck at how he was so totally without pretense and how strongly it appealed to her.
“I have no previous commitments, Ambassador. I would be pleased to attend the dinner with you.” She smiled, and watched his reaction.
Butler let out his breath and his eyebrows shot up. A grin flashed across his face and then was quickly brought under control. He nodded once.
“I will send my car around for you at 1900 and meet you there, Lady Diane, if it's acceptable.”
She remembered about his rule of not riding with anyone, so she nodded and replied, “I look forward to seeing you tomorrow, Ambassador Butler.” She smiled at him, and then the connection was cut.
She exhaled loudly and sat back, her mind spinning. She had only a day to prepare. Tapping the vidcom, she booked an appointment with her stylist.
•●•
Duke Brandon let out a long, low whistle, sat back, and scratched his chin. He stared at the data readout, putting the last of the pieces of his theory into place.
“You bastard, whoever you are, you did it! Harnessed antimatter, damn you. This looks like Komenka’s work, but he’s been dead for five years. The elegance of the focusing mechanism smacks of him, but it couldn’t be, unless his work has been stolen.” He touched the screen and mumbled to himself, “This work here, on the safety mechanism, looks like our work, and would make sense if someone were piggy-backing off it.”
All the components to create this device were in their research facility. All the person had to do was make the jump from three separate technologies to connecting them together. It would take someone well-versed in the projects both past and present. Therefore, it followed someone in the R & D department was working on this project.
But who they were doing it for? If Rogers didn’t know about it, could it be one of their boys? Top-secret projects were always known to the administrators in order to facilitate the materials and manpower. Creative accounting was used in many departments, if Brandon remembered correctly.
He touched the schematic to stop it rotating and zoomed in on the area he was currently interested in, the antimatter control system. The problem ultimately was how to focus a tight beam of antimatter and control it over a long distance, either feet or yards or miles. Without focus, the antimatter went everywhere, spreading out in an ever-widening swath of destruction. When his group worked on it, they couldn’t come up with a stable way to focus the beam to make it safe enough to use.
New Commonwealth could create antimatter. It wasn’t ever the problem. How to use it without killing yourself and everyone around you, and how to store it until you used it, were the real issues. When it was created, it had to be used in the same instant, there was no way to contain it to use later.
But coming up with a way to contain it had been harder than they thought. If the antimatter touched matter, an explosion occurred instantly. A powerful weapon, but to have an antimatter reactor onboard a starship, and to create it as needed, was very dangerous. When created, it must be used or dispersed, basically letting it collapse in an implosion, a process not without its own dangers.
Brandon touched the image with a stylus and pulled one of the parts to the side for further study. The focusing method was almost too simple, and at first, he didn’t think it really worked. As he ran through the simulations, he changed his mind.
It used lasers with a generated magnetic field in a simple ring around the opening. The lasers formed a cylinder around the antimatter, focusing the beam until it hit its target. The antimatter was held inside the lasers by the generated magnetic field. It was the ingenious way the lasers were laid out and magnetically charged down their entire length that was the key. The lasers were not like pinpoint beams, but long and flat, butted together to form a sort of wall. It used several shapes of beams. Eight super compressed, magnetically charged beams formed an octagon around the stream of antimatter, encasing it right up to impact. This allowed for a narrow focused beam. A four-sided beam could be used to create a widespread beam. With different shapes of antimatter beams one could create a range of beams, from pinpoint to a wide swath.
The tube holding the antimatter was titanium and generated its own internal magnetic field, keeping the antimatter confined inside the tube, yet not actually touching any matter, making it stable. It too could be created in differing sizes, from a handheld weapon, to a shipboard weapon, to one large enough to defend a planet.
Finally, here was the key to stability of storage, unlocking its use.
It was the ability to generate and attach the magnetic charge to the lasers they'd been missing all those years ago. They could produce the antimatter, and God knew, they’d used lasers forever, but creating a magnetic charge to attach to the laser itself, was pretty recent stuff.
Overall, the concept was brilliant, elegant, and simple. It was the kind of work he respected.
Brandon sat back and rubbed his eyes. This was a real breakthrough in weaponry, something no one else had, a technology making the leap from conventional weapons to a new “superweapon.” He stared again, and his mind ran to the only conclusion he could make. His mouth opened, but no sound came out.
With a weapon like this, you could defend a planet or conquer a world. The question was, who was going to use it? How would it be used and against whom?
He wondered if he should contact Rogers and let him know about the progress he’d made but decided he would have to bring this to Military Headquarters' attention first thing on Monday. Rogers would have to wait.
He finished typing his conclusions, shut off the console, and went to bed.
Chapter Fourteen
Lady Diane sat in the back of the ambassador’s car and looked out the window as it drove through the city toward the New Commonwealth Embassy. The car was large, the driver silent, the seats deep and plush, and there was a commlink built into the pull down center armrest. She was dressed in her favori
te velvet gown, with a sheer matching wrap, the same blue as her eyes. Her slippers were dyed to match the gown, as was the small clutch she carried.
She hoped the gown wasn’t too low cut. The top of her cleavage showed, and it barely sat on her shoulders, but even at her age she could pull it off. Her throat was still tight and smooth, her skin still clear and soft. She wore a pale pink cameo set, earrings and a necklace belonging to her mother. The sleeves of the gown were long, so she wasn’t wearing gloves, which she hated, and she kept her nails short, neat, and unpainted.
Her blonde hair was parted in the middle and braided on the sides toward the back, tied with a matching blue velvet ribbon, and then hung down loose down her back. It'd taken her two hours to get ready, and before then two hours for the woman to do her hair.
She couldn’t remember the last time she dressed for a man.
She spotted him on the walk in front of the embassy, and excitement skittered through her. It'd been a long time since she’d felt such a rush, and she breathed deeply to regain her composure.
Jonathan Butler stood out in the crowd of people milling about, his military training evident as he stood at parade rest, hands behind his back, and waited for the car. He wore a black diplomatic suit, with its long tails, short-waisted front, vest of red, crisp white shirt, and his diplomatic sash, which hung over his shoulder and was clasped at his side with the gold and enamel broach of his planet. His large hands were encased in white gloves.
He looked very handsome, very dashing. She wondered how long he'd taken to dress for her, and if he was as nervous as she.
The car glided to the entrance and waited its turn in line. At last it pulled up, and Butler stepped in front of the doorman and opened the door for her himself. She slid across the seat and took his hand as he guided her out of the backseat.
“Lady Brandon, you look stunningly beautiful.” Butler’s gaze took her in, naked in his appreciation. Her heart fluttered, and she felt the burn of a blush rising on her cheeks.
“Thank you, Ambassador,” she replied. “I’m sorry if I’m late.”
“Not at all. Right on time. And please, call me Jonathan.”
She smiled as his gaze took her in. He bowed and extended his arm, and she took it as they climbed the short staircase to enter the embassy.
•●•
The policewoman sat on the couch next to the distraught woman and handed her a tissue to wipe her eyes. They sat in the living room of the small apartment. It'd been trashed, doors open, drawers pulled out, contents scattered everywhere. The other rooms were the same. The mattress was turned over. Even the contents of the bathroom were gone through.
“Are you sure nothing is missing, Mrs. Rogers?” the policewoman asked.
The woman wiped her eyes and nodded. “I’m wearing all the jewelry I own, and we never kept money in the house.”
She was about thirty-five, dark haired and slim. Her dress was not expensive. In fact, there was nothing very expensive in the apartment. The couple’s belongings were sparse, yet well made, but not the finest. Certainly not worth stealing, from what the policewoman could see.
“When did you last see your husband?” She tried to get more information from the distraught woman.
“When he left for work this morning. I leave about an hour after that. The door was locked. I swear I never leave it open. This building has had burglaries before, last year. But since the co-op put in the surveillance cameras, we haven’t had many problems.” She looked around and took a breath. “I don’t understand where my husband is. He should have been home from work an hour ago. He usually gets home before me, since he leaves so much earlier.” She bit her lower lip, obviously worried about him. “I called him right after I called the police, but his secretary said he left early today. He didn’t tell me he was going to be home early this morning.”
“I have to ask this—could he be in some sort of trouble?” the policewoman asked, carefully watching the woman’s face for any signs.
“No, he would have told me.” Mrs. Rogers shook her head. “What kind of trouble? He is a scientist, Officer. He doesn’t drink, take drugs, or gamble. He’s hardworking, decent, a good man. No, I’m sure of it.” Her hands lay in her lap and twisted the tissue.
“Well, we don’t see any signs of a struggle, no blood, and no ransom notes. Perhaps he will return shortly. Maybe he met someone and went with them somewhere after work?” There was no nice way to ask a wife if she knew whether her husband cheated on her.
“If you are trying to say my husband was, is, having an affair, you can forget that idea. We’ve only been married for a year.” Mrs. Rogers' voice lowered, and she spoke softly, “I know he loves me, Officer.”
The officer stood, tapped her stylus on her pad, and looked around. “Do you have someone to stay with you, help you clean up?” She didn’t want to leave the woman alone.
“Yes, I called my sister; she’ll be here shortly.”
The officer took a final look at the lock on the door. It wasn’t broken or jammed, and the doorframe was intact. Whoever entered used a key, or knew what they were doing. The place had been searched, not robbed, but with nothing else to go on, her hands were tied. It was too soon to put in a missing persons report, but the idea tickled at the back of her mind. She pulled out a card from the pad and handed it to the woman.
“If your husband shows up, or doesn’t show up, in twenty-four hours, or if you think of anything else, or if you find something is missing, please call me at this number.”
“Thank you, Officer, I will.”
The patrolwoman left, and Mrs. Rogers closed the door behind her.
•●•
Ambassador Butler and Lady Diane Brandon moved through the crowd toward the drinks table. He handed her a tall flute of champagne and took one for himself.
They moved away, and he warmly greeted Ambassador Pheydor and his wife, from Century IV. Butler obviously liked him. Pheydor was dressed in a similar manner as Butler. All the diplomats wore the same suit. Only the sashes and broaches were different, signifying their home planets. This man’s suit was tight fitting over his portly stomach, with his gloves stuffed carelessly into his pocket. His wife was taller than him, slim, and she wore a dark green gown. She had soft features and dark hair.
In the course of the conversation, Diane learned they'd been married for over twenty-five years, and he was a businessman before being given the ambassadorship. This was his third assignment, and he was planning on retiring soon and going back to a more private life on their home planet.
Diane tried to remember what she knew about Century IV so she could converse with them and not look like a fool. It was their nearest planet and had also been attacked by the Ottoman’s around the same time as New Commonwealth. They only just repelled the attackers and were a mining planet, dependent on New Commonwealth to provide the imported food and goods they didn’t have.
Diane kept her hand on Jonathan’s arm as the conversation wound down, and they moved off to greet someone else.
This was going to be a boring evening, but nothing she couldn’t handle. She’d been at too numerous state dinners and affairs to give this one evening a thought. Butler glanced at her, and she gave him a warm smile.
The next couple to approach her and Jonathan was the ambassador and his wife from Xui Lu. Ambassador Feng was dressed in his diplomatic suit, but his wife was dressed in the fashion of their home planet. Her gown was made of red silk embroidered with flowers and birds, and it was wrapped around her waist by several layers of fabric belting. It had large, long sleeves, a high collar, and the skirt was slit on the side to her knees. She was tall and thin, which added to her exotic look.
The ambassador and his wife had almond-shaped eyes, long black straight hair, hers left free, but his tied into a high, tight ponytail at the crown of his head, and they both spoke fluent English. She didn’t doubt they also spoke several of the different dialects flourishing on Xui Lu. They made f
ormal small talk, nothing of a personal nature, bowed, and moved on.
So far, the evening progressed just as Diane thought it would—small talk and lots of smiling.
She felt Jonathan’s arm muscle tense under her hand even before she saw the couple approaching them. This ambassador was tall, at least six foot two, with broad shoulders and narrow hips. He was definitely handsome, but in a vain, self-conscious way. She looked more carefully at him. He was about the same age as Jonathan, but with none of the self-deprecation. The man’s hair was styled and pomaded so heavily so no strand dared fall out of place. Quite a peacock. Diane did her best to control the smile tweaking the corners of her mouth.
The woman accompanying him was much younger, perhaps in her mid to late thirties, with blonde hair piled up on her head in an elaborate style. She’d dressed in a way that said “expensive” and “paid for”and the expression on her overly made-up face gave the impression of perpetual boredom.
What was she bored with—her escort, herself, or this party? With a wolfish and arrogant smile, the ambassador approached them. The look in his eyes made Diane brace herself, telling her this would not be pleasant.
“Oh Christ, it’s Koenig,” Jonathan muttered under his breath.
“Butler, there you are!” Koenig barked, almost like an accusation as he bore down on them, his woman hanging onto him. “Not alone for once, I see.” Koenig’s gaze traveled up and down the length of Diane’s body, taking her in, appraising her.
Diane wanted to cover herself with her hands beneath his gaze, as if he undressed her and she stood naked before him. Unconsciously, she stepped closed to Jonathan, as he protectively placed his other hand over hers and braced himself.
“Ambassador Koenig and Miss…” Jonathan bowed briefly to the woman.
“This is Miss Martin, Miss Sylvia Martin,” Koenig introduced her and waited for Jonathan’s introduction.
“May I introduce Lady Diane Brandon?” She nodded to Koenig and smiled politely to the woman.
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