Agent for a Cause

I conveyed my astonishment at Kevin's quick grasp of chess. I covered the attack on Anna and how I and Kevin had helped deal with it. I talked of taking apart the computer and finding what I had seen and what my conclusions to Anna had been about Kevin.

I talked of the apartment explosion and my leaving on my wedding day and then of my reunitement with my family.

"Once Flint gave the code he had to Kevin the boy found my location in less than thirty seconds."

I could see that the threat imposed by Kevin's capture and the far greater implications other than just the breakup of one little family was beginning to become alarmingly clear to everyone present in the room. I described the attack on the house.

As I finished with our journey through the lava tube and the explosion of the volcano I saw one man of about forty shake his head, "Your either half crazy or you've got one big pair of balls to pull off that volcano trip!" He said in a Texan accented drawl.

I don't know what made me say it and I regretted it instantly, "It's more of a combination of both actually."

For a split second there was silence and then in unison almost everyone broke out in laughter. Flint was dying from it and looked like he needed a shot of air badly.

I hadn't meant to say something crude. It just sort of slipped out, because well it was true for lack of a better way of putting it. I glanced around and to my horror I saw Anna sitting against the back wall of the room.

I hadn't known she was there. Her face was ten shades of red, but she was laughing so it shouldn't go too hard on me later, hopefully. Chantry had recovered and brought the meeting back into its soberness of discussion.

"We know that the Iron Wills have been transgressing the bonds of our treaty with them for some time, but no breaches of trust of this significance have come to light before. Small wonder as to why they would make such a risky move now. As vital as Kevin is to his family he also represents an incalculable step forward in technology that is virtually without exception one of the greatest breakthroughs of the modern era. The price alone for such a wealth of knowledge could only be afforded by a handful of countries and commercial magnets in the world." He said glancing around the table meaningfully.

I caught his drift of thought. With such a technological breakthrough at stake we could expect no friends in this operation in fact there could be direct opposition to us by those we often called friends.