Breed

Chapter Fifteen

Dean Kean was waiting outside for them, adjusting his tie. He smiled at Mikaela. "I'm sorry to have used go-betweens. While your phones are indeed on record, I find it unnerves people if I call them completely out of the blue. And I knew you were with Lincoln."

"How's that?"

"Your little game. Security flagged it the moment the fireworks started. Normally I would have put an end to it, but I trust Lincoln to keep the grounds intact. Mostly."

"And I do," Linc said. "Mostly."

"Except for that incident the semester before last. We had to resod a goodly portion of the north field."

"Teaching kids to control their abilities isn't an exact science. Sometimes you end up with a lot of chaos before you find control."

"I wasn't blaming you, Lincoln," Kean soothed.

They arrived at the Chase Administrative Center. "Administration?" Rox asked.

"My chopper's on the roof here." He led them through the Chase lobby, and to an elevator. He opened it with a key, and pushed the button for the roof. He had to use his key again to get the elevator moving.

"So why are we choppering, then?" Mikaela asked once the doors were closed. "I mean, I'm flattered we're going, I just don't know where, or why."

"Seattle," Kean said. "Though the specific of the 'where' is very much tied into the why. We're going to where they're holding Mohammed."

"I might have assumed that much, but that's maybe a third of the answer."

"I suppose it is. Mahmoud has been taken by the police; I dare say it's likely you heard at least that much. The supposed riots in Seattle? They were in part a protest of the NSA's dealings. But the majority of the rally was designed to advocate for his release, a detail that has somehow managed not to be reported by the media. You see, he hasn't been processed, isn't accessible to a lawyer, or his parents. He's been disappeared, to a police black site."

"A black site?" Rox asked.

"I suppose you two are a bit young to remember them. Black sites, unofficial prisons, came to some degree of notoriety during the height of the ill-conceived War on Terror. They were run by the CIA, who housed prisoners at them to be intimidated and tortured."

"It was a black eye," Linc said, "on our country, and particularly, on the fighting men and women who made most of those captures in the first place. We lost a lot of standing in the world, thanks to that crap."

"Right," Kean said, as the elevator doors opened. "Check that she's fueled, and take care of pre-flight." Linc nodded and started to jog towards the helicopter. Kean turned right, towards the lip of the building that overlooked the commons. "It was one thing, housing 'undesirables' in little miniature Guantanamos abroad. But it's a far more pernicious thing to hold a minor who is also a U.S. Citizen at such a location on American soil. The police deny even having him, but I have sources that inform me otherwise."

"That covers a lot of the what," Mikaela said. "But it still doesn't tell me why you need us."

"You each have your role to play," Kean said.

"Are we mounting a rescue?" Rox asked.

"Nothing so... dramatic," Kean said. "It's a visitation. And I can be quite... persuasive."

Mikaela looked out at the quiet of the commons. It was uncharacteristically quiet. Word had traveled fast. "People were afraid of us before, but now..."

Kean nodded gravely. "I have it on good authority the 'riots' were manufactured. Undercover officers providing the necessary spark to carry tension over into confrontation. Clearly, they couldn't allow the story to become about how the police kidnapped a child from school after beating him. So they turned the story into one about how inherently violent a population they already have a history of oppressing can be. Nice, tidy, and thoroughly awful."

"We're all set," Linc said.

"Ladies," Kean said, turning with a sweep of his hand. "I promised you a helicopter ride."