Most Revolutionary - Chapter Eighteen
Pale Tombs And Icy Graves
Previously: In the coal mine survival bunker, President Kristen Silver and her campaign manager Ellen Lin plan for a new future. In the Perez farmhouse, fired FBI Director Maximilian Castelan attacks Sabia Perez and Jenna Ryzcek. Roca strikes back.
MOST REVOLUTIONARY — A SERIALIZED NOVEL
During a killer Iowa blizzard, fearless DAPL militant and radical plant nursery grower Sabia Perez first saves then kidnaps the stranded President of the USA to ransom a better world.
Deep in the heart of Iowa, fugitive FBI Director Maximilian Castelan remains bound and gagged on the hardwood floor by the front door of the Perez farmhouse. His eyelids twitch at the edge of consciousness.
The wild and brutal night is far from over. In ways that Sabia Perez cannot imagine.
If only she had tied leaves of the elderberry trees and bushes to the farmhouse doors and windows, then no evil could enter. Or so it is said. Too late. Hylde-Moer, the Elder Mother, the dryad of the ancient elderberry might be the spirit to ward off dark witches and demons, and evil breath, but tonight, Sabia, Jenna, and Roca must fight alone against the depraved. Who else to protect them? Who else to guide and guard their lives but themselves?
Increased proximity to the supernatural. Come summer, Sabia might surround the entire house and yard with elderberry — transplants from the fields and orchards of the bushes and trees put in generationally by the Perez family. Changing the look of the yard might at least reassure Sabia, and strengthen life surround, if not protect from Evil.
Sabia steps out of the shower half alive in thought and energy but knowing entirely what must be done. Gather strength. Get Castelan’s car out of the drive and put it at the bottom of a lake. Throw Castelan into a pit of despair — seems fitting. Some days you push the revolution, some days you defend it, some days you take for yourself. Sabia would like a few of those days now.
In her farmhouse bedroom, Sabia dresses in dark sweats and red wool socks. In the kitchen, she directs Roca to prepare elderberry and lemon balm tea, with honey and lemon, to summon the dark and the light, the sweet and the sour essence of life, to heal, to empower. On the couch in the living room, she finds Jenna.
Sabia tries to relax with her legs and feet up, resting on Jenna's lap as Jenna rubs into the scratchy fabric of the wool socks on Sabia’s heel, arch, toes — spontaneous reflexology. Jenna’s fingers probe along Sabia’s tight Achilles and into the tender dips around the swell of her ankle bone.
It might as well be a truth universally acknowledged that Sabia is tough, too tough. And now maybe they all are.
At the stove, Roca fills teacups for Sabia and Jenna, then sets them on end tables by the couch. Sabia drinks.
If Sabia knew now what she will soon, she would replace in her hands the brilliant warm ceramic teacup of herb and berry, citrus and crystal infusion with the gloomy cold metal of the shotgun. She would grip the gun and issue new commands.
Soon. Too soon, long before dawn, Sabia will need to pull the trigger. And she will. She will act on what she needs.
For the moment though, by way of Jenna’s touch and Roca’s tea, Sabia floats above the couch, high over the Evil on the floor beneath them.
Castelan lifts his head and glances around the kitchen and into the living room.
Roca moves from the stove to stand over him.
“Welcome to fucking Iowa. Jenna Ryzcek saved your life. I took a shot at ending it.”
Castelan looks closely at Roca. He tries to speak.
Roca rips off the duct tape.
“You’re Roca Perez,” says Castelan. “You blasted my shoulder.”
“I'm a bad shot. I aimed high and hoped for the best.”
Roca tapes Castelan’s mouth shut again.
Castelan curses, somewhat audibly through the duct tape.
Too loud for Roca. He grabs a dish towel and takes the roll of tape from the kitchen table.
“You asked for this.” Roca balls up the towel and again rips the tape off Castelan’s face.
“Roca Perez,” Castelan says, as if he cannot believe it. “You lying motherfucker. How in Hell did you escape our net?”
Castelan looks at Sabia.
“You,” he says. “It’s not your friends that took Silver. It’s you—”
Roca shoves the towel into Castelan’s mouth, then tapes his face and wraps the tape repeatedly around Castelan’s head.
Castelan tries to yell but can make only a distant moaning sound in his throat.
“That’s better,” say Roca.
Castelan bangs on the floor with his bound feet.
Roca ends that. He tapes Castelan's body tight to the floor, not sparing the wounded shoulder. Castelan is mummified and secured as if in an open-air crypt. He blinks madly. He snorts, tries to make any sound he can. Roca presses Castelan’s raw shoulder, oozing after Jenna’s surgery. Castelan appears to pass out from the pain.
Roca is the most peaceful man you could ever want to meet until you attack his family, guest, and home. Until you terrorize him. Then he changes.
Satisfied, weary, Roca sits in the armchair across from Sabia and Jenna with his own cup of elderberry tea. He raises the cup. “This is good.”
“Damn good,” says Jenna, sipping the brew. The hot liquid de-fogs her mind, cools her nerves, swells her heart, strengthens her will.
“I almost got everyone killed,” says Sabia.
“It's not your fault,” says Jenna.
“It is,” says Sabia.
“No,” says Roca.
They go quiet.
Then Roca looks at Castelan. “We need to do something with the trash,” he says. “Too bad we can’t bag him and put him by the side of the road.”
“If he dies, we dump the body,” says Sabia.
“He’s stable,” says Jenna. “But what if someone tracks him to this door?”
“You searched,” says Sabia.
“No phone. No device that could lead anyone to us,” says Jenna. “But his car sits in the drive.”
“We get rid of that tonight,” says Sabia. “Him we keep.”
“If only there was a way we could throw him to the cops,” says Roca.
“He looks like another useful hostage to me. We queue him up in his own ransom video,” says Sabia. “No one will give a damn thing for him, but we shock the world. Show our power.”
“First things first,” says Jenna. “What if co-conspirators know he was coming here. What if they show up?”
“We’re well-armed now,” says Sabia. “We’ve got more weapons than people. Like the State.”
Roca waves away the idea. “If the time comes when we need to use guns in battle, it's over — we lost. We can't fight our way through this — whatever this is.”
“Unless we can,” says Sabia. “We did so far.”
“We are not going to kill people, Sabia. Not one, not even the trash. I don't care how many guns we have.”
“That's not what you told Castelan. That’s not what you did. He may still die.”
“That was self defense.”
“That’s what I’m talking about,” says Sabia.
The wintry wind kisses the creaky farmhouse and centers their place in the world, in the weather, in the wild, secure by the fields and woods, along the maze of roads running to and through civilization, somewhere, out there, to the cities, the nerve centers of society of which the Perez farmhouse is an extension though it feels the center of the world.
Or one center at the edge of the world. Rural Iowa, remote Iowa — who are they to rock the boat?
There’s no doubt about it — the boat rocks.
Jenna looks up at the shotgun-blasted kitchen ceiling and the lumpy ridges of pastel plaster and lathe that run along the ceiling, bent and distorted by time into aesthetic waves, suspended small swells and troughs. She examines the floral design and mute tones of the wallpaper in the living room. She feels the dry air of the more modern feature, electric baseboard heaters. She feels the night encase them like a womb. She feels at home.
Castelan, eyes flickering, seems to scuttle in place, bound and disregarded on the floor. He would see them all killed. They would see him brought to justice.
“I’ll drag this monster into the basement,” says Roca. “Jenna, you and Sabia rest.”
“No way,” says Sabia. “We keep this piece of shit right where he is. His life is over. His next stop is Hell. And I want to be there for it.”
In the Oval Office, Acting President Alecta O’Roura-Chavez leans against the front edge of the Resolute Desk. Secret Service Director William Kingsley is seated like a penitent before her.
“Bill, against the advice of most of my staff, I’m going to reinstate you fully as Director of the Secret Service not only for a week. For a month. I changed my mind. Do you know why?”
Kingsley knows he’s a pawn now in the chess of Alecta’s presidential politics. He may not know why exactly, but the Acting President has the right to play pawn master, King killer, Queen slayer.
“I would hesitate to guess,” says Kingsley. “Keep you enemies closer?”
“Are you my enemy, Bill?”
“Not at all. I could be your great ally.”
“Who’s my biggest enemy, Bill?”
“This is DC, Ma’am. DC is your enemy.”
“It’s bigger than DC,” says Alecta.
Kingsley nods. The biggest enemy of this ambitious progressive President is too great to easily name.
“I need an 'inside man', Bill. Do you know what that is?”
“Of course.”
“There's a good movie by that title. Starring Denzel Washington.”
“I'll look it up.”
“It’s better than John Q, which also stars Denzel, but not as good as Dog Day Afternoon. And Dog Day is like a forerunner to the hit TV series La Casa de Papel. I love that show. Much of it — even if I would’ve done things differently. It’s Spanish. A heist show, a tour de force. The People against power. The People against the banks. The People against the police. And no one gets killed. Until they do.”
“I take your word for it.”
“Don't. Maybe watch those shows, Bill. You know, see what we might be dealing with here — good-guy-takes-hostage scenario. I mean, presumably, the kidnappers of President Silver and Ellen Lin have seen those shows too.”
“I don't believe in good kidnappers, Madame President.”
“I don't care. This is the world we live in now. Your beliefs are your own, but your job is mine to say 'yes' or 'no' to. Okay? For the moment, I'm saying 'yes.' You report directly to me even more so from now on.”
“I won’t let you down, Ma'am.”
“If you do, you’re gone. ”
“Understood.”
“How can I feel safe with Castelan on the loose, Director? Who knows where.”
“Iowa.”
“Or DC. I want you to personally hunt him down, find him, capture him. All spy-world is looking for him, and I want you and agency resources searching too. Bring him in. The job of the Secret Service is to protect me. That means, get Castelan.”
“Yes, Ma’am. With pleasure.”
“I don’t trust everyone at the Bureau to go all-out against him. Do you?”
“Ma’am, I’m sure the agency professionals at the FBI—”
“Yeah, bullshit. If you don’t find Castelan within a month, you’re gone, Kingsley. I'm simply extending your stay.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“Get it done. And in the meantime — keep me alive. Keep us all alive.”
Secret Service Director William Kingsley actually bows to President O'Roura-Chavez upon standing to leave.
Afterwards, in the hall outside the Oval Office, he asks himself, Why? Maybe because he fucked up so badly with President Silver. He does not recall having bowed to anyone in his life. He feels slightly embarrassed, disoriented. He vows to find Castelan within the month and to never bow to anyone again.
Kingsley is glad to walk alone back to his office, his lair. He feels powerful there more than anywhere else. Secret Service headquarters. He needs to think.
Suddenly the edge of the Perez farmhouse porch shakes under a loud clomping that rattles the windows. Angry footsteps stomp to the front door.
On the couch, Jenna squeezes her hands around Sabia’s feet. Roca leans forward in the armchair. Sabia pushes up. She looks to the kitchen table with the guns.
Someone bangs on the door.
Head near the doorsill, Castelan looks up from the floor.
Billy The Moto Kid Yonkin slams the storm door, then opens it and wrenches the doorknob of the front door. Locked. He hits and shakes the door.
“Sabia! Sabia! I know about you and Avery! And the gun! Sabia! Open up!”
The blinds on the farmhouse windows are closed but Castelan tries to see up through the slits.
“Sabia! Hear me now! Stay away from Avery!”
Sabia swings her legs off Jenna, sits up, whispers. “Billy Yonkin.”
They all whisper and mouth their words.
“The Neanderthal Youtuber? Mr. Disinformation?” says Jenna.
“Nobody can be here but me,” says Sabia. Then she shouts: “Billy, go away!”
“Sabia, open up!”
“Go away, Billy!”
“Fucking testosterone,” says Jenna.
Roca gets up and checks again to make sure that Castelan is both immobile and muted.
“Sabia, I know it was Avery! I know he blew up my drone. Then he gave you the shotgun. I know it was him. He thinks he's in love with you, Sabia. He’s a fool. You stay away from him, you understand!”
“Fuck off hard, Billy!”
Billy attacks the front door again, pounding and kicking.
“What an absolute ass,” says Jenna.
At the kitchen table, Roca hefts Castelan’s handgun, balances its deadly weight in his grip. Open a window and fire a warning shot past Billy’s ear. That should take care of Billy.
Sabia waves to Roca to move back and stay silent. She goes to the door.
“I’ll tell my parents about you, Sabia! You and Avery!”
“Piece of shit,” says Jenna.
Castelan lies wide-eyed at Sabia’s feet.
Against the floorboards, he bangs his head, the only part of his body not taped flat.
“Fuck off, Billy!” says Sabia.
Sabia steps directly on Castelan’s face, on his eyes and pinning his head when he tries to twist free. She bangs on the kitchen door herself.
“Go home, Billy!”
“I want the gun back, Sabia.”
“Fuck off, Billy! Get off my porch. Now. Before I call your Mommy.”
“I’m warning you.”
“No, I’m warning you, you mental vacuum. Get off my porch. Get lost.”
“Stay away from Avery.”
“Fuck you. And tell your Mommy I’m out of eggs. I'm coming by to get some tomorrow. No one is afraid of you, Billy! Your Mommy can ask me all about Avery. Your Mommy loves me, Billy. Go home to your Mommy, Billy boy!”
“Stay away from our farm, Sabia.”
“Go fuck yourself, you fucking crankcase.” Sabia is become Lilith, defiant creature of the night — dominant, determined.
“Sabia, back off!”
“This is your last warning, Billy!”
“Or what?!”
“Or I shoot your fucking dick into the snow with your brother's gun!”
“Consider yourself warned!” says Billy.
He slams the storm door shut.
He clomps off the porch.
“What a prince,” says Roca. He sets the Glock back on the table.
Billy starts his truck, guns the engine repeatedly, then drives away.
Jenna walks over to Roca and Sabia, who removes her foot from Castelan’s head.
“What is it with men and their fucking hormones? Makes their heads implode,” says Jenna. “Pumps them full of bad faith, bad ideas, bad energy, and bad deeds. And then we have to live in that shitty world.”
“Billy thinks I’m dead still,” says Roca.
“You are dead,” says Sabia.
“So I could surprise him. I’d like to.”
“You need to stay dead, Abuelo.”
“We’re all dead,” says Jenna. “Or missing. Except Sabia.” Jenna points to Castelan. “He’s dead and gone now too. How did this boring land of Iowa become the home of the underworld?”
“The fucking Empire is a ghastly nightmare,” says Sabia. “And men by now are an evolutionary nightmare. They destroy everything. They’re fucking tools of death. Let’s do a thought experiment: What if all the men died but we save a few to reproduce? Different world.”
“Simpler,” says Jenna. “But most of the elders would need to die off too. Just look at the voting patterns, what they support: not the Earth, not the youth, not equality, not justice — Hell not even freedom though they think they do. I’m talking mainly the whites. The most brainwashed and propagandized people on the planet. My people.”
“Or just the men,” says Sabia. “Things would be more peaceful and equitable. I mean, women can be mean, but it’s mostly the men who are killing us all. If you imagine far enough back, you can think of a time in history when men must have had value for surviving and protecting life. What now? The exact opposite.”
Sabia stews. She contains multitudes, she contradicts herself. After all, she is the one holding Silver and Lin captive, two women who do the work of men. But Sabia is the exception among women and so are Silver and Lin, if increasingly less so. How to reach and re-teach all men? And the brainwashed women too? Any future of life on Earth may depend on it.
Cold and long winter nights can lead to such pleas and contortions of thoughts — the most crazy and the most sane ideas imaginable.
Sabia feels weak. She sits down on a kitchen chair between Castelan and Jenna, stares at the front door, her expression and voice flat: “Castelan, for one, is dead to the world now. A good thing. We killed him, right here in the kitchen.”
“He still breathes,” says Jenna.
“Not by much,” says Sabia.
“Sabia, is it true, you’re with Avery?” says Roca.
“It’s true, isn’t it?” says Jenna. “Avery is the one young man you can’t do without, Sabia.”
“It doesn’t matter,” says Sabia.
“It does to Avery,” says Roca. “He can't know anything about me and Jenna. We can't drag him into this.”
“He knows nothing,” says Sabia.
“We need to keep it that way,” says Roca.
Sabia cocks her head. “Maybe.”
“Definitely,” says Jenna. “He’s a squirrelly-ass boy, right? He’ll fuck it up more likely than not.” Jenna kisses Sabia on the cheek. “You got us, Girl. We’re all you need.”
“We need to win,” says Sabia. “The boys aren’t all bad. Just mostly.” She pushes Castelan’s head with her foot. “Like this monster. I don’t imagine he’s long for this world.”
“Nobody’s killing anybody,” says Roca.
Sabia pushes Castelan’s head again. She will not be lectured to. “Abuelo. Jenna’s no killer. You’re no killer. And I’m no killer. But you know who and what is a killer? Poverty is a policy choice, and so is endless war, and so is the early and miserable death of the People. Policy is the killer. So let’s make our own policy here and now. Let's give the monster to Silver. And Silver to the monster. That's my policy. And we’ll see how the killers treat each other. And then maybe we broadcast it live to the nation and world.”
“Theater of the damned?” says Jenna.
“We’ll see,” says Sabia.
“Lock Castelan in the bunker with Silver? No,” says Roca.
“Say ‘Yes’ to life, Abuelo.”
“They would band against us.”
“Or tear themselves apart.”
Jenna picks up the shotgun. She aims it at the kitchen light on the ceiling. “So Castelan tried to kill Silver. Now it's Silver's turn. Seems fair. As long as Castelan is kept tied up.”
“That is not happening,” says Roca.
“Too late,” says Sabia. “Silver-Death can deal. She knows best about killing. We give Silver-Gun her very own assassin for company underground. If Castelan meets his end at the hands of the President in a cave in the middle of Iowa, who can stop it? From the depth of my hunted and haunted and atheist heart — I say, ‘Amen’ and good riddance.”
Jenna swivels the shotgun to the dried gourds sitting on top of the refrigerator. “Do I need to learn how to shoot this thing?” she says.
“Aim low if you’re going to aim at all,” says Sabia. She looks at Castelan, then takes the shotgun from Jenna and returns it to the table.
Roca collects teacups and carries them to the counter by the sink.
From the kitchen closest, Sabia takes out a broom with a long handle homemade from a black locust pole, tougher than ironwood, like organic steel. She points the handle down.
Then she stands over Castelan and spears him in the groin and drives all her weight into the broom handle. Jenna and Roca wrestle her away. Jenna grabs Sabia from behind. Roca grabs the broom. Sabia fights them both all the way across the kitchen to where they slam into the counter. Sabia rips the broom from Roca, but Jenna bear-hugs her and never lets her go.
“I got you, Girl,” Jenna says quietly.
Sabia relents. She is quickly exhausted.
“What did he do to you?”
Sabia leans more into Jenna.
There are no words.
Jenna is soft and Sabia wants to fall asleep against her but the wind howls through the porch and the gutters, and Sabia knows they must do what the Revolution requires.
“Kill the car,” she says.
“Let’s move,” says Roca. “Storm’s coming.” Likely the understatement of — ever.
“Eye on the weather, Roca?” says Jenna.
“Always two eyes,” he says.
Sabia pushes off Jenna. “Finish this.”
Chief Of Staff Shakeeta Glazier and Acting President O’Roura-Chavez stand by a window in the Oval Office looking out into a frozen edge of the winter Rose Garden.
Shakeeta offers her electronic tablet to Alecta with details of the day’s agenda that Alecta has already studied. Alecta declines the tablet.
“Ma’am, we’ve got things to do.”
“I’m doing them.”
Shakeeta shakes her head. “Are we going forward or back here, Alecta? You let that cop Kingsley return to his job full-time after he lost your boss and her entire travel staff. Why?”
Because, Alecta thinks. He's on to Sabia.
“No reason,” says Alecta. “Half a hunch.”
“About?”
“Look, Kingsley is on the leash. And he’s well positioned. I know his politics are bad. Who wants to wear a gun, wears a gun, and has good politics? Can you imaging Gandhi with a gun? A fucking gun, and Gandhi. It was a gun that killed Gandhi.”
“That’s what I’m saying — Kingsley is no Mahatma Gandhi. But I’m not asking for Gandhi to head the Secret Service. Amazing as that would be.”
“Kingsley is no Darth Vader,” says Alecta.
“We hope. Anyway, Gandhi opposed a gun ban, even Gandhi. That’s what the right-wingers’ say.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“I know. The British gun ban against Indians was racist,” says Shakeeta.
“It put guns in the hands of whites and kept them from Indians.”
“And that was during World War I, thirty years before Gandhi’s death. Gandhi denounced violence and guns his whole life. He went the other way. I’m just saying, in our line of work you need some guns at your back, Alecta.”
“At least Kingsley doesn’t shoot from the hip. And he doesn’t seem too complicated.”
“The most devious never do,” says Shakeeta.
“Kingsley made a stupid mistake in face of a blizzard. His second-in-command, Grace Lamont, runs our security now. She's sharp as a tack on our behalf.”
“I don’t trust her either. But why not promote her over Kingsley?”
“Kingsley is more expendable. Let’s see if he can catch Castelan. Or learn anything. We can't trust any agency to find its own shadow at this point.”
“The rot is that deep?”
“Would you doubt it?”
“I always hope to be surprised.”
“Castelan may have an idea where Kristen and Ellen are being held.”
“And you believe that? Nobody knows anything about the American Liberation Alliance. Castelan got away. The right blames you for accusing him, and they blame you for making him run, and they blame you for losing him.”
“We can’t control everything, Shakeeta.”
“So control what we can. Put Kingsley’s sorry ass on a bus. That would be fine by me.”
“Fall guy,” says Alecta. “That’s who he is. There's more to be known than what we see in the daily briefings. Kingsley knows that. Even as literally dozens of intelligence agencies test every theory under the sun. The DEA and the Coast Guard have their own ideas now, none of which are worse than the clueless chit-chat blowing from Homeland Security, Cyber Command, CIA, NSA, FBI, and all the other security vacuums.”
Dormant, leafless, brittle, tough bushes of summer rose brood brown in the Rose Garden. Alecta looks beyond. The gray haze of a low-cloud ceiling threatens to suffocate and submerge Washington DC into the land and water below.
Shakeeta follows Alecta’s gaze. “This time next year, Alecta? Vice President? Or re-elected as Acting President against impossible-to-meet ransom demands.”
“We hang onto the demands for dear life, Shakeeta. That’s all I know. Lose the demands, we’re all dead. The People’s vision no more. It’s all or nothing time now. And who knows about Silver. She could be a dead woman on the ticket this fall, come election day. Who would know?”
“If Silver winds up dead, those demands will be meaningless, and we'll drown in a sea of hostility.”
“Something to look forward too then,” says Alecta. “We need to keep meeting the demands. Say we meet them all and even go beyond. Nationalize the banks, the hospitals, pharmaceuticals, insurance, big energy, big ag, big everything. Why should the billionaires and trillionaires own the country and not the People? It would be damn near revolution.”
“How?”
“Nobody knows.” Alecta shrugs. “No matter what, the big banks and big money are coming down on us hard anyway. It’s time to nationalize the credit of a nation. Start with that. It’s not their money. It’s ours. The People’s money. We coin it. We own it. The banks need to be put to work for all the People, not for the One Tenth of the One Percent. And the big industries — the workers should own the big industries and every institution that is too big not to democratize. That’s what ‘too big to fail’ really means — too big not to nationalize, socialize, democratize, revolutionize. Historicize!”
“And I need to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, Alecta.”
“Yes, you do, Shakeeta. Yes, you do. But let’s look at the day’s agenda first.”
Shakeeta gladly extends her electronic tablet to Alecta who absently handles it, until a particular item catches her eye. A meeting with the Speaker of the House and the president pro tempore of the Senate. The two establishment parties banding together to take on the progressive President. Oh, what fun that will be.
The Speaker and president pro tempore happen to be the next two officials in the line of succession after Alecta. It can only be a threat. Impeachment and removal, their real agenda. What else? It’s who they are. They’re professionals. Establishment tools. The big donors are their constituency. Rhetorical flourishes aside. The big donors versus the People, stubborn opponents and enemies.
Alecta stares at the long rows of thorns outside. And she tries to anticipate the lush green leaves and the warm red blooms of a future day.
Director Kingsley walks the cold kilometer from the White House to the stacked cement cubes of Secret Service headquarters. No getting around it — the professional districts of Washington DC are like dull gardens of pale tombs. The vision is that of bank vaults and bureaucratic crypts encased in bunkers of cement — decorated by desperate spots of imprisoned glass, called windows. Spot-planted outside the leaden fortresses are too-orderly trees, shrubs, and — come summer — arrays of flowers. It’s like walking through a residential graveyard — gigantic gravestones inhabited by suits and ties who cannot be trusted to dress themselves, out of uniform. They dress in their burial gear.
The graveyard of the professionals, a tomb walk prettified by bits of nature. Kingsley decides to have himself incinerated, his cremains be poured to urn rather than be suited to coffin.
It’s kind of uplifting, taking control of your own death. And if Kingsley’s view of the city is a bit grim for a gray winter day, so be it. Kingsley has neither trained for national poet nor interviewed for artist in residence — he cannot be held accountable for his inexact understanding and lack of aesthetic taste, perspective, and appreciation. His mind and body are supposed to be secure in these buildings, that is all — his precious ideas, his knowledge, his presence — safe within a vast sea of hostilities. What better place than stark pale tombs within which to create and carry out the solemn orders of the day?
What a life.
Finally, seated in office, Kingsley flips through a sequence of reports on his desk covered in stacks of investigative materials.
Deputy Director Grace Lamont walks in with an additional clutch of reports and sets them where she can. “This is a whole lot of nothing,” she says, “but I thought you should see it.”
“Naturally. Perfect. It will fit right in,” says Kingsley. “By the way, Grace, do you see? I’m back and I'm beautiful.”
“You are back,” says Lamont.
“And beautiful?”
“Congratulations, Bill.”
“For now. Alecta gave me a week at first, then a month to find Castelan. Stay of death. She might as well have fired me outright. Castelan can last a year on the road. Or more. If he wants to.”
“Does he?”
“I think he aims to be vindicated.”
“Impossible, no?”
“He'll try for Iowa. He meant what he told me. So. Who's in Iowa, Grace?”
“Money. Oddly enough,” says Lamont. “The US Chamber of Commerce calls Des Moines a ‘global hub of the insurance industry.’ And the ‘insurance capital of the US, behind only Hartford, Connecticut and New York City.’ There’s Nationwide and dozens of similar businesses. Is insurance involved in this?”
“Couldn’t tell you. Rule no one out. Who else is in Iowa?”
“Sabia Perez. Your star witness to nothing.
“What about Silver and Lin?”
“Frozen in place? Really?”
“It’s the easiest thing to do. No travel, no flight. If we get Castelan, we get them. He knows, I’m sure he knows. Something. Plenty. We cut a deal. For everyone. No losers. Then we make the rescue. I fly to Des Moines tonight.”
“Count me out, Boss. One camping trip is enough for me.”
“Solo trip,” says Kingsley. “You, Deputy Director Grace Lamont, you will keep the Acting President very much alive.”
“When can we expect you back, Sir?”
Kingsley leafs through Lamont’s new batch of reports, if for no other reason than to say he has done so. “People disappear in Iowa, Grace. Have you noticed? Important people.”
“Only a couple. Well — of those who survived.”
“I could be next.” Kingsley shrugs. “Or I could be flushed through the toilet of history. I may not come back at all, Grace. No point returning without the goods.”
“You won’t stay in Iowa.”
“You never know.”
“If you last even the month in Iowa, I'll be amazed.”
Kinglsey considers it. He would be too.
“I mean how many cornfields can you look through in one month, Boss? Nothing against Iowa, but—”
“I’m about to find out,” says Kingsley.
Except, he’s not. He thinks of Sabia walking through her fruit trees. He thinks of her subterranean greenhouse framed green against the snowy winter day. He thinks of Sabia as the key to his future quality of life. He thinks Sabia’s bark is worse than her bite. He knows it is.
He doesn’t know about the guns.
Kingsley thinks ahead — not to any cut-over cornfield, buried in snow and ice. He needs to make friends, for a change, with Sabia Perez.
What can he give as a gift to a revolutionary who already has everything she thinks she needs on the road to revolution. What can a soldier give to a revolutionary?
A warden to a prisoner?
A cop to a fugitive?
What can Kingsley give to Sabia? Guns? Freedom? Aid?
Kingsley intends to find out.
He doesn’t know about her underground home.
Or the bunker.
Or her allies.
He doesn’t know into what land he actually goes.
Both the east and west coasts of the United States of America could be blown off the map by a mistaken or coordinated nuclear attack from its own military or that of another country — and Sabia, Jenna, and Roca would not know any too soon. Not most nights, least of all this frigid winter one without end. The generator would kick on, if need be, not the news. The news would die its own death.
Roca steps over Castelan to the window blinds which he opens. He looks into the dark. He flips on spotlights that illuminate the snowy yard and the drive all the way to the road. He studies Castelan’s car in the drive.
“The trash mobile,” he says.
Sabia and Jenna flank him and look outside.
“Billy must have seen it,” says Jenna.
“Doubt it matters,” says Sabia. “You heard him. Billy only has a mind for me, for some crazed reason.”
“Billy saw it,” says Roca.
“I could burn the thing,” says Jenna. “I'm good at that. No problem.”
“In summer I would bury and plant on top. Rent a track loader,” says Roca. “Dig a little pond as excuse for the equipment.”
“We're far from summer, Abuelo. We need to drown the thing. And I know the place. I know the lake.”
“There's ice and snow,” says Jenna.
Roca says, “Not so much on Rathbun Lake. Winter's been mild. Again. Until the blizzard.”
“Rathbun Lake is fifteen miles long and two miles wide at the widest point. That’s no pond,” says Sabia.
“I don’t get it,” says Jenna.
“Drive it onto the ice. Light it on fire. Down it goes,” says Sabia. “Abuelo?”
Roca nods. “Ice will burn,” he says.
Jenna thinks it through. Melt maybe. The pipeline girls ride again. Just when she tried to put those days behind her.
“The boat ramp by Bohn Cemetery is quiet, isolated,” says Roca. “We’ll do it there.”
“They’ll make a modern Western movie out of us one day, if nothing else,” says Sabia. “Or a Gothic Western against Empire.”
“Lets keep our heads in Iowa,” says Jenna. “Let’s get through the night first.”
“I’m done,” says Sabia. “I can’t go out in the cold. You and Roca go. You need to chance going out, both of you.”
“We need to beat the storm,” says Roca.
Jenna and Roca put on their winter gear.
Crime fighting is their full-time gig now, thinks Sabia. Fight fire with fire. Kill crime with crime. Higher laws for higher goods.
Jenna pokes Castelan with her boot. “Leave you alone with him?”
Sabia pats the guns on the kitchen table. “And these.”
“Sabia, don’t,” says Roca.
“No worries, Abuelo. A rogue cop on the floor is worth more to us alive than dead. More than we may know.”
Roca and Jenna work in the winter night. They hustle over snow and ice, traipsing to and from the barn, hauling jugs of new and used motor oil, which Roca has changed out through the years and stored for the old trucks and tractor. They load and stack the oil in the footwells of Castelan's car. Roca throws a few rags in with the oil then slams the door shut.
“That’s all of it,” he says.
He takes the two snow shovels from the porch and tosses them into the back of his pickup truck.
Jenna flashes car keys at Roca.
“I got the car,” she says. “I'll follow your truck. How far to the lake?”
“Too far,” says Roca. “But we gotta do it.” A few flurries skip through the air.
“Shit.”
“I know. We’ll be coming back against the storm. I’m glad Sabia stays here.”
Roca double-checks the cigarette lighter and a box of wood matches in his coat pocket. And a flashlight. He shows Jenna.
“I got the fire and light,” he says. “Fire, light, and fuel.”
“That's all we need,” says Jenna. “Come on.”
Suddenly a muffled shout and a dull metal banging breaks the night. It comes from inside the car trunk.
A shrieking ghost, if it had blown up from the icy ground and attacked Roca and Jenna in the chest would have surprised them less.
Jenna feels her heart fly out from her ribs then yo-yo back in with a thud.
“What the fuck?!”
Jenna hedges toward the trunk, followed by Roca. They gaze down at the banging, the muffled calls for help, the car shaking.
“Jenna,” Roca says quietly. “Go into the house and get a gun. Make sure it's loaded.”
At a kitchen chair, Sabia sits with her forehead lowered to the table, Castelan immobile on the floor beneath. Jenna bursts through the door.
She sees Sabia in her numb position.
Jenna grabs the shotgun from the kitchen table. She touches the back of Sabia's head. “You okay?”
Sabia looks up at the shotgun in Jenna's hand. “Everything alright?”
“Oh, perfect,” says Jenna.
“Why the gun?”
“Long night, I guess. I’m not sure Roca’s thinking straight. He wants a gun.”
Jenna considers Castelan’s handgun. She grabs it too.
“You sure you're okay, Jenna?”
“Never better.”
“It’s gonna be okay.”
“You believe that?”
“Not necessarily, no.”
“Okay.”
Roca is fully lit by the farmhouse spotlights. He shines a flashlight at the car’s trunk when Jenna comes out with the two guns.
He takes the shotgun, holds the flashlight against it, and points both at the trunk.
“Whoever this is,” he tells Jenna, “when you open the trunk, I’ll blind them with the light.”
Jenna points the Glock at the ground. She unlatches the trunk lid. Then she throws it open and steps back. She and Roca aim their guns.
Tucker Gere shields his eyes from the flashlight. He sees glimpses of guns, and people. He is clothed as he was after leaving the Maryland bar — in winter coat, boots, cap, and impressive gloves.
“Don’t shoot!”
“Why not?”
“Who are you?”
“Who are you?!”
“Tucker Gere. A man tried to kill me! He grabbed me from behind. Then nothing, I remember nothing.”
Roca burns the light at Tucker's eyes. Tucker shields his face. The heavy handgun shakes in Jenna's hands.
“Shit. Look away from us, Kid!”
“I am!”
“Who are you really?” says Jenna.
“I’m Tucker Gere. I was drinking at a bar. A man was drinking with me. He needed a ride. He said.” Tucker sees the license plate that Castelan threw on top of him. He holds it up against the beam of the flashlight. “I don't know where this came from.”
Jenna examines the number. “Look.” She nods to the bumper. Roca sees. “Same plate. Front plate must be.”
Tucker flips the plate and sees the number for himself. “This is my plate.”
Roca steps forward, still pointing the shotgun. “Then this is your car, Son. Kidnapped in your own vehicle. To cross the country undetected.”
“What are you talking about?”
“How long you been awake, Son?” Roca and Jenna lower their guns, while Roca continues to aim the flashlight at Tucker's face, forcing him to shield his eyes and look away.
“Just now.”
“Can you move?”
“My neck hurts like Hell. And my head.”
“Did you hear anyone banging around on the porch tonight? Did anyone hear you?”
“I don't remember a thing,” says Tucker. “Where am I?” Tucker tries to sit up but has difficulty moving.
“How bad do you think you're hurt, Son?”
“I’m cold. I'm so cold I don't know what works and what doesn't.”
“Welcome to Iowa, Kid.”
Roca and Jenna look at each other.
“Jesus,” says Tucker. “Iowa?”
“What do we do with this guy?” says Roca.
“We've got options,” says Jenna.
“No, we don't,” says Roca.
They look at the house where Sabia waits inside.
“Yes, we do,” says Jenna.
“No,” says Roca. “He needs a doctor.”
“I don't know,” says Jenna.
Tucker tries to understand. “I do need a doctor, I'm sure of that.”
“That may not be possible. A nurse maybe,” says Jenna.
“Listen, Kid. We’ll get you to a hospital. Soon. You don’t know us,” says Roca. “You never heard us. Never saw us. You will climb out of this car near the hospital, and you will go away from us. Got it?”
“Whatever you say, Man.”
“That’s exactly what I say. You were kidnapped and dumped by someone you never saw. Am I clear? We’ve got your license plate number. We know where you fucking live.”
“Blinded by flashlight. Got it. I'm cool with that, Man.”
“Okay,” says Jenna. “You blab about this, we hunt you down.”
“Hey, no sweat. I get you. I don't care what shit you're into. You save me, I save you. That's a deal. And good luck to you. Never saw you. Never heard you. Don’t know you.”
“Duck your head, Son.”
“Wait!”
Roca slams down the trunk lid. It bangs Tucker on the head and shoulder. Tucker shouts, hammers against the metal. “Sorry, Kid. You need to ride in the back.”
Tucker yells.
Roca pounds on the trunk.
“I’ll put a shot through this lid, Kid!”
Tucker goes silent.
“Let’s move.” Roca goes to his truck. Jenna opens the car door.
Then Sabia comes onto the porch in nothing but boots and sweats.
“Everything okay out here?”
“Roca’s pissed. I'm pissed. We’ll be back soon,” says Jenna.
Sabia runs off the porch and stands in front of the car, blocking it.
“That noise, Jenna. And the guns.”
Tucker Gere bangs and yells in the trunk.
Sabia grabs the car keys from Jenna. She opens the trunk. Tucker stares in fright. Sabia is fully lit by the farmhouse spotlights.
“Fucking shit,” says Roca. He and Jenna stand on either side of the car, out of the line of sight of Tucker. They all watch Sabia.
Jenna tries to explain. “We found him like this.”
“What the fuck—”
Jenna waves her hands to cut off Sabia from saying Jenna's name in front of Tucker.
“Castelan thought he killed him,” says Jenna. “In Maryland. Threw him in the trunk and took his car to get to Iowa undetected.”
Sabia eyes Tucker. He watches her. He tries to read her.
“I’m Tucker Gere. Is this really Iowa?”
“It ain't fucking Florida,” says Sabia. “How in fuck are you still alive and not frozen to death?”
Tucker shakes his head. “Welding gear, I guess.”
“A welder,” says Jenna. She bites her lip before saying anything more.
“You sure it was Castelan?” says Tucker. “FBI? That fuck? I would have recognized him. He was on TV in the bar. This guy attacked me in the parking lot when I offered him a ride. He said—”
“He was in disguise,” says Sabia. “He needed a ride to Iowa.”
Whoever Sabia is, she looks familiar to Tucker. His mind is foggy but why does he feel like he has met her before?
“We need to go,” says Roca. “We'll drop him at Wayne County Hospital. Anonymous.”
“Don’t do that,” says Sabia.
“It's for the best,” says Jenna. “In every way. He agreed to zip it. We have his plate. We know his name. He doesn’t dare mouth off. Or we end him.” Jenna makes a show of sounding tough.
“We can take care of him right here and right now,” says Sabia.
“No,” says Roca.
“I won't say a damn thing,” says Tucker. “Nothing. No three people. It was one person who found me. A tall blond man. Found me abandoned in my own car, then kicked me out by the side of the road. Saved my life.”
“That's quite a story,” says Sabia. “Saved by a Norwegian god. I don't think anyone would believe you, Dude.”
“I'll say whatever you want me to say. Anything or nothing. Nothing at all. I'll plead the fifth. They can't make me talk. Fuck the cops. Fuck 'em.”
“That's it, tell me what I want to hear,” says Sabia.
“I’m serious,” says Tucker. “I got no love for no one more than myself in this.”
“See, he knows the score,” says Jenna. “I think we can like this guy.”
“Right. Trust no one,” says Sabia. “Sorry, Pal, we need to keep you.”
“We can't do that,” says Roca. “It's wrong.”
Tucker moves to scramble out of the car.
Sabia is too fast. She slams shut the lid.
Tucker bangs in the trunk. Roca argues quietly with Sabia. “I blinded him with the flashlight. We threatened him to keep quiet. Okay? Forget Wayne Hospital. I’ll drop him at the Centerville clinic by Rathbun Lake. It’s even more remote. Then we sink the car and get home.”
“He’ll blab, Roca. He saw me. They’ll trace him back here.”
“He knows nothing.”
“He knows way too much. Billy was here too. He saw the car. We have no choice. Destroy the car, keep the guy.”
“How?”
“You know how.”
“He’s innocent,” says Roca. “You cannot kidnap someone like this.”
“Fuck, yeah, I can. We don’t know him. Maybe he worked with Castelan. Maybe he's lying. Maybe one turned on the other. It's not kidnapping if we don't ransom him. We won't. We merely detain him. For a while.”
Roca grabs the car keys from Sabia. “It’s kidnapping!”
Roca throws the keys to Jenna, and together they hold off Sabia. Jenna pushes, Roca pulls.
“I won't do it,” says Roca. “We’re not kidnappers!”
Jenna holds the keys behind her back. “Enough,” says Jenna.
“Everything’s on the line here,” says Sabia.
“We’ll figure it out. Your abuelo’s right. This guy's a victim, no perpetrator.”
“There's a higher law!”
“I know there is!”
Jenna gets in the car, and Sabia gets away from Roca but not until after Jenna locks the doors from the inside.
Sabia goes to the front of the car and blocks the drive. Jenna inches the car forward until it presses against Sabia. The car continues to inch forward, and Sabia is forced to the edge of the road. She clambers onto the hood.
Roca drives his truck into the road and waits. Sabia won’t get off the car. Jenna gets out.
“I’m so sorry, Sabia.”
Jenna grabs Sabia by the sweats and throws her hard into a snowbank.
Sabia lands face first in the snow. She frees her head and rolls over but stays down.
Jenna returns to the car and follows Roca into the night.
Sabia is furious and freezing. She gathers herself. In tears, she gets up and runs to the farmhouse. She goes past Castelan and through the complex and down to the great room. She rushes into Roca's bedroom for the .22 caliber rifle. “Fuck!” She needs to google how to use it. It’s a pump action with a tube magazine. She figures it out. She checks the magazine and finds it loaded with 9 bullets. “That should be enough,” she says.
Sabia moves quickly back up to the farmhouse kitchen, grabs her coat and Castelan’s stun gun. She hesitates by the Director tied up on the floor. What if he starts slamming his head again? She uses duct tape to pin his head to the floor. She jabs the muzzle of the rifle into his groin.
“Don't die on me too soon,” she says. “When I get back, you’re going straight to Hell.”
Castelan stares back at her, eyes frozen.
“You are Evil as shit, aren’t you,” says Sabia.
Coat, keys, rifle and stun gun, flashlight and duct tape, Sabia grabs it all and gets out the door. She locks it behind her. In the truck, she spins on the drive, then speeds into the night.
Roca follows back roads all the way to the north side of Centerville near its small hospital not far from the Missouri border.
He stops on the shoulder of Old Highway 5, at the intersection near the hospital drive. Jenna pulls up in Tucker's car and parks behind him.
Roca meets Jenna at the trunk of the car. He aims the shotgun and flashlight. Jenna opens the trunk.
“Look away!” Roca shouts. “Get out!”
Stiff, cold, in pain, Tucker Gere pulls himself awkwardly from the trunk. He stands, hunched, leans against the car, his neck bent at a slight angle.
“Where am I?”
“Look to your left! That road leads to the hospital drive. Go and don’t look back!”
Tucker looks. He moves slowly forward. Then he quickens his pace. Jenna and Roca watch him walk up the road toward the medical center drive and parking lot.
“Rathbun Lake is not far away,” Roca tells Jenna. “We’ll use the boat ramp, put the car on the ice, nice and easy. Let's go.”
And then for a moment they hear it coming before they see it — a pickup truck roars around the bend to the intersection. The truck aims directly at Tucker Gere.
Sabia slows, scans the situation. Tucker hobbles toward the medical center. Sabia zooms through the intersection and cuts him off short of the drive.
Sabia jumps out in front of Tucker with the rifle aimed. “That's enough. You’re coming with me.”
Tucker stops. Sabia motions toward her truck.
“Who the fuck are you?” he says. The terrifying ride to the hospital gave him time to think, to recall. He knows exactly who she is. “You’re Sabia Perez.”
“I’m Wonder Woman,” she says. “Get in the pickup. Now.”
Tucker looks from Sabia across the intersection to Jenna and Roca still standing by their vehicles.
“Jesus dear God,” says Roca.
“Fucking Sabia,” says Jenna.
Tucker runs past the rifle, past Sabia toward the hospital.
Sabia fires a shot into the road beside him. Asphalt shrapnels.
She pumps the gun. A spent casing flies out of the breech.
Tucker freezes.
“Next shot goes into your bones.”
Tucker raises one hand, unable to lift both arms. Sabia walks up behind him, draws the stun gun from her coat pocket, and shocks him in the neck. He drops to the asphalt.
“Fucking force me to be a fucking action hero, and I’ll be a fucking action hero on your ass.”
Sabia lays down the rifle, pockets the stun gun, and takes out the roll of duct tape.
“Eat bullets,” she says. “You’re on my turf now.”
Jenna and Roca run over.
“Fuck, Sabia!” says Jenna. She holds Tucker's ankles together while Sabia wraps them with tape.
Tucker moans and kicks. Jenna kneels on his calves.
Sabia looks up at Roca. “Sorry, Abuelo.”
“Mija. You don't stop.”
“No one stopped for me, Abuelo.”
Roca searches and finds the spent casing. He puts it in his pocket.
Sabia removes Tucker's gloves, then binds his wrists with duct tape.
“Give me that.” Jenna takes the tape from Sabia and tears off a strip. She covers Tucker's mouth.
Tucker Gere is no small man. Roca, Jenna, and Sabia each grab part of his coat and drag him to Sabia's truck. They wrangle him into the cab. Sabia runs back and retrieves Tucker's gloves and throws them in the cab too.
“I don't know how many lines we can cross in one night before this all goes to shit,” says Roca.
“See line, will cross,” says Sabia. “Put the car in the lake, Jenna. Burn it good. Do what you do best. And I’ll do what I do best, these days.”
“We’re both gonna burn for this ourselves, you know that, right?” says Jenna.
“I’m already burning,” says Sabia.
“When you get back to the farmhouse, watch out for Billy. Okay? He's a loose cannon out there.”
“He's not the only one,” says Roca.
“See you soon,” says Sabia.
Flurries increasingly lace the night air. Roca and Jenna park in the plowed and deserted boat launch parking lot near Bohn Cemetery. The lake is covered in snow and ice. The wind amps up, gusting sudden sheets of snow.
Roca relocates snow shovels from the bed of the truck to the back seat of the car.
“Stay close to the truck,” he tells Jenna. He takes the car keys. He drives the car around the lot, looping into a long straight approach at the boat ramp. He accelerates past Jenna and the truck, holds the car steady, drops down the ramp, and shoots through snow, plowing over ice until stuck.
Jenna runs after the car onto the lake.
Roca and Jenna shovel snow, baring the black ice around the car, until Roca doubles over, presses his chest. He slips and falls, losing his grip on the shovel.
“Roca!” Jenna pulls him to a sitting position, leans him against the car.
Snow layers down from sky in white shrouds. Jenna looks back to the pickup truck on shore, less and less visible.
“Finish it.” Roca puts his gloved hands in his lap and tries to breathe.
Jenna shovels snow, exposes more ice. It's now or never. She pours oil throughout the car — on the floor, seats, and dash. She pops the hood and pours oil on the engine and hoses. She opens the trunk and finds the pony tire beneath the base and coats it with oil. Then she pours oil on the four main tires. And on the ice around the car. She soaks rags and stuffs one halfway into the car's gas tank. The others go on the engine and oil sump, and in the trunk on the pony tire, on the seats and the wheels. Jenna is proud to be both a talented healer, and someone who knows how to make shit burn.
Roca recovers enough to stand with the assist of a snow shovel. Jenna walks him partway to shore.
Then she hurries back to the car and sets fire to each of the rags, the one hung from the gas tank last.
She catches up with Roca and takes him by the arm, and drags the snow shovels. They trudge to shore making fresh tracks in new snow.
The storm washes over them cold and clean, whipped fluff that fills and insulates. Falling and fallen snow swallows all sound. Flames light the car. Jenna and Roca wait and watch in the parking lot.
The gas tank explodes. The sound bites the lake air. The blast is bitter, as if it resents the quiet of the storm, but the explosion is also mostly lost to the night. The entire car burns, and the ice itself seems to flare.
Jenna meditates on the bonfire. It could be a small plane that crashed on the lake, in storm, burning black and gold through the floating gauze of weather. Or an alien ship. But it’s a car. And Roca and Jenna are the incendiaries.
The front of the car dips. The car slips partly into the lake. The fire persists. The car is hung up.
Then the car dips again as more ice gives way. Finally the car slips beneath the waters of the lake. Roca and Jenna watch the last of the flames slide and melt into water and ice, and blink out through the wind and the snow. The black smoke of burnt oil filters and wafts and disappears in the weather as if it had never been. Jenna sees nothing resurface. Roca sees nothing much at all. Jenna gets Roca into the truck. She shifts the truck into four-wheel drive. Then she fights the storm and tries to get home.
