Most Revolutionary - Chapter Seventeen
The Brute Reality Of Empire
Previously: Ex-FBI Director Maximilian Castelan breaks into the Perez farmhouse at night, while Sabia, Roca, and Jenna pack seed and nut orders in the greenhouse. Sabia decides to make a new ransom video demanding an end to all US arms shipments abroad. President Silver and Ellen Lin watch news updates in the coal mine bunker, and Silver vows revenge against Castelan. In the greenhouse, an alarm alerts Roca, Sabia, and Jenna to a possible intruder in the farmhouse. Sabia investigates. Castelan attacks Sabia and demands to know the whereabouts of President Silver.
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.
Alert as a predator waiting for its prey to make a fatal mistake, fired FBI Director Maximilian Castelan watches Sabia on the couch in the living room of the Perez farmhouse. He has knocked her unconscious. She has revived. He gives her a cigarette. She knows what to expect: more torture, a forced confession. Or worse. A monster in her home.
Captured, Sabia pretends to be free. She looks for a way out. She smokes the cigarette. In the armchair across from her, Castelan hawks her. He smokes like a dragon. Apparently he intends to play with her, a defenseless little creature at the tip of his lethal claws.
Sabia's body and blood is not the real prey of Castelan but the knowledge of her mind. If not so impatient and under pressure, he might be amused by her ridiculous resistance. He has so much more power. Castelan is willing to give Sabia one last chance to go easy. After all, it would be best for them both. Merely confess and guide him to Silver. No burdensome bloody mess. Any and all blood, from now on, optional.
Castelan stubs out his cigarette in the teacup on the arm of his chair. He lights another couple and gives one to Sabia. She kills the remnant of her first cigarette in the saucer on the cushion beside her and accepts the next. Castelan continues to blow smoke away from her. She blows smoke directly at his face.
There may be some bloody fun to this after all, Castelan begins to think.
“What are you even doing here?” says Sabia. “You fired fuck. Why don't you go hire a lawyer and use the law like a club against your victims and enemies the way you normally do. Leave me out of it.”
“Where is she, Sabia? Who has her? What happened to President Silver?”
“Get a lawyer,” says Sabia.
“I've got you,” says Castelan. “Even better.”
“I know nothing, Old Man. What's wrong with you? Why are you even here? Go away.”
Castelan too is prey. The US government, a creature so big it is hard to imagine, stalks him day and night. He can save himself, he thinks, by destroying Sabia. Or possibly he can save himself by working with her. If only their interests might align, be made to align.
“It’s the finances,” he says. “The government would drown any legal team that might defend me. My life savings — poof. Then what? Bankrupt. And anyway, I would lose.”
“So you’re running. And you have no access to your money now anyway. Give up. You’re a dead man.”
“You might be surprised.”
Sabia inhales. “Off the books then. You got paid to kill Silver. I wondered.”
“You’re fishing.” Castelan looks into the dark beyond the windows. “Nothing like that.”
Castelan sees all the way to the great transgression of his youth. It will out soon, if it hasn’t already — post #MeToo, post Jeffrey Epstein, post Woke. One of Silver's assassins will burn him for a plea deal. Prison awaits, death in a cage. Unless Sabia leads him to Silver.
“I need Silver,” says Castelan. “Where is she? With Roca? How was he involved? You told Jenna the shadow of the truth. Now show me the entirety of it.”
“Roca's dead,” says Sabia.
“You're such a liar,” says Castelan. “It's on video what you said. A video I can send to Director Kingsley today. Tonight. You’ll go to to prison immediately. Cut a deal with me here and now, Sabia. Best that you and I seek our pardons together in the Iowa countryside far from prison. You and I, we're on the same team here whether you like it or not. Or, I can run with you, your body, Sabia, if you force me to it. I'll throw you in the trunk of the car and go. No problem doing that. Would you like to go in the snow and peek in the trunk?”
Castelan considers the icy cold body of Tucker Gere frozen in the stolen car in the Perez drive. The body will stay in the rolling tomb. It will burn when Silver is his, the car, everything, it will all burn. The only question that remains: Will Sabia burn too?
“You have nowhere to go,” says Sabia. “Fuck you.”
“No, fuck you,” says Castelan. “This ends the way I say it does. Everything comes to me. But I can wait, too, hold you here, grab your kidnapper friends when they come searching for their little accomplice. You’ll get no pardon then, Sabia Perez. I will. You won’t.”
“I need you out of my home.”
“You've been a very bad girl, Sabia. You've earned what's coming your way.”
“No pardon for you, Castelan. Not from Alecta. She hates you. And she loves me.”
“Sabia. Give up Silver. I’ll let your kidnapper friends run. But you need to give her now. I'll intervene on your behalf. Otherwise, I go to Kingsley, and you go behind bars where you belong.”
Sabia smokes. ‘That’s not happening.”
So Castelan knows and he doesn't know. He wildly underestimates her role. Maybe she can talk her way out of things yet.
Or maybe not. If she admits anything, all is lost.
“Who took Silver, Sabia? I know exactly where Roca went — with the President. Must be. He wouldn't go along with the snatch and grab, right? So your friends took him too.”
The worst time to lie is when your enemy knows the truth. You need to be a real chameleon then. You need to present as if you really believe the bullshit you’re spewing. Most of the Presidents of the United States possessed that infernal talent. Blustering Biden. Professor Obama. Doofus Bush. Slick Willie the Bully Boy Clinton. Darth Reagan. Weepy Carter. Tricky Dick. Morose Johnson. Meanwhile women leaders, some of them, seem to have a harder time lying convincingly. Or they face a higher standard, reciting boilerplate lies with ease but fumbling the spontaneous make-believe fraud of Empire, as when Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris too often stumble trying to extemporize the cons. You need to be able to lie on the spot, or the deceit congeals on the face — the eyes glaze, the persona cracks. As leader of an Empire of lies, you need to be the Lie Master. You need to be the King Con or the Queen Con, or it can go rough for you and for the Empire both.
And curiously, both Clinton and Harris eerily resort to cackle — the exact wrong touch to present as the face of a wicked Empire. Possibly the perfect touch once in power, if you can get there.
Sabia knows too well the lies of Empire and that the best time to lie is when your enemy is ignorant about reality. Or confused. And Sabia knows how to lie to Power to survive, the way Power lies to People to profiteer, to kill, to control. So she’s ready and able to go lie for lie with Castelan, as need be. But when it comes to brute power, she could use some help.
Castelan stubs out a final cigarette. He stands and steps to the couch, towering over Sabia. She stares up at him.
Castelan slaps the cigarette out of Sabia’s hand. It flies across the room, bounces off a wall.
Fuck. Sabia watches it burn on the floor.
Castelan drops onto the couch and pulls her onto his lap, applying a chokehold as if to both strangle and break her neck.
“Talk to me, Sabia.”
Sabia says nothing. She can barely gape for breath, let alone speak.
Castelan contorts Sabia into an increasingly painful grip, squeezing and bending her arms up beside and behind her head and twisting her torso and pulling her face close to his. Cigarette breath. Castelan glares at her. He licks the width and length of her nose. Sabia tries to pull back.
“We'll start this way.”
Castelan checks again the muted sounds of the night, and is satisfied by the isolation. He listens to Sabia's breath, ragged, when not choked entirely.
“Where is she?”
“Who?”
“President Silver.”
“She’s your President, not mine.”
Castelan glances toward the basement. What was Sabia doing down there? Anything more than hiding? The FBI had scent dogs over every inch of that basement after Ground Force One blew up by her orchard. “What were you doing in the basement, Sabia?”
“It’s just a basement.”
“Is it.”
“I do laundry there.”
“Get me Silver, Sabia. You know who I am, right?”
What the fuck is he playing at? Sabia's neck feels broken.
“Yes.”
The bones in her arms and shoulders grind together.
“Who?”
“You're FBI. You're Castelan. You bombed Silver.”
“I'm a man with nothing to lose. Everything to gain.”
“You helped the assassins. You tried to kill Alecta. You want Bombarill to be President.”
“I hate Bombarill. That fucking weasel. And I don’t give a damn about Silver and O'Roura-Chavez.”
“You do. You're a wingnut.”
“Sticks and stones. Is that all you got, Sabia? We're all wingnuts now, Girl.”
“I’m not. I'm sane. Let me go.”
Castelan wants his life back. He wants this girl to fucking give it to him. It’s a simple equation. She knows damn well.
“I'm your savior, Sabia. I’m Silver’s savior too. I will protect you. Maybe you can be a hero too. You and me. We’ll free Roca too. I don’t care about your kidnapper friends, Sabia. They can run.”
“Alecta will catch you and kill you, Castelan. There's no way they don't track you to my door.”
Castelan licks Sabia's nose again. She recoils. Castelan twists her arms until she screams.
“Tell me,” says Castelan.
“I'll kill you,” says Sabia.
“You and the ALA? American Liberation Alliance, what a joke. Peaceniks.”
“It's an Army now.”
“Oh. I bet. Pitchforks and bandannas?”
“Drones and lasers. That's what the internet is. Truth bombs that go everywhere.”
“You little piece of—” Castelan eases his grip. He considers an idea. “You think you’re part of this Army, do you? A Liberation Army?””
“It’s for self defense,” says Sabia.
“Then who’s the leader of the Army, Sabia? Give me a name.”
Castelan has her body locked up. She cannot move, not outwardly. Inside, Sabia deflates. She’s the leader. That’s the problem with leaders when they come only one at a time. Sabia Perez. And she’s fucked.
“Country folk,” says Sabia. “Country kill first and ask questions later. Like you, Castelan. You better hope nobody comes around here.”
“There’s no Liberation Army, Sabia. You’re a bunch of poseurs. All you do is lie. American Army of Lies. I put my surveillance equipment at Jenna Ryzcek's place. The FBI knows nothing about that. But I know all about you.”
“You peeping ass.”
Castelan squeezes Sabia until she screams and sobs.
“You can't out-talk a prison guard, Sabia. I’m the professional. Seen it all before. Same reason you can’t outthink me. You're weak shit here, Girl. You can only help a former FBI Director help himself. Then I’ll help you.”
“I won’t. You won’t.”
“I’m on your side, Sabia. I did not try to kill the President. Nothing to do with that. It was fucking extortion. Framed by my past. Old friends, bad deeds. Things happen. I couldn’t say no. At a certain point you can’t say no.”
“I do. I say it all the time.”
“Not if you want to keep your fucking job, you don't. Your life. You don't say no to me, Sabia Perez, or it will go bad.”
“Fuck you.”
“You and me, Sabia, we can make a great team tonight.”
Castelan grinds Sabia’s elbows together behind her head. She screams.
“Give me Silver. Give me Roca. Give me Lin. Tell me.”
Castelan is not looking to send a message to any folks back home. He simply wants information. He is relentless now in twisting and breaking Sabia’s body. It’s the only way to crack a mind that resists. Sabia cries out. She begins to dissociate.
She knows she moves to death.
And then the primal impulse betrays her. Whether to end the pain, or the horror, whether to live, or to stop the grotesque disfiguration — the core of Sabia’s brain betrays the halo of her mind. She says what Castelan wants her to say. She gives them all up.
“You can have Silver,” Sabia says. “You can have Roca too.”
Sabia is broken.
President Silver sits on the floor in the coal mine bunker beneath the TV, powered off, back against the hard wall.
Her death was greatly exaggerated, and now her life goes underreported.
Hard to make news in the mine. Silver is sick of the TV. She stares up at the stone slab ceiling. If only she could livestream her captivity to the world. 24/7.
No escape from her then.
Shit. She has an idea.
Why not do it in the Oval Office? Reality TV: The White House Chronicles. Leave the camera on 24/7. Real business can be conducted elsewhere — as it mostly is anyway.
In the evening, during primetime: lock her allies and enemies in the Oval for an hour and let them fight it out. Non-contact — but no rules. Who deserves the authority of the Resolute Desk on any given issue? Ellen Lin would moderate, or try to. No rules. Crazy. Could be funny.
Lin would never go for it. She likes things too controlled.
Silver watches Lin at the kitchen table writing the itinerary of her life, past and present.
Lin worries the notebook. She tries to understand how she came to be in this hole in the ground with the President. Was there any way to avoid disaster?
“We underestimated Sabia,” says Lin, taking a break. “Honest to God I didn’t think we’d end up back down here.”
“Overestimated,” says Silver. “Sabia is hardly human. She’s not like you and me, Ellen. Shit, she’s not even like Roca. And he’s a goddamn accomplice to kidnapping, blackmail, and torture. Of me, the President. I’m suffering here.”
“We sort of joined in on it, Kristen.”
“You and I are pure as the fucking snow compared to Sabia and Roca. Anyone can see that.”
“You think? No one can see anything down here.”
“Don't go all Stockholm Syndrome on me, Ellen. Kill your trauma response, okay, please? We can get into that shit later if we need to and pass everything off as Stockholm, you know, whatever. My speech writers will decide. All I know is that Sabia and Roca will go down for this.”
“For getting you re-elected? It is what it is, Kristen. There’s real trauma here. We were almost killed. Alongside our friends and colleagues. All dead.”
“Don't look back, Ellen, don't ever look back. There’s no future in it. We need to survive Sabia, that's all. We need to beat her. How hard can it be, really? She’s just a hick girl living in the middle of nowhere. She’s bored. Full of fantasies and bile, vengeance and horseshit. Sabia is jealous of us city folk. We’re surrounded by this type anymore. That’s truth, Ellen. It seems there should be something we could do about it, but I can’t for the life of me think what. Some psycho shit is going on. People have lost it. Who knows what they want?”
“Money? Good things? A nice life?” says Lin.
President Silver shakes her head. “No. That stuff is always in scarce supply. You can’t give what you don’t have, Ellen. How about entertainment? I’m thinking, like, a Reality TV show in the Oval Office. You know, the whole country as audience, red states, blue states, purple states. Let them tune in and watch the two sides fight each other in the Oval.”
“You mean like pillow fight?” says Lin.
“I’m sure they would be creative about it. You could moderate.”
“Uh, no.” Lin picks up her pen. “Not happening — ever.”
“Don’t be too quick to judge, Ellen. It may come to that. It already has. This country is nuts. Why is that?”
Lin smooths her notebook. She shakes her head. “I don’t know. Ask, Sabia, I guess. She seems to be living smack in the middle of it.”
Ellen Lin puts her pen to paper and attempts to redraw the story of her life.
“To Hell with Sabia,” says President Silver. “Write that. Put that in your notebook, Ellen.”
Lin nods. “Already did.”
Jenna and Roca continue packing seeds and nuts in the greenhouse. Jenna looks in the direction of the bunker.
“What do you think Silver and Lin are going through down there?”
“Kind of a cave dwelling experience, I guess,” says Roca.
“Must be so strange, to live entirely within the Earth. It must be so peaceful and calm.”
“Or, to them — claustrophobic and terrifying.”
Jenna pats a package on the table in front of her. “Do you know how it felt to blow up pipelines and construction machinery, Roca?”
“Frightening?”
“It was such a rush, we were so alive. We dared and we did it. We were careful though. We were smart. Lucky. No one got hurt. We could have saved the world. It felt. If there was enough of us.”
“And what does it feel like now?” says Roca.
“What — to be back at it?” Jenna smiles. “Almost like maybe there are enough of us this time, right here in Iowa, on this little farm.”
“You and Sabia?”
“And you, Roca.”
“And no one gets hurt? Not the President? Not you? Not me? Not Sabia?”
“You never know, I guess,” says Jenna. She turns the package around absentmindedly.
Roca nods. “You never know.”
“When the feds get on to us, Roca, do you think they'll hang us for treason?”
“I don't know. Maybe.”
“We're the walking dead then.”
“We walk with Sabia. I do. That's all,” says Roca. “If she goes down. I’m dead too.”
Jenna Ryzcek reflects on the fact that President Silver’s administration tried to lock her up, her and Jasmine, when all they wanted to do was save the world from burning to the ground. Then the judge labeled them terrorists to scare away others from following their lead.
Lets you know who the real terrorists are, the big-time wholesale terrorists destroying Earth and every life upon it. They scream “terror!” and point everywhere but at themselves.
“Did you teach Sabia to attack the world?” says Roca. “Or did Sabia teach you? How did it start?”
“Not with you, Roca?”
“Shit no. I’m a mind-your-own-business farmer in fucking Iowa. At least, I thought I was.”
“Something happened,” says Jenna. “You might be surprised. One real experience of fair play versus foul play. I mean, even just to think about right versus wrong — that can be all it takes. Ain’t it?”
“Sabia went hardcore though,” says Roca.
“I guess we all did.” Jenna thinks on it. “Jasmine and I, we knew these guys, see — they liked to play with fire. You know, like out back, at a party. And we would watch, me and Jasmine. Maybe they led us on. Maybe they used us. Maybe at first. Maybe we didn’t care. Then we took that knowledge of fire and blew up a ton of shit. Fucking cut through steel. Sabia, right there. The court called it terrorism against their precious fucking mythic national security state. There’s no such thing. Such bullshit. It’s an attack dog state. A couple girls, such a threat. The lies of the police state. America is a police state, really, I’m telling you, Roca. I mean people worry about the US becoming a police state — it’s already there. By design. They try to make it look like it’s not. Haters trying to pass as liberators. Any wonder why Sabia resists? Why doesn’t everyone?”
“We built the coal mine bunker and this underground home for a reason, my family did,” says Roca. “I never really thought about all the reasons though.”
“You dug down. Sabia lashed out. It’s in the air,” says Jenna. “What we’re up against. All of us. People.”
“My family knew how to dig. That’s certain. How to gut the Earth of what it would give.”
“To survive. And now we’re still trying to survive. To save it. The Earth can give no more. Not like that. Sabia, Jasmine, me, you, we’re trying to survive here. It’s anti-terrorist Earth-saving. Our work.”
Roca gestures to the green growth in the winter greenhouse. “So much better to grow. We need more plants.”
“Like we need more people working on behalf of the people and the plants and the animals.”
“Before they lock us all up,” says Roca.
“Who does the most damage? Not the water protectors. Truth makes money mad. Mad makes money crazy. They bully you into prison. With their deadly laws. They torture you, punish you, infantilize you, kill you.”
“No one’s dying here tonight,” says Roca.
“We’re lucky,” says Jenna.
Jenna thinks of dozens of prominent political prisoners past and present and those otherwise destroyed by corporate-state vengeance. Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning, Assata Shakur, Edward Snowden, Fred Hampton, Leonard Peltier, Mumia Abu-Jamal. She thinks of the long and bloody US history of political oppression, of labor martyrs, socialist martyrs, feminist martyrs, race martyrs. She thinks of the monstrous size of the regular prison population in the US — political in maybe less overt ways but equally evil. Most all prisoners are locked up by political design. And she thinks of two of the most devastating political hits: Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. Even the Kennedy brothers were assassinated, and they were establishment liberals, not remotely socialist. And John Lennon — the FBI witch-hunt against him, a popular rabble rouser and voice for peace, intense before his killing. The list goes on and on. Countless, nameless women, children, people of color, social workers of all kinds killed en masse. The thing is, the police state does not like to be crossed by anyone — left, right, or liberal. But especially left. The left is the real threat, because the left carries the popular will, the deepest will, the human rights of the people — the only hope by far.
“Sabia crossed the line, big time,” says Roca. “And now you, Jenna.”
“And you, Roca. Finger in the eye to the police state like maybe never before. I don’t know how this ends well. We know what Sabia’s going for. She thinks she’s gunning for it now. Revolution. And she kicks herself for not demanding an end to arms sales. Revolution at home means revolution abroad in the Empire of Empires that invades and attacks around the globe. Think about that vast death. Think about the blood, the brutality, the misery. And yet on every front, people fight back. Why? Why don’t they give up? Why don’t we? It’s as if we have no choice, we fight back. Some of us. But why? It’s sure as Hell not taught in the schools, not far and wide. They teach against resistance there — all-out resistance. They teach stupidity. They may not think they do but they miss so much. They teach us to prostrate our minds to Empire, to tolerate what eats your body and brain and the planet. But Sabia is too fast and smart. She says no to Empire, yes to life. She stands so strong. How?”
“As with you, Jenna.”
“It wasn’t me who kidnapped President Silver.”
“I’m glad you’re with Sabia now, Jenna. My nieta is too smart and too fast and too strong for her own good. She thinks she can get away with anything, everything. She acts like she’s willing to die trying.”
“It’s make-or-break for the planet, our lives, for life — that’s why,” says Jenna. “The 'endgame', Sabia calls it. She thinks our lives don't matter beyond this moment. I mean — do they?”
“Life matters to life,” says Roca. “We should live to live, and not live to die.”
“Sabia is like the Greta Thunberg of Iowa, I guess. Only more so. Greta with a gun now.”
“We won’t be using any guns,” says Roca. “That would be our own death.”
“The Empire is not alive to life,” Roca. “It kills to control, it kills to accumulate. It destroys so much of what lives, and Sabia will not be destroyed. She will kill the killers. At least stop them cold. I mean, that’s her philosophy.”
“It's too much,” says Roca. “Sabia talks Liberation Army, but when it comes to actual bloodshed — that’s not her. That’s not you. That’s not me. That’s not who we are. Not at all.”
Jenna tapes a package and sets it aide.
Then she looks up at the alarm, connected to the front door, long since gone silent. She wonders.
Where is Sabia?
Castelan turns Sabia on his lap and holds her by the neck with one hand. Sabia is desperate to breathe through the chokehold. He clamps her arms behind her back with his other hand. He squeezes the bones of her wrists together. She is so easy to manipulate, as easy as a child.
Physically. What in Hell is wrong with her mentally?
“Where is she?” says Castelan. “Where’s Silver?”
Sabia cannot even try to speak.
“I don’t deserve this, Sabia — what you’re doing to me here. All I did was place a tracker on a bus on behalf of an old friend. I don’t get anything out of this. I did no damage. I knew nothing about any missiles. I don't deserve to go down for this.”
Sabia gasps. “You're killing me.”
Castelan shakes her by the neck. “Where are they?”
Sabia begins to blank from consciousness.
Castelan eases his grip to keep her with him. “Let’s start with the easy one. Where’s Roca?”
Sabia’s eyes are closed. “Don’t know.”
“Godddamn it!” Castelan drives Sabia all the way to the floor in the middle of the room. He drops his whole body onto hers, face to face. Sabia screams. He puts his fist to her mouth, knocking her head to the side. “Where is she?” He presses her head against the floorboards.
“She’s here.”
“Who is!”
“Whoever you want! I can’t breath!”
“You can speak can't you!”
“Can't breath in! She’s here!”
“Where?”
“Here.”
Castelan eases some weight from Sabia, as if he might move off her. “Okay, tell me.”
Sabia remains silent.
He shakes her.
Sabia stares straight across the floorboards. She sees the cigarette butt burning out. Better if it had set the whole house on fire. “Fuck you,” she says.
“No, fuck you,” says Castelan. She is smashed beneath him but he hits her anyway. He turns her over and rips at her clothing. “Tell me!”
Sabia closes her eyes.
Castelan rapes her on the floor.
Sabia cannot move. She cannot tell if she is being held down by force or if her spine has been broken, her body paralyzed. Castelan grabs her hair and yanks her head back. “Did you put Silver in a fucking barn! A stinking Iowa barn! Tell me and it's over.”
Sabia is vacant.
“Goddamn you!” says Castelan.
If Castelan cannot win, at least he can kill. But Castelan needs Sabia, unlike Tucker Gere. Castelan needs Sabia to lead him to the promised land, to Silver, to his new life. From Tucker Gere, Castelan got a car to cruise the land. Somebody like that, you genocide them off the planet, you take their car, and you live your life. But Sabia, Castelan needs Sabia to give him a full chance at life. He cannot simply kill her. Cannot blow up her home or take her greenhouse and orchards. If only his needs, desires, his dreams were that neat and simple, merely that savage, then Sabia would be dead already and everything would be his.
Pure power politics, what the world allows, in the name of the law or not. Or even encourages. Castelan is the law. He’s a realist. He does as he pleases. Sabia should know that. She does. She would lecture him, school him about rights and treaties, binding contracts and shit, if she could. As if he — the most knowing and powerful Director of the FBI ever — were ignorant to the ways of the world!
Castelan puts his right forearm to Sabia’s head.
The problem remains: Castelan needs more than Sabia in the flesh and blood. He needs more than her labor, more than her orchards and land. It’s a pity, really, but he needs her alive. Sabia is no Tucker Gere. He doesn’t need what she owns. He needs what she knows. He needs what only she can do for him, give to him. He needs Sabia alive and leading him to the promised land. To Silver.
Then he can kill her.
Who cares.
Castelan is tired suddenly. He smells the musty room, the old farmhouse plaster ceiling and walls, the oozing fear, the crushed body beneath him. The stinking scent of himself. Everything smells like a threat to his own life. He wonders if he deserves what he seeks. He doesn't care. He doesn’t care anymore than he cared about killing Tucker Gere for his car and for a chance at the open road, for the open range, for the Iowa heartland, and for Sabia. This land is his land. The people too.
Castelan stands above Sabia. He stares down. The bloody bruised and swollen left side of her face remains pressed to the floor. The price of her resistance. She has only herself to blame.
The unbeaten right side of her face looks almost peaceful.
Or dead.
“Are you dead, Sabia?”
If she is dead, he has a problem. In that case, he will need more time, and possibly luck, to find Silver.
Sabia floats in and out of consciousness.
“Are you dead? Sabia! Wake up!”
Sabia is conscious of the cool boards of the floor. She tries to talk but her throat is locked. Her tongue and lips do not move.
“Jesus fucking Christ, you’re fucking useless. I can wait, Sabia. Really, I can. I’ve got all the time in the world. And now you know. That’s what they had over me. Those submarine boys. I raped a girl in high school. Can you believe it? Who does that? A gentle soul like me. I gave them what they wanted. I had to. A tracker on Ground Force One. I killed no one. Well—”
Castelan appreciates his own the confession. It feels good to tell someone who will never be able to use it against him. Why not? A crime for a crime, his for hers. Is there no honor among thieves? Or whatever their true nature of criminality might be.
Sabia breathes. Otherwise she holds still as death.
“Tell me where to find Roca. And Silver. And Lin.”
Sabia can’t speak.
“Jesus Christ, cover yourself up.” Castelan grabs a Mexican blanket, folded on the back of the couch, and throws it at Sabia. It hits her and partly unfolds, half covering her.
Castelan picks up both the stun gun and the handgun. He points the handgun at Sabia. Then he sits again in the armchair.
Sabia curls into a fetal position.
The unified shape of her body and the singular focus of her mind — it quiets and coheres. Is maybe the first bit restorative. She holds on where she is.
Her breathing improves.
She feels her mind begin to flicker, more, and reach out.
She opens her eyes.
The world insists on being with her.
Sabia sits up.
She touches the blanket. She unfolds it.
Then she re-clothes herself, and she wraps herself entirely within the blanket.
Castelan watches. He angles both guns repeatedly, at Sabia and away from Sabia. At and away.
Sabia wonders if she survives.
She puts her back to the couch. She pulls her knees to her chest, hunched over.
Castelan lays both weapons on the arms of the chair.
“Silver can’t be here. I know that,” says Castelan. “We’re not watching your place day and night, but we’re not blind. We know what we don’t know. Tell me where she is and who's holding her.”
“She’s in the barn,” says Sabia. “We put a heater out there. In a stall.”
“I don’t believe that and neither do you. Tell me who is involved.”
Sabia shrugs. “My friends. Who do you think. They were here. They used the snowplow and hid Silver.”
“So where’s Roca?”
“With Silver.”
“Where’s Silver?”
Sabia shakes her head. “She’s gone.”
Suddenly Castelan and Sabia hear a sound in the basement.
Castelan looks toward the basement door. He looks at Sabia.
Sabia puts both hands flat on the floor. She listens.
Castelan stands, both guns pointed at Sabia.
Sabia looks up at Castelan. “Jenna!” she screams. “Run Jenna!”
In the coal mine bunker, Ellen Lin dips a teabag in and out of her cup at the kitchen table. President Silver continues to sit under the TV, back against the wall.
“It’s everything for the polls anymore, Kristen. Look at us. We sacrificed our own freedom. We suffer like two fools of the underworld. We should be sipping margaritas by the sea. Or at least downing a beer in Des Moines.”
“Fuck Des Moines, Ellen. I intend to win this thing. You and me. A second four years, that's when we really make our mark.”
“Can it be? Others have tried.”
“No one put their lives on the line for it, not like this. We’re brave, Ellen. We’re American heroes. The polls show it. We stopped the dip with that last ransom video, your complete disappearance. Anyway, there’s no going back.”
“That’s the problem. I only want to see the world again.”
Silver points at the TV above her. “It’s not always obvious, but I’m the biggest story on the planet right now. And when I get out, I’ll be an even bigger story. And for the next four years too. Hail the unconquered hero! Meanwhile, let Alecta take the heat. Let her do-good the few things she can, if she wants. When I get out, I’ll take credit for the most popular changes, and ax the rest. I'll be forced to. Either way, it’s win, win, win. I’ll tour the world and call for peace. Maybe I’ll buck the donors for once and stop some conflict somewhere and win the Nobel Peace Prize. Sound good to you, Ellen? Win, win, win.”
Lin picks up her pen and points it at the notebook. “Yeah, I hope so,” she says, “because right now, right here, it feels like lose, lose, lose.”
“Fuck,” says Castelan.
He shocks Sabia on the neck with the stun gun. The blast of current jolts and writhes her to the floor beneath the blanket. Her body thrashes into paralysis, immobile.
Castelan moves quickly to the basement stairs where he flicks on the light and finds Jenna Ryzcek crouching, halfway up. He aims his Glock.
“Show your hands!”
Jenna is trapped in plain sight. She is stunned to be targeted by a man with a gun in the farmhouse.
Jenna slowly raises her hands to the level of her shoulders. She knows she's caught.
“Jenna fucking Ryzcek. What are you doing here?”
Jenna says nothing. The less she moves, she thinks, the less likely she is to get shot.
“So you escaped one farmhouse only to get caught in another. Another sneaky little witch. Good job. Jenna and Sabia, together again. The both of you hiding down there like two stupid little—”
“Where's Sabia?” says Jenna.
She does not break eye contact with Castelan. She feels the gun boring a hole through her chest.
“Do you know who I am?”
“FBI. Director Castelan.”
“Ex-FBI. I’m not your friend, Jenna.”
“No shit.”
“I see you lost your ankle monitor. Anyone help you with that?”
Jenna holds Castelan’s gaze. “Where’s Sabia?”
“Start slowly walking up the stairs, hands forward, one step at a time.”
Jenna hesitates. Then she slowly advances up and into the kitchen.
“Hands against the wall. Look at the wall.” Jenna complies. She has yet to see into the living room to see Sabia.
Castelan considers cracking Jenna’s head. Instead, he holsters the handgun. He sets the stun gun on the kitchen table. He takes zip ties from his pocket. He shoves Jenna onto a kitchen chair and binds her arms and wrists to the vertical wood braces.
“Sabia!” Jenna sees Sabia on the floor under the blanket.
Sabia wills herself to move. She turns her face toward Jenna.
Castelan sits backwards in a chair by the kitchen table facing Jenna. He aims the handgun at Sabia.
“Tell me, Jenna, where’s President Silver?”
Jenna looks at Sabia, who looks at Jenna and slightly shakes her head.
“I saw that. Tell me. Where.”
Jenna says nothing. Castelan slaps her. Jenna looks desperately at Sabia, who averts her eyes to the floor.
“Talk.”
Castelan walks over to Sabia, presses the muzzle of the gun to her head.
“Where is she, Jenna?”
“She’s our captive!”
“Don’t tell me she’s in the fucking basement too. Drinking tea maybe.”
Castelan walks back to Jenna and again sits on the chair face to face. He’s confident now. This one is going to spill quick.
“Tell me or you can watch Sabia get what's coming to her. I've gone easy so far.”
“She’s in a pit.”
“A pit.”
“Out back.”
“Is she alive?”
“Far as I know.”
Castelan considers both the logic and the potential logistics of this information. “You put Silver in a root cellar?”
“Yes!”
“We would have found it. You're fucking with me.”
“No.”
“Let’s say I believe you, Jenna. You and Sabia are holding the leader of the American state in the middle of winter in a potato pit in the Iowa farmland.”
Jenna nods.
“What size is the pit?”
“It’s big.”
“How big?”
“It’s full of fucking potatoes!”
Castelan does not believe her, Jenna knows, but she has no idea what else to say.
“Okay, Jenna. Where’s Lin?”
“Same.”
“Really. Same root cellar. They're dead, aren't they? Lin went first. And now Silver. And I'm too late.”
Jenna shakes her head. “They're alive.”
“And Roca? You’re holding him too, right?”
“I don’t know— I don’t know what you mean.”
“Bullshit, Jenna. Silver better be alive. Because you and Sabia would make a piss-poor couple of captives for trade compared to the President and Lin. Anyone else in that pit?”
Sabia speaks from across the room: “Not yet.”
Castelan turns. “What in fuck is that supposed to mean?”
Sabia is flat on the floor. It’s all she can do to stare back at Castelan without blinking.
“Okay, Jenna.” Castelan stands. He looms over her. “I’m here to rescue President Silver and her loyal Campaign Manager Ellen Lin. At the same time, I will apprehend two of the worst criminals in this bloody history of the American state. What a hero I am. Let’s do it. Take me to Silver.”
Jenna looks to Sabia.
“Where is she really,” says Castelan.
Castelan hits Jenna hard across the face. Jenna screams. Her body and chair crack into the kitchen table.
“Jenna!”
Castelan takes the stun gun from the table. He points the handgun again at Sabia.
“No!” Jenna screams.
Castelan presses the power button to activate the stun gun, then puts a finger on its trigger. “I warned you, Jenna—”
The basement door creaks. It’s already half-open and seems to move slowly more open of its own volition. Castelan turns toward the sound.
Boom! A shotgun erupts. Roca lies prone on the steps at the top of the basement stairs, aiming up.
Half the shot strikes Castelan in the right shoulder, spinning him around. The handgun and stun gun fly from his hands as he is knocked backwards over Jenna. He sprawls to the floor. Plaster dust floats from the ceiling shredded by the pellets that missed Castelan.
Roca rushes through the basement doorway. Castelan grabs his shoulder and looks up as Roca bashes him in the head with the butt of the shotgun.
Roca hits him again. And again.
Castelan’s body goes limp. Blood from his shoulder drains onto the floorboards.
Sabia, Jenna, and Roca watch to make sure that Castelan remains still.
“What is it with men and their guns,” says Jenna.
“Stupid fuckers,” says Sabia.
“Hey, gun, what fun. Let’s go kill something,” says Jenna. “Idiots.”
“Monsters.”
“Psychos.”
“Piece of shit.”
Roca moves quickly. He gathers Castelan’s Glock and stun gun and sets them with the shotgun on the kitchen table near Jenna. Then he looks back and forth between Jenna tied up and Sabia on the floor. “Sabia?”
“Free Jenna,” says Sabia.
Roca cuts the zip ties.
He touches Jenna's bruised face. Jenna takes his hand.
“I’m okay, Roca.”
“Ice in the freezer,” says Roca.
“Help Sabia,” says Jenna.
Roca goes to Sabia.
Jenna takes ice from the freezer, wraps it in a towel, and brings it to Sabia.
Roca takes Sabia's face in his hands, studies her eyes. “Sabia, what did he do to you? He shocked you? Did he drug you?”
Sabia looks away.
Jenna presses ice against the swollen bruise on Sabia’s head. “What did he do to you, Sabia?”
Sabia looks at Castelan lying unconscious on the floor.
“Tie him up,” she says. “Why haven’t you tied him up?”
Roca holds the ice to Sabia’s head, while Jenna goes to Castelan.
Jenna is a nurse, she knows what to do. Even for an insane fuck like Castelan. She kneels and checks his pulse. The fucker will live.
Safety first. Jenna searches, finds a wallet in Castelan’s pocket stuffed with money and fake IDs. She pulls zip ties, and a pocketknife, and car keys from his pants. She puts everything onto the table next to the guns and stun gun. Then she uses the ties to bind Castelan's wrists and ankles.
She boils water on the stove and pours salt into it.
She cuts Castelan’s shirt to access the bleeding wound.
“Got any medical supplies, Roca?”
“Bathroom.”
Jenna finds a first aid kit under the sink in the bathroom. Not much gauze and tape inside. She finds a pair of tweezers in the cabinet. She inspects Castelan’s bag by the sink full of cash and clothes, a steel baton, and the disguise. Duct tape. She takes the duct tape.
In the kitchen silverware drawer, Jenna locates a steel nutpick. She drops the tweezers and nutpick into the boiling water.
She soaps her hands and washes thoroughly.
Roca fills a glass of water for Sabia, who sits up and accepts it. She drinks. Jenna observes. She needs to wait twenty minutes to sterilize the equipment.
“Sit with me, Roca,” says Sabia. She is warm under the blanket and does not want to move. Roca leans against the couch by Sabia on the floor. Sabia sips the water.
Together they guard the bloody mess of Castelan still unconscious on the floor by the front door, his forehead swollen where Roca struck in fury and fear.
Finally Jenna slides the boiled salt water from the heat and lets it cool.
Then she pours the water over Castelan's wounds. She cleans the shoulder. Then pellet by pellet, she removes shot from his flesh. She probes with her fingers and the pick and the tweezer. She gets out any pellets she can. Blood everywhere.
Afterward, Jenna applies antibiotic ointment from the first aid kit. Finally, she applies oversized bandages with medical tape and duct tape, covering the wound and securing the wrap. She throws the pellets in the trash.
Jenna looks at her work and thinks of what more needs to be done. She preps a small bag of ice and tapes it to Castelan’s skull where Roca struck him with the butt of the shotgun.
“You’ve done enough, Jenna,” says Sabia.
“More than enough,” says Roca.
Jenna glances at the torn ceiling. Her ears ring from the shotgun blast. She looks around at the oddly calm farmhouse. She thinks of the cash and the baton and the disguise in Castelan’s bag in the bathroom. She looks at the mess of blood and water on the floor and at Castelan as if at a dead body. “Life in the country,” she says. The body breathes.
Jenna dampens a towel. She looks to Sabia. Now to save the girl who would save the world.
Sabia takes Roca’s hand and indicates that she wants to stand as Jenna approaches. Roca helps Sabia up.
“Where did he hurt you, Sabia? What happened?” says Jenna. She dabs at the blood around Sabia’s mouth and nose that Roca missed. “Let me look at you.” Jenna notes the bruises on Sabia’s neck and face. She runs her hands through Sabia’s hair and feels a bump on her skull. Jenna traces her hands lightly over Sabia’s back and around her ribs. Sabia flinches. Jenna begins to remove Sabia’s shirt but Sabia blocks her.
“I’m fine, Jenna.”
“We’ll see about that. Come on now.” Jenna bends Sabia’s arms and wrists and fingers.
“I told you, I’m fine,” says Sabia. She walks over to Castelan at the front door. She looks at the blood and the excess water. “Let’s clean up,” she says.
“You’re not fine,” says Jenna.
“Yeah, I’m great,” says Sabia.
“What in Hell happened here?”
Sabia stares at Castelan.
“Clean that shit up,” she says.
Jenna and Roca mop up the blood and water by Castelan’s shoulder. Sabia throws away ashes and cigarettes.
Her mind, she can feel it coming together again. She knows what needs to be done. She’s worried. The fucking car outside. They need to make it disappear. Now, before it’s too late.
She wants to shower though. Now. Before it’s too late.
Sabia holds up the duct tape, gives it to Jenna. “Tape his fucking mouth shut. Make it thick. Tape his arms to his body. Turn him into a fucking mummy.”
Lying there, Castelan seems dead. Not yet.
“My head hurts,” says Sabia. “I'm gonna shower quick. When I get out, we get rid of Castelan. His car’s outside. We get rid of that too.”
Roca and Jenna share a look.
Sabia goes to the bathroom. Jenna follows. “I'll come with you.”
“No.”
Jenna stops. Sabia closes the door behind her. She turns on the shower. The warm water hits her body hard. Then it feels like a dream.
Castelan is dead, to her, but she intends to kill him again.
She knows exactly what to do. She will deliver him to justice. Personally. The only justice possible now. The justice of the damned.
“You okay, Jenna?” Roca examines Jenna’s marked face. Jenna squeezes his hand.
They stare at Castelan lying unconscious on the floor. “Good thing I'm a nurse, not a cop. Or this would have gone very differently. It still might.”
Jenna walks over and kicks Castelan in the leg. She wants to know how it feels.
Then she kicks him in the arm.
She stomps his ribcage before Roca pulls her away.
In the coal mine bunker, the largest bedroom is lit by two small lamps on night stands. Silver and Lin recline in parallel single beds. They stare up at the yellow paint on the low stone slab ceiling.
“It’s like we’re children again. Away at camp,” says Lin.
“No, it's like we're buried alive. This is not some peaceful Poconos cabin, Ellen.”
“You remember when we first met.”
“Yes, of course,” says Silver.
“No, you don’t,” says Lin.
“Sure I do.”
“I remember you most, Kristen. You were so certain of yourself. You tried to appoint yourself Captain of our cabin, to get everyone to obey you. Even though you knew we were all supposed to choose leadership roles. With no single leader.”
“A pack of wild girls, distracted camp counselors — anything could go wrong. I wanted to keep things orderly.”
“You liked being boss. In control. That’s when I knew.”
“You did not know that I would become President.”
“That’s when I knew you would become rich. Or miserable. Or both. If you weren’t already.”
“Please.” Silver rolls away from Lin, but the room is small, and there is no escape. “Reflection is not my thing,” says Silver. “But I remember you too, Ellen. I knew you would be both kind and loyal to me. If I could stay just this side of insufferable. Enough to keep you around.”
“You told me that if I could stand the presence of greatness, then I could be your friend.”
They laugh.
“You were such a cliche, Kristen.”
“And you freshened me up.”
“You were so serious,” says Lin. “You worked hard to keep me close like you worked at everything. I became your non-threatening and normal, supposedly non-ambitious face. To distract others from your raw will to power, really. That’s why you kept me close. Isn’t it. Because I’m so fucking loyal. And a good worker.”
“Whatever, Ellen. We’re alive to be together again today. That's all I know. Barely alive. I guess the great must suffer. I mean, look, how they bury us alive. They don’t care for us. They don’t respect us.”
“This cave confirms all your secret beliefs about humanity, doesn’t it, Kristen. That we're a pack of mean wolves through and through. And that only the strong survive, and that only the great thrive.”
Silver rolls back toward Lin. “Think though — fucking Sabia is the one who’s free tonight. It should be us. Not that little bitch.”
“Can a kidnapper be more free than her hostages?” says Lin.
“Oh, shut up,” says Silver. “Sabia thinks she’s a hero. She’s fucking dancing on my grave. I can hear her fucking footsteps.”
“‘Show me a hero and I’ll show you a tragedy’,” says Lin.
“Who are you quoting?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“There’s nothing tragic about Sabia,” says Silver. “I would trade kidnapper for hostage any day of the week.”
Silver and Lin lie more still than they ever lay before. The pulse of themselves and the rock, it resonates within the cave and it binds them to each other and to Earth. They sleep well down here. The days draw out, but at night they sleep the sleep of the dead.
“Sabia offends you, Kristen, but you recognize her for what she is, right? She’s your worthy adversary.”
“My unworthy enemy, you mean.”
“To you this cave is a temporary setback. The cost of doing business. An opportunity to win an election.”
“I love the blue sky as much as anyone, Ellen.”
“No, you don't. If you did, you would live it up — up top. Not even close. You want to win your own slice of power ‘by any means necessary’.”
“Oh, please. Malcolm X. Really. Come on. That’s Sabia. Not me. I’m no firebrand, Ellen.”
“Then why do you burn, Kristen?”
“I don’t burn, Ellen. I’m a workaholic. That’s all. I’m relentless. Persistent.”
“Your ego is filled with big demands. That’s the tricky shit, right? You’re a ‘by any means necessary’ diplomat. You're good at it. You take the interests of wealth and you match them with the dreams of the people. And in the end, everyone wins — wealth gets wealthier and the people get dreamier.”
“Don’t be so fucking cynical, Ellen.”
“And the people get madder and crazier. To wealth wealth, to people dreams and distraction and despair. And death.”
“When in the world did you become a morbid sociologist, Ellen.”
“Since down here.” Lin rolls toward Silver. “It’s the brute nature of society that bombed us deep into this cave. That’s the reality, isn’t it?”
“Whatever you say.”
“You know how we win. The key is to give just enough so that slightly more than fifty percent of the population feels heard by power. You get re-elected and repeat the cycle. That’s the only way. Any other way is too hard. The big donors put an end to it. You can’t fundamentally change things for the better.”
“Doesn’t always work, does it, Smart Girl? Sometimes we lose.”
“So here we are. Deep in a hole in Iowa. But you’re well on your way again. Government driven underground, only to re-emerge when the time is right, conditions favorable, power temporarily restored. Secured, controlled. You and I could have walked free and clear into the blue sky and cold wind and bright sunlight when Roca went to the hospital, Kristen. We could have bathed in the moonlight forever.”
“Soon, Ellen. Soon enough.”
Lin and Silver turn off the dim lamps.
The darkness of the coal mine is breathtaking in its totality. Lin feels like a sock within a sock stuffed in a drawer.
“You'll get your wish,” says Lin. “You’ll get your return to power. There’s no stopping you now.”
Lin speaks to void — a void so tight her words seem to fill the universe entirely and explode in front of her face no matter how softly she talks.
“You will win, again, Kristen. Assuming Sabia lets us out.”
“What else could she possibly do? Entomb us here forever? In her own home?”
“I'd hate to think.”
“Don’t think, Ellen. Sabia will free us. Are you kidding me? She will pretend to be a savior hero. You know it. She wants glory, like anyone. No matter what she says.”
Lin is very quiet. Finally she says, “I think it’s going to get far worse before it gets better, Kristen. I feel that.”
“Where's my can-do Queen, Ellen?”
Lin stares into the black — so close and so deep — she feels it inside herself as much as out, pressing, pulling in every direction. Destroying direction. There is no up and no down. All up and down, all at once. The void pours down your throat as it simultaneously swallows you whole. If Lin had not risen from the dead each morning already, she would not know it to be possible.
“What if we’re already dead, Kristen? What if this is the practice for the real thing that we won’t know when it hits?”
“For fuck’s sake, we’re alive, Ellen. As long as the Navy decides not to nuke Sabia, we survive. We can sell that story though. We died, fought death, then rose again to our re-election. The country will think we’re holy people. We’ll be able to do anything we want.”
“What will we want, Kristen? To win the Nobel Peace Prize, really? And which conflict will you choose to end? How will you pick? There are so many.”
Ellen Lin waits patiently for President Silver to answer. She listens to Silver’s breath, to the working rise and the rhythmic fall, until she knows that Silver is asleep, deep in sleep, full of sleep.
Lin might herself dream now. She might meditate, toward an answer for it all. Or she might hang on through a directionless sleep.
Surely they will wake, Lin thinks, she and Silver, like Sabia and Roca above, to new answers in a new day, a new morning, a new dawn.
Soon the day that Lin will not see will break like a wave on the shore, rush forward and dissipate, and then repeat. And when it does, Lin will be there, picking up memories of seashells to put on the table, where she writes in her notebook, filling it with new answers to old questions that might save them all. She will do that, she thinks, she will drag Kristen Silver kicking and screaming alongside herself into some sort of better future. She can try. What else is there?
Even Sabia might approve.
Lin tries not to forget each and every one of these good intentions in the void, though she is afraid she might when she falls asleep, far underground, deep in a nightmare, really, from which she only half expects to wake.
