Most Revolutionary — Chapter Twenty-Seven
Sabia Cuffed
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 to ransom a better world.
Previously: Sabia Perez wakes up pregnant. Acting President Alecta O’Roura-Chavez pressures Secret Service Director William Kingsley to act. Newly appointed FBI Director Priama Steiner travels to Iowa to finish what Kingsley could not. President Silver threatens fugitive ex-FBI Director Maximilian Castelan in the coal mine bunker.
Chapter Twenty-Seven — Sabia Cuffed
What did Sabia ever do to be forced to face this fate?
Why must it be left to someone like Sabia Perez to save the world?
Effing bad luck.
Sabia would complain, if there was a force universal and big enough and sentient enough to appeal to — she would lament the prospect of prison and and her sudden pregnancy and the high probability of her being shot to death by the stormtroopers of Empire right there on her homeground in Iowa.
Effing high school was not supposed to go this way.
Did she almost make it?
Or is her battle never to be finished, never to end? Is she fated for life, to fight forever?
Which fate more likely?
If we do not gather a revolutionary consciousness, what do we gather? Sabia thinks she knows. Garbage. Without revolution, the garbage of Empire builds up everywhere. Garbage rules, where garbage rules.
If we lack revolutionary consciousness, what are we full of?
If we lack revolutionary consciousness, what do we do?
And what if we have it?
Sabia knows, for herself at least. You do what you do.
You get where you are in your real place, at your real time, with your real people, and then you act how you will, in what you might affect and effect, in your own world, novel moment by moment.
Jenna Ryzcek and Roca Perez watch from inside the open far door of the greenhouse as Sabia treks out into the snow-buried orchard.
Sabia wears bright yellow sweats, hood down, long black hair streaming in the nose-slashing ear-biting wind. Sabia’s feet are warm in her winter boots while the rest of her body she sets to unfeeling, in no coat in the razor cold.
“What is she doing? Where is she going?” says Jenna.
Roca watches for any sign of their neighbor Billy Yonkin coming by on his electric snowmobile with his camera drone. “We can’t go after her,” he worries.
“Sabia!” Jenna yells. Sabia high-steps through the drifted depths of snow, then stops, and spreads her arms. She looks up into liquid gray clouds. She falls flat on her back, disappearing in the cold. “Sabia!”
“Jenna! Shush!”
“You shush, Roca!”
“We can’t be heard, we can’t be seen! I’m missing and presumed dead. You’re on the run. Don’t blow it now, Jenna.”
“I run the way I want to run, Roca. There’s no one out here.”
Jenna scans the ice and snow — dormant trees, evergreens, Sabia invisible.
Then Jenna faces Roca. “What are we doing, Roca? Sabia can’t hold up, she can’t hold out, not forever. Not after last night with Kingsley. We may need to take over for her.”
“What happened last night?”
Jenna turns away. “Nothing.”
“Don’t cross, Sabia,” says Roca. “I wouldn’t, if I were you.”
“Sabia!” — Director Kingsley hears the double holler — “Sabia!” He stops trudging through the snow toward Sabia from the site of the bombing of Ground Force One. He looks to the greenhouse.
At least — he thought he heard her name. Could be his mind playing tricks. The ripping wind and punching cold. And after last night with Sabia — maybe now he has lost all control.
Kingsley studies the greenhouse. The door at the far end is blocked from view by an interior wall of plants and by the direction and angle of construction. He sees nothing of note, no movement.
A sudden squall of snow blows wild through the orchard. Where did Sabia vanish? Kingsley guesses. He does too much of that of late. No choice. He pushes through snow to where he thinks Sabia might have fallen.
How easy, sometimes, to recollect, to reveal, to assess. And how difficult, sometimes, to answer — What now? What now to do?
Sabia knows what she has done. She collided with Empire and has not yet been massacred for it. She met the head of Empire on this new Iowa frontier. The native strikes back. The homegrown girl arises — and goes underground.
Sabia feels obligated to her gut and her heart and her mind. In this your essence coheres and you act. Or fail to.
The fulfillment of her human condition, the full wash of experience, is bound, as Sabia is, to her Iowa prairie, and now to her confrontation with the head of the greatest financial and military empire the world has ever known. It dared to directly cross her path. Those who cross Sabia will be crossed back.
Even if she must pay the full price for living her truest self.
What will be will be.
Even if she must pay for all of it.
She must pay for all of us, Sabia thinks.
Or must she?
Flat on her back in the snow, Sabia spreads her arms wide — pinned to what might as well be an eternal freeze. She feels all of the rock hard inflexible ground, the unrelenting Earth, pressing up against her back. She stares out through flurries of white. An unbroken mass of clouds flows east, just above the tip of her nose — swirling shades of gray. Black and gray. Black and gray yet bright, with the hidden sun far from sheer view.
From her cross in the snow, Sabia makes a snow angel. She brushes her arms and legs, sweeps and cuts the figure.
Roca sees Kingsley plow with his athlete’s shins and thighs through the field of white toward Sabia.
He grabs Jenna and the door, pulls Jenna back and shuts the door.
“Who is that?” says Jenna.
“Someone we can’t be found out by.”
“We can’t be found by anyone.”
“Let’s get out of here.” Roca moves behind a dense row of mandarin orange trees, glossy with leaves, laden with fruit ripe. “It’s Secret Service Director Kingsley.”
Jenna hides with Roca. They peer outside. “The fuck does he want this morning?”
“Come on, Jenna,” says Roca. He backtracks through the greenhouse toward the hidden egress of the underground home.
Kingsley reaches Sabia, entrenched, all but coffined in white crystals. In slow motion, she flaps her arms and legs through snow.
“You okay, Sabia?”
Sabia stares to sky. “I’m an angel,” she says.
“You must be cold. Where’s your coat?”
“Join me.”
“I’m too old for it.”
“You weren't too old last night, Gramps. You flopped down real quick. You fell like a rotten tree and landed smack on top of me.”
“Sabia—” Kingsley looks far into the distance. “That wasn’t— I mean— I’m sorry— Last night was a mistake, Sabia. I wasn’t thinking—”
“There’s no spy cameras out here today, Director. There better not be. Spare me your psycho bullshit legalese about last night. You didn't mean to what? I was your angel on high and now I’m — fallen? A fallen woman? In the bare light of day. You see finally? You can see clearly now? Me — low down on the cold hard ground. You up high, all-knowing, Director? Like I’m nobody. To you.”
“You exaggerate everything, Sabia.”
“You’re a moron, Kingsley. Truth sounds like an exaggeration to you.”
“You think everything is wrong. Me and everything.”
“This isn’t about you, Director. You don’t get it. Nobody cares what you did last night in Iowa. Nobody cares what you do here today. Not out here on the prairie. Be yourself for once, Director. What happens in Iowa, stays in Iowa. No? It can. It does.”
“That was a mistake.”
Sabia swipes at the snow. “Tell me about it.” She scoops snow. “That’s one giant mistake for you, Director, and one even bigger mistake for me. But everyday of your life is wrong now, isn’t it, Director. Nothing but mistakes for you anymore. Blizzards — bombs — prairie witches.”
“Sabia, I’m telling you—”
“I’m pregnant.”
Kingsley stares down.
Sabia stares up.
“What?”
Sabia turns her head to the side — breathes in the full fresh scent of snow — the frozen liquid diamond tears of Mother Nature, woven across the landscape, crystalline, seamless fractal blankets, infinite geometries of ice and air, ordered and disordered, so light, so pure, so cutting, so cold.
Kingsley looks through the orchard, downslope, to the dark tree-line that traces the edge of the iced-over creek. A craggy mystery — possible refuge. The slight wooded hollow curves and dips away from where he stands looking south and west.
A brute gust of wind smacks Kingsley in the back. He steps forward to balance himself.
And then partly to avoid the next blow of the wind, and partly to be closer to Sabia, he kneels in the snow beside her.
“Are you proposing?” says Sabia.
“You can’t be serious,” says Kingsley.
“About what?” Sabia flaps her arms and legs slowly. “Do I look serious?” She scoops snow in her left hand and flings it across her body at Kingsley’s face. He dodges the attack.
“It’s not someone other than me?” says Kingsley.
“It’s you, Idiot. Probably. Don’t pretend. Just wait till I throw up again. On your fancy shoes. Then you'll know.”
Kingsley stares at the greenhouse.
“That’s a problem,” he says.
“For me.”
“For — everyone.”
“For me most of all,” says Sabia.
“To compromise the investigation— I can never— It can never—”
“Shut up, Kingsley. I’m the victim here. In the bombing of the President. In the interrogation and spying by you. You are the problem. And now you infect me.”
“It was a mutual thing last night, Sabia. You initiated it.”
“So what? Where was your investigation last night, Director?”
“If you're telling the truth about being pregnant, why are you out here in the cold and snow, without a coat, flat on your back?”
“I’m an angel in white — can’t you see?” Sabia flaps her arms and legs. “You’re with me now, Director. Maybe I’ll make a revolutionary of you.”
“That is not happening. Okay.” Kingsley tightens his coat, readjusts his gloves, shoves his hands into his pockets. “I’ll do what needs to be done, Sabia. I’ll pay — for whatever you need — we’re not — we’re not a team. Of any kind.”
“Are you dumping me?” Sabia monitors the cloudy mix above. “Oh well.” The sky constantly moves past and away. “What is to be done, Director?”
“You know what to do, Sabia. And so do I.”
“It's not your call, Buddy.”
“You decide. You need to. The sooner the better. Unless you’re lying to me. Are you?”
Sabia turns her face to the side. She gasps. Then she throws up.
“That figures,” says Kingsley.
Acting President Alecta O’Roura-Chavez drops into the chair behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. Her Chief of Staff, Shakeeta Glazier follows her, hovers — documents clutched to her chest.
Alecta knows something more needs to be done with this thing called revolution, the reforms — ever since President Silver was kidnapped, ever since Alecta became Acting President, ever since the demands for social justice dropped on her head from out of nowhere — from Iowa.
“You know I dream of running away from this place already, Shakeeta. I know exactly how I would go about it too.”
“You just got here,” says Shakeeta. “We just got here.”
“To the Presidency, maybe. Not to DC.”
“You’re built for this, Alecta. And so am I.”
“I would go to a cabin in the woods and live there forever.”
“You would get bored, and I would never let you do it, Madame President.”
“Me and millions of others would go too. We would, if we could.”
“Well, you cannot. Not while I’m your Chief of Staff. I refuse to schedule it. Do you know how many subscribers you have online? Do you know how many supporters have come to you in the flesh?”
“A few.”
“Tens of millions — give or take — hundreds of millions. Madame President — you’re not going anywhere.” Shakeeta pushes the folder of documents into Alecta’s hands.
“What if I left without resigning?” Alecta slaps the folder onto the desk. She taps it with her index finger. “I could bring this with me.”
“Do you know the average crowd size of your stadium rallies for President Silver during the campaign? Tens and tens of thousands day in and day out. They weren’t showing up for Silver. They were there for you. And now you, Alecta — Madame President — are here for them. You need to be.”
“I'm telling you, Shakeeta. I've worked it all out. I could lose the Secret Service, with a little help from a friend. I know I could.”
“Which friend?”
Alecta stares across the Oval. “I know a girl. You may have heard of her. She grows stuff.” Says stuff. Does stuff. “I think I could disappear with her. And still govern.”
“Okay.” Shakeeta leans over and taps the documents on the Resolute Desk. “You cannot leave like Silver did. Fucking Bombarill would become President. And that’s death to us. To all of us. Literally.”
What if she disappeared for even part of a day, free of all responsibility, free of every last critique, each handler, every pressure. Free of the Secret Service who, after all, lost President Silver and so many others. “I could do it,” says Alecta.
“No,” says Shakeeta.
“What if I could?” Imagining how she might disappear is the only thing that keeps Alecta sane from time to time during the slow grind and sudden build of crazy, amid the endless demands of power. She could appoint an Acting Vice President, even though the Republican House would never confirm it. Her VP could still take power. The battle in court would be epic and drag on. She need not stay gone long enough for it to matter. “I could reset.”
“You are serious,” says Shakeeta.
“I could disappear into the woods, to a cabin, by a stream, or a lake. Or maybe I should just go hang with Sabia.”
“The two of you,” says Shakeeta shaking her head. “The two of you would hang together. And not how you like. They would come for you and for me and for everyone.”
“You’re killing my dream, Shakeeta.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Shakeeta taps the folder again on the Resolute Desk. “You’ll get over it.”
Locked inside the coal mine survival bunker fifty feet of sandstone, silt-stone, and hard cold shale beneath the Perez farmhouse, President Kristen Silver crouches in front of captured fugitive ex-FBI Director Maximilian Castelan who is tied to the couch — for the protection of both the President and her re-election campaign manager Ellen Lin.
It has been only a few says since Castelan attacked Sabia high above in the farmhouse, and since Jenna shot him in the shoulder, and then operated to take out the pellets. Mere days since Sabia and Roca forced Castelan past Tucker Gere into the coal mine bunker.
President Silver asks Castelan: “Why would you want to kill me, Max? My own FBI Director. Why did you try?”
Ellen Lin sits at the kitchen table with her notebook — recording, watching.
“I told you. I was forced to put a tracker on Ground Force One. I had no idea what it was for. I thought — it was fun and games. That’s all.”
“Liar,” says Lin.
“Bad liar,” says Silver.
“Spying on you, Kristen. Targeting,” says Lin. “Illegally tracking you for the officials who want you dead — still. That fucking right-wing Speaker of the House — Bombarill. Castelan knew what he was doing. Nothing he says is credible.”
“Is that true, Max?”
“No.”
“Let’s get you off the couch, Max,” says Silver. “Put you somewhere more appropriate. More useful.”
Castelan pulls away from her. “Where would that be?”
“In Hell,” says Lin.
“We’re already there,” says Castelan.
President Silver smiles. “How quaint to think so.”
Secret Service Director William Kingsley’s first instinct is to help Sabia wipe the puke from her face after she vomits. Then he thinks otherwise. He stands up and steps back and looks down at Sabia in the frozen trench. She wipes her mouth with handfuls of snow. She chews on snow. She spits it out.
Last night was no dream though this morning feels like it should have been. Another unforced mistake. Kingsley is drifting. When his wife walked out with the children, or he moved on with his career — whatever it was, a bit of both — he stopped judging what was left of his personal life. He kept up with his children as best he could. And he made sure to look to find himself in no other person ever again.
It occurs to Kingsley now more than ever — does it really matter if President Silver is saved — in the end? What’s the point? Silver is no leader — not of note. She’s a placeholder for power.
Like him.
If not for long.
Fuck, he would rather save Sabia if she’s mixed up in this thing. Not that he could ever admit that. What does he care about Silver, except on behalf of his job?
Kingsley knows he will be offered plenty of work after his time in the Secret Service — as long as he goes through the proper motions now.
He can make more money in the private sector. Not even close. He looks forward to it.
If Sabia is telling the truth of her situation — which, who knows — then he is probably as good as fired already anyway.
Alecta will can him with ample cause — losing President Silver and her staff on Ground Force One in the goddamn Iowa blizzard. And then to the fucking missiles. And getting far too close to the lone witness.
There will be no understanding for him from his ex-wife, either. Or not much. Probably worse than none. And his loss of job might even hurt her too — or more likely, the children. But they are college age almost, nearly independent.
What about Sabia? What will become of her?
Kingsley considers Sabia lying flat on her back in the snow. She flaps her arms and legs slowly — like a dying angel, a weak creature — her mouth puckered after puking.
Somehow — Kingsley thinks — Sabia could give him the best advice about what to do with his life outside of his job. But he would never ask. It would be humiliating and, anyway, Sabia would probably tell him, one way or another, to fuck off.
Sabia wonders what her mother would do if she found herself pregnant like this, in the middle of a criminal investigation against herself. Infected by the investigator. Who assumes her guilty. But can prove nothing.
Pregnant in the middle of revolution.
But her mother would never do that — never get intimate with an enemy official. Never throw a family member into captivity — even to pull him out again. Never kidnap the President of the United States of America in a fit of righteous fury, self-righteous anger, and unrelenting determination.
Then again — she might.
It’s fucking novel territory that Sabia got herself into.
Maybe she should try harder to get herself out. Who else will?
Kingsley? Fuck Kingsley.
Sabia’s Mamá raised her right. Sabia knows that. Raised her left.
Sabia’s Mamá made snow angels with her in the snow.
“Director Kingsley,” says Sabia, not looking at him. “You’ve heard of the new Iowa abortion laws, no? Laws designed to fuck people over, like me. And now you. Draconian laws. Not good. We could be like in a movie, and drive cross country to a free state to get me an abortion. Or I would go alone. And maybe on the way I would change my mind because I think I need a baby in my life. To make a baby that needs me. Would you watch that movie, Kingsley? There’s a few of them out there.”
“You can’t consider doing that, Sabia.”
“Star in a movie?”
“Start a family.”
“Would you go with me?”
“I can’t do that.”
“You’re useless, Director. Apparently only I get anything done around here.” The puffy gray clouds flow in and out of Sabia lines of thought. She is thankful to be sheltered from the shearing wind by layers of snow.
Jenna stares out from the side of the greenhouse behind the orange trees. She wants to know what Sabia is saying to Kingsley flat on her back in the snow.
Jenna sees Kingsley kneel over Sabia, then stand back up.
“Come on, Jenna! Let’s hide,” says Roca.
“They’re talking.”
“Time to move!”
“Goddamn Secret Service Director William Kingsley. Look at him. He acts like he belongs here.”
“Maybe he’s worried about Sabia. I’m glad someone is with her out in the snow.”
“She doesn’t feel well, Roca. She’s probably trying to cool down.”
“Why was she up so late in the farmhouse last night? Did she get drunk? Is she drunk now?”
Jenna reflects. She feels a little unbalanced herself. “Sabia screamed in her sleep when she woke this morning, Roca. A nightmare. Then she threw up.” Let Roca infer the truth, if he can. If he will.
“Sabia doesn't have nightmares. Not that I know of.”
“She does now. Things change, Roca.”
Roca looks out. He knows too well. He recalls the long and violent arc of his family’s history. Fleeing Mexico, migrating across continent generations back. And then the cancer that took Sabia’s mother, his daughter, and the crash that took his wife and son-in-law, Sabia’s father. After which, Roca thought his own life would slip gradually away.
And then Sabia came of age.
And now here he is.
Hiding in the greenhouse in the middle of winter, presumed dead, with a convicted water protector by his side, on the run, hiding, and the goddamn Director of the Secret Service harassing his nieta in the orchard.
“Should we kidnap Kingsley too?” says Jenna.
Roca surprises himself. He considers the question with point-blank seriousness.
Sabia flaps her arms and legs.
Kingsley clears a bit of snow around himself and crouches beside Sabia again as the wind picks up and shears past.
“There’s a one-in-three chance it’s yours,” says Sabia.
“Jesus.” Kingsley considers. “Your kiddie boyfriend and who else?”
“His name is Avery. Clown. You clown. It’s none of your goddamned business. Cut the interrogation. You’ll be the last to know.”
Kingsley looks to the greenhouse again. “Who was calling your name?”
Sabia freezes. Then she resumes moving her arms and legs.
“You’re hearing shit. It’s the wind. It says all kinds of things out here on the prairie when you’re not really paying attention, when you’re not really listening. Whether you’re capable of hearing or not.”
Kingsley keeps his gaze on the greenhouse. “I thought I heard someone.”
“You don’t even hear me. You know that, right? You don’t hear yourself,” says Sabia. “You think you do, but you don’t. Give it up, Director. You’re a warden to power. That’s all you are. You’re good for nothing.”
“You’re so fucking bleak, Sabia.”
“I’m a truth-teller.”
“When it’s convenient maybe. Otherwise, no.”
“Who can blame me? I’m blameless. Unlike you.”
From behind the orange trees, Jenna peers outside. “Get ready to take another hostage, Roca. Right now today.”
“Not happening,” says Roca.
Jenna pulls back from the edge of the door.
There's a sharpness to Jenna's voice that Roca has not heard before. He imagines it to be the same edge she would use when planning to blow up the DAPL pipeline all across Iowa and the Midwest with her friend and ally Jasmine Maldonado — and Sabia.
“No more hostages,” says Roca. “We’re full up.”
“Not even close,” says Jenna. “Not to Sabia.”
On the periphery of his vision, Director Kingsley sees someone trudging through snow toward him, from the blast site of Ground Force One.
It’s Priama Steiner. She hollers. “Director, Kingsley!”
Kingsley stands and faces the recent appointment of Acting President Alecta O’Roura-Chavez, the new Director of the FBI.
“Who in fuck is it?” says Sabia.
“It's your new boss,” Kingsley says. “Priama Steiner — FBI Director. She’s tough as nails, and twice as sharp.”
Sabia stops flapping her arms and legs — limbs splayed wide. “No one is boss of me.” She raises her head. “Don’t forget — I’m a goddamn spike in your ass, Kingsley.”
Director Steiner strides and plows through the snow following Kingsley’s path from the bomb site. When she finally makes it, she shakes Director Kingsley’s hand. She’s tall, not as tall as Kingsley, but far taller than Sabia.
“Congratulations on your appointment, Ma’am. I look forward to working with you.”
“What’s going on?” Director Steiner nods to Sabia.
Kingsley makes the introduction: “Sabia Perez — meet new FBI Director Priama Steiner.”
Sabia lays her head back down on the snow and stares up past the power couple. “I hope you’re no murderous thug terrorist white supremacist cretin predator like the last Director of the FBI,” says Sabia.
“A pleasure to meet you too, Sabia.”
Sabia licks her lips in preparation of much more to say.
Director Steiner posts her black-gloved hands on her hips. She looks directly down at Sabia.
“Listen, Sabia, Director Kingsley and I are tracking fugitive ex-FBI Director Maximilian Castelan — as you may know. More to the point — we’re hunting him to his grave, if necessary—”
“He’s gone underground,” says Sabia. “Very far underground. By now. Where the sun don’t shine. That’s where thugs like Castelan live. He’s in his natural habitat. I’m sure he feels at home. It’s what a killer spy deserves — to be driven back deep underground. Don’t you think?”
“We’re all spies to you, is that it, Sabia? That’s how you think of us.”
“I don’t think of you, Director. And I don’t plan to.”
“The agency and I will dig Castelan out from whatever hole he’s hiding in. That’s what we do. I guarantee it.”
“Well, yippee for you.” Sabia splays her arms and legs to the max. “I really don’t think you will.”
“Count on it.”
“Okay, good. Let me know when you make first contact. Kingsley tells me Castelan might come after me. Does that make Kingsley a genius or an idiot? What would you say?”
The new FBI Director considers Sabia’s track through the snow from the greenhouse. She studies the outline of the angel form in the snow around Sabia. “Where’s your coat, Sabia?”
“Director Kingsley never offered me his.”
“What kind of interrogation method am I witnessing here, Director?” Steiner asks Kingsley.
“This is totally unplanned,” says Kingsley.
“It certainly is.” Sabia rubs her abdomen. “Leave Kingsley alone, Steiner. He's had a rough morning. He learned all kinds of new things.”
“Such as?”
“Leave him alone,” says Sabia. “Apparently you’re the big dog on prowl today, not Kingsley. Let’s see — the FBI was founded as slave patrols, weren’t they? They don’t teach that in school. No, wait — that’s the police in general. Still patrolling. The FBI is the national political police. They shoot the shit out of grassroots organizations and leading activists. That’s their proud history. Quite the criminal organization your agency, Director Steiner.”
“Sabia is not the biggest fan of established authority,” Kingsley tells Steiner.
“So I’ve heard. Thanks, Bill. I know a little bit about who and what Ms. Sabia Perez is and is not—”
“You know nothing, Director. The Secret Service is full of right-wingers like you. So is the FBI, the CIA, the military, the police — fuck — all of you armed corporate-state officials. Blood money protectors. Gun nuts. Police staters. Life in these incorporated estates of murderous weapons. And Kingsley here — he can't stop interrogating me. He can't get enough. It’s like I’m the center of his whole world now. Little ole me, here in the middle of nowhere Iowa. Frozen. Wind-blasted. Totally on my own.”
“Sabia—” Director Steiner points down at her. “The reason Director Kingsley is putting pressure on you— You know why. We need to get President Silver back.”
“There was pressure, all right.”
“It’s because you won’t talk,” says Steiner.
“Oh, is that why?” Sabia looks at Kingsley. “I talk all the time.”
“We’re only looking for the truth, Sabia. You may say a lot, but you really don’t say much—”
“In fact, most of the time, I can’t get myself to shut up. Just ask him.” Sabia nods at Kingsley. “He could tell you all kinds of things. Do you think I like to hear myself go on and on, Director Steiner? You say you want the truth, but what truth? There’s a whole bunch of problems you could investigate. Ecocide. Genocide. Plutarchy. Disease. Poverty. And all the other official violence of the police state. Forget the missing President and fugitive FBI Director. The sick and wounded and brainwashed citizens of nation states like America could use an official hand to actually improve their lives, and all life. Kingsley here, he wants me to be a better person for the country, for the world, like I’m an angel or something. But what if I’m not an angel? Are you?” Sabia flaps her wings. “Kingsley can’t resist. He keeps after me. He thinks he’s going to get me. And now you. Forget it, Boss.”
Sabia looks up at the dual gaze of the two officials staring down at her.
“I am the proverbial rock that will not be moved. My name is Sabia Perez, remember. It means ‘wise rock’. And one of the less well-known translations of 'wise rock' is — I hate to say it — 'fuck off'.”
Steiner and Kingsley contemplate the figure in the snow.
“No one expects you to be an angel, Sabia Perez.”
“But I am. I'm a killer angel. You know, like in the Civil War book by Michael Shaara. The Killer Angels. I wipe out bad guys, whenever and wherever I can. More often than you might think, Director. Not that this is my usual look — pure, white, glistening, cold here on the lowdown. I'm more of an angel in a brown and warm earthy kind of way, far more than you two rigid popsicles with the sticks shoved up your asses could ever dream of being. I mean, that’s how you look on TV. Like a couple of professional popsicles. So, you can fuck off. You’re on my ground. Not yours.”
Steiner and Kingsley watch Sabia flap her wings.
Steiner turns to Kingsley. “What’s wrong with her?”
Kingsley considers the question. “How much time do you have?”
“Is this really our greatest lead in the bombing and assassination attempt of President Kristen Silver? Smacked out of her mind in the snow? Is she a performance artist on ice here, or what?”
“Join me,” says Sabia. “Kingsley won't. But you, Priama — you could be a snow angel with me. Like my Mamá. I dare you. Join me.”
“And catch my death of cold in the snow? You would like that, right? No thanks.”
“You don’t know what’s good for you, Director. It’s the cold that makes you healthy and strong. Did you know that if you work in the cold you turn unhealthy white fat into healthy brown fat? Brown fat is what you need. Keeps you warm, satisfied, thriving. Any good doctor could tell you. If you can find one.”
“Cold makes you cold,” says Kingsley. “I think we need to wrap this up.”
“We’ll take your word for it, Sabia,” says Steiner. “So here we are — outside in the cold — getting healthy. Maybe too healthy.” Steiner looks to Kingsley again. “Is she okay, for real?”
“It’s been a rough few weeks, Director. For everyone,” says Kingsley.
“I'm sorry about your abuelo — Roca,” says Steiner.
“Me too.”
“Hard to believe he’s not alive.”
Sabia and Steiner lock eyes.
“No belief to it.”
“It must have come as a terrible shock. The whole ordeal. The explosion in the night, the dark, the blizzard.”
Sabia remembers holding on to the kitchen sink in her underground home, after giving refuge to President Silver and Ellen Lin — Ground Force One stuck in the blizzard near the orchard, the Secret Service agents confused, gone up on the road by mistake, near the bus. Boom! Boom! Boom! The floor itself, Sabia remembers, everything shaking. She wondered if the house would hold, and she feared the worst for Roca. President Silver and Ellen Lin panicking — clutching the counter and oak posts.
Sabia waited, held her breath when the bombing stopped — listened, tried to figure it out, before dressing warm and plunging into the blizzard to search for Roca who had gone outside with agents. He had stayed on the porch to change a light bulb, thankfully, while the agents rode back to the bus on the broken snowplow.
From her bed of snow, Sabia looks up at Steiner and Kingsley. “That was a whole other world.”
Director Steiner studies the frozen flow of white that slides into the woods down to the creek, up, out and around through the orchard, over and across the fields. The place looks barren, forsaken. The end of the Earth. This is where the investigation into the disappearance of President Silver has come to die. To the end of the Earth in Iowa.
“I’m afraid we can’t leave you out here in the snow, Sabia.”
“Don’t be afraid, Director Steiner. I'm not yours to boss around. I'm on my home ground here. My one and only home. Earth.”
“You’re under arrest, Sabia Perez. Stand up.” Director Steiner unzips her coat and places her right hand on her hip by her holstered gun.
Director Kingsley steps back from both Sabia and Director Steiner.
Sabia looks to Kingsley.
“Did the FBI hire a comedian for its new Director?” says Sabia.
“What’s the charge?” says Kingsley.
“Obstruction.”
“Of what?” says Kingsley. “Winter?”
“You name it,” says Steiner. “Of the investigation.”
“You actually need to name the specific reason for the charge,” says Sabia. “You can't arrest me for no cause. You need ‘reasonable articulable suspicion’ that I have committed a crime.”
“Sure — but I don’t need to prove it or even state it now.”
“What’s my crime?” Sabia looks away from Steiner and flaps her wings. “Flying while frozen?”
“You’ll find out.”
“When? When you throw me into a dungeon? Do you really want that kind of bad publicity, Director? Because I’ll give it to you. Not only online and in the media. In the courts.”
“She’s flat on her back in the snow,” says Kingsley. “How can she possibly be obstructing anything? Other than maybe her own health.”
From a coat pocket, Director Steiner removes a set of handcuffs and dangles them over Sabia. “Lock her up, Bill.”
Kingsley spreads his arms. “Here in this orchard?”
Sabia continues to make angels in the snow.
Jenna and Roca are fixated now, looking out from the greenhouse, watching the silent drama in the snow. Roca knows that he is not as fast as he once was. He needs to move.
“Come on, Jenna!”
“That woman has handcuffs — for Sabia!”
Roca looks past Jenna. “Why?”
“Oh, gosh, I don’t know, Roca, maybe for kidnapping the President of the United States of America, or something.”
“But how can they know? They’re not busting down our door.”
“That fucker,” says Jenna. “She’s taunting Sabia with the cuffs. Sabia must have said something last night to Kingsley. Slipped-up on her date. I told her not to go. I told her—”
“It wasn’t a date,” says Roca.
“Whatever, Roca. They’re trying to cuff her now. Goddamn it!”
“We need to move, Jenna.”
Sabia stares into the clouds.
“You can’t cuff me, Steiner. I’m an angel.”
Kingsley regards Steiner holding out the cuffs. “You’re serious, Director? This is a bad idea. I’ll do it.”
Kingsley takes the handcuffs from Director Steiner and kneels again close to Sabia. He extends his hand without the cuffs. “Come on, Sabia, sit up.”
“No.”
“Come on, Sabia.”
“I said, ‘No’.”
“Come on.”
“Force me. You ass.”
Directors Kingsley and Steiner wrestle Sabia into a sitting position. Snow flies as her legs and arms kick and flail.
“Resisting arrest now,” says Steiner.
“Fuck you, Bitch.”
Kingsley pulls Sabia to his chest while wrapping her arms behind her back. He whispers in her ear. “Relax, Mija.”
“Don’t call me that, you fucking pervert,” says Sabia.
Kingsley cuffs her. Then he pulls on the cuffs to lift her up, but he slips in the snow and jerks the cuffs, twisting her arms.
Sabia screams. Kingsley lets go, and Sabia falls face first into the snow.
Kingsley recovers, grabs Sabia's wrists and cuffs and arms, and hoists her to her feet. He brushes snow off her face and knocks it out of her hair.
“Sorry,” says Kingsley.
“Fuck you,” says Sabia.
“Sorry,” Kingsley says again.
Sabia stands and pivots face-to-face with Steiner. “You have no right! What a piece of shit investigator you are, Director. This one here — he tried to seduce me last night with a bottle of wine.”
Steiner examines Kingsley. “Is that true?”
“No,” says Kingsley.
“You’re all liars,” says Sabia. She feels strong, despite the cold, despite the cuffs.
Director Steiner grabs Sabia by both arms and pulls her away from Kingsley. Then Steiner pushes Sabia forward toward the greenhouse. “Get moving.”
Kingsley follows.
Sabia knows she has done the thing that needs to be done.
Whatever it was, whatever it is, whatever it amounts to now, it is done, and she has done it. And she will keep on doing it. As long as she can.
It’s the best thing she could have ever hoped to accomplish. Capture the President, force change. No matter the cost to herself.
No matter these two officials manhandling her at her own home. She got the demands met — some of them. The whole point. She changed society. Saved lives, made lives. Inspired many. Who else ever did as much as her in and against the imperialist police state? How could she not expect to pay for it now?
Director Steiner moves Sabia steadily through the snow, deep and crusted, toward the greenhouse.
“I’m reopening the entire investigation into your farmstead, Sabia. That includes your greenhouse, your house, everything.”
“You need a warrant,” says Sabia. “From a judge. I have rights. The Fourth Amendment — there can be no unreasonable search and seizure — you need probable cause — I have the right to privacy in my home and belongings.” Sabia twists away from Steiner, and stops.
“I’ll get that warrant,” says Steiner. “Maybe even today. But first we’re going inside, me and you, and we’re going to talk. It’s cold out here.”
“My home is my castle,” says Sabia. “That includes my greenhouse. You have no right.”
“Your home is not your greenhouse.”
“My greenhouse is my home. It’s my ‘curtilage’. You know that. House and immediate surrounds. You need a warrant to even fucking stand here. Trespasser.”
“It doesn’t matter today, Sabia. This is national security.”
“Bullshit. You’re the fucking protector of plutocracy, Director. And I’m a person. Of the people. I’m the real law. You’re the outlaw. It’s clear why the law doesn’t matter to you. When does the law ever matter to people like you. Officials.”
Kingsley puts a hand on Sabia's shoulder. He speaks quietly. “Sabia, let's go inside and get warm. We’ll — work this thing out. The whole thing.”
Kingsley tries to guide and push Sabia. She pushes back. Doesn’t budge.
“Why are you whispering to her, Bill?” says Director Steiner.
Kingsley turns on Steiner. “She has a point about the warrant, Ma’am. We’re not Castelan. Are we? Do we bully? It doesn’t work with her.” Kingsley wants to say something more but stops himself.
“What exactly has worked so far, Director Kingsley? Anything? You had your chance. Now I have mine.”
Director Steiner has all the leverage here, Kingsley knows. She grabs Sabia and lifts and wrenches her bound arms and drives her again through the snow toward the orchard door of the greenhouse.
Jenna shakes with rage.
“She’s handcuffed! They’re fucking throwing her around!”
“Jenna, now,” says Roca.
“Get the guns, Roca!”
“No.”
Jenna backs away from her hiding spot behind the orange trees but she can’t stop watching the officials shove Sabia.
“Now, Jenna!”
Sabia resists Steiner and Kingsley all the way to the greenhouse door — flopping onto the snow in front of it, skidding on ice.
“Who do you think you are!” she screams. “You’re Trump, that Ass! You’re just like him. You’re a megalomaniac narcissist thug plutocrat. That’s you. You’re Joe Biden and all the rest! You’re like all of them. They’ve got their dead grip on the dollars, and you’ve got yours on the guns. No one comes into my greenhouse. I'm not letting anyone through. Not you, not either one of you. Not today.”
“For me you’ll make an exception,” says Steiner.
Steiner opens the door and walks inside.
Kingsley follows with Sabia tight in grip.
It feels like he’s breaking her arm. She goes as she is forced to but then her arm feels like it will pop. She struggles to save it. Kingsley eases his grip slightly. Just enough.
Kingsley is cold. Steiner is cold. Kingsley closes the door against the wind. Steiner looks around. “Cheerful place,” she says. “So unlike you, Sabia.”
“You’re going to torture me in my own greenhouse.”
“We don’t torture, Sabia.”
“You're going to interrogate me and torture me by the waterfall and the frog pond just to laugh at me while the water burbles in my face. I know you will. You’re two sickos.”
“We’re going inside, Sabia. Into your home. Show me the door to the porch. I studied the layout. I know everything about this place.”
“You would be amazed,” says Sabia. “You really would.”
“We’ll get dry clothes on you. We’ll take care of you, Sabia. That’s what we do. And you will answer every single question I ask.”
“Steiner. What is that — a German name?” says Sabia. “Heil Steiner.”
“Clever.”
“Without my lawyer, you don’t get Jack Shit from me, Director.”
Director Steiner shakes her head. “No lawyer for you, Sabia. Sorry. Not yet.”
“I’m legally entitled.”
“Only if you’re detained.”
“I’m in cuffs.”
“It’s temporary. We need to investigate first. We’ll get you warm clothes and then you’ll feel better. It’s like you invited us to tea. We’ll remove the cuffs. You’ll talk. Or you’ll go to prison. See — we can be reasonable. We’re not out to get you, Sabia. We simply want the President back.”
“The answer is, ‘No’.”
“The answer is national security, Sabia. You do as I say. I have every right. And you have basically none.”
“You’re as bad as Castelan. ‘No’ means ‘no’.”
“That's not for you to say, Sabia. Not anymore.”
“Fuck you.”
“If you want to stay here in your own home, you’ll talk. Otherwise, you go to prison. I read your file. Memorized it. I know how badly you wish to remain here. Who wouldn't? But especially you, in this special place, your special home. You can have your attorney if you want, but only behind bars. Got it? So — talk or prison. Home or jail. Seems like an easy choice to me. I hold all the cards, Sabia.”
“You’ll pay for this. I promise you.”
“Are you threatening me, Sabia Perez?”
Sabia looks to Kingsley. “Protect me from her!”
“He's not your guard, Sabia. I'm the lead investigator. Not him.”
“You Pompous Ass. You don’t know what he is to me.”
Steiner turns to Kingsley. “And that means exactly what, Director Kingsley? You and Sabia?”
“She’s raving. What do you expect? That’s Sabia,” says Kingsley.
Steiner considers Kingsley with a long look.
Then Steiner grabs Sabia by her bright yellow sweatshirt and pulls her close. “Roca was in that Des Moines hospital nine days after the bombing in which he was supposedly killed. How is that possible, Sabia?”
Sabia tries to pull back, but Director Steiner’s boots are planted, and she’s much bigger than Sabia, trained, and plenty strong.
“Do you believe this shit?” says Sabia to Kingsley.
“Relax, Sabia,” says Kingsley.
“You said Roca was killed,” says Steiner. “You inferred it. We assumed it. You stated it. You pretended. You lied. You said, 'Roca went to the bus. Big explosion'. Wrong. That’s not what happened. At all.”
Kingsley and Steiner both take the measure of Sabia then.
“What about it, Bill?” says Steiner.
“Yeah, Bill?” says Sabia.
“News to me,” says Kingsley.
“Your good Director Kingsley somehow missed that little detail in the course of his so-called investigation,” says Steiner. “Which makes me wonder, Director Kingsley, what else did you miss. And why? And how do you still have your job?”
“That's something we can both agree on,” says Sabia. “I would can his ass too. Fire him where he stands.”
Director Kingsley thinks about whether or not he will wind up in prison after all this chaos and confusion.
He’s sure that Director Steiner would not hesitate to see him indicted, if she could. He’s probably on trial here in the Perez greenhouse the same as Sabia.
Sabia drops her whole body to the gravel of the greenhouse floor. She kicks Steiner’s shins with her boots. It’s enough to buckle Director Steiner as Sabia rolls free.
Sabia scrambles toward the greenhouse door, but Director Kingsley is too quick. He grabs her by the back of her sweats.
They scuffle but Kingsley pins Sabia’s arms, and he squeezes her so tight that she feels her bones popping again along the joints and fascia. She goes limp.
Kingsley holds Sabia beside him in a vice grip with his elbow locked around her neck and the back of his right hand cranking up on her jaw.
He nods to Director Steiner. “I know the way, Director. Let’s go. Sabia will chose home over prison, I’m certain.”
“You don’t know what I’ll do,” says Sabia.
“You’re out of options, Sabia,” says Kingsley.
“Am I.” Sabia glazes both Directors with individual looks of contempt.
Kingsley eases his grip so they can move. He takes Sabia by her left arm. Right hand, left arm.
Almost calmly then, Sabia leads the Directors out of the greenhouse and up onto the porch — and from there to the farmhouse front door.
Sabia hopes Jenna and Roca are ready.
She thinks they must be.
They better be.
Sabia is sure that Jenna and Roca know now what needs to be done.
