Most Revolutionary - Chapter Twenty-Three
Surveilling Sabia
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.
Previously: Secret Service Director William Kingsley pushes Sabia Perez to admit what she knows about the kidnapping of President Silver and Ellen Lin. Ex-FBI Director Maximilian Castelan seeks to escape from the coal mine survival bunker beneath the Perez farmhouse. Silver and Lin plot to control Castelan.
Sabia and Director Kingsley sit across the small table from each other in the Mexican restaurant finishing off two plates of migas.
“Mario Luigione.” Sabia is pissed. “Who in Hell names their child after a video game?” Sabia stabs a browned piece of potato with her fork. “Who was it that said Italians are unteachable? Not Antonio Gramsci. ‘To tell the truth is revolutionary’ — that’s Gramsci, in his prison notebooks.”
“Is that where you’re going to end up, Sabia? In prison?” says Director Kingsley. “Is that what you want?” Kingsley sips coffee from a small white ceramic cup and stares over the lip at Sabia. “Guilty as sin, aren’t you.”
“Fuck you and your sin, Kingsley. You’re the one. You are sin,” says Sabia. “You’re guilty of sending President Silver into an Iowa blizzard to her death — all but. You’re guilty of working for The Man. You are The Man. You’re guilty of stalking me cross country because you’re no good at your job and you can’t find the President. Gee, I wonder where Silver is? And who holds her hostage for those social ransom demands — universal everything and human rights for all? Last you knew, Silver was where — middle of nowhere Iowa. And now? And with who? Hell, maybe Silver is hanging out in a bar right here in downtown Des Moines. Maybe you should go look, Kingsley.”
“What happens in Iowa stays in Iowa, is that right, Sabia? Is that how it goes?”
“Come on, Kingsley. Nothing happens in Iowa, you know that. Nothing new, little good. Isn’t that what you think? Look around. White bread land of white bread people killing themselves with high gluten and glyphosate poisoned wheat and ODing on insulin to wrack up their cancer and dementia scores, their heart attacks and autoimmune diseases by the hundreds of thousands. Practically force-fed corporate swill creating heartland trauma. Maybe you’re right Kingsley. Maybe there is nothing new to see here.”
“I never said that.”
“You’re shocked that it’s not true. We continue to live in the day of the liberatory revolutionary and Italian socialist, Antonio Gramsci, become Iowan, and now we live in the day of the chaotic revolutionist and Italian-American, Mario Luigione stalking health insurance executives. ‘The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters’ — more Gramsci. Don’t be a monster, Kingsley — history warns you. ‘The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born.’ You’re dying, Kingsley, and people like me are alive and kicking. You know it’s true.”
Kingsley leans back in his chair, rubs his chest, then smacks it. “I feel healthy myself,” he says. “Who are you, Sabia, to stand up to the State? To the entire Nation. Do you really think you or your friends can hide forever? Can ultimately win?”
“Fuck the State,” says Sabia. “I wouldn’t advertise your bristling health, if I were you, Big Guy, because there’s about a thousand reasons why Mario Luigione shot that killer health insurance executive, Brad Timpson, and one of those reasons is that officials like you think people are stupid enough, and sucker enough, and weak enough, to be abused to death forever and ever, amen. Then shit hits the fan and you boys charge Luigione with terrorism. Just like you charged my buddies Jenna Ryzcek and Jasmine Maldonado — when all they did was blow up your death cult oil pipelines and bulldozers and backhoes.”
“I’m not the Evil Empire, Sabia. I’m not the State. I’m just one person. I eat lunch everyday like everyone else.”
“All the pretty faces on TV say so. But they’re picked for their ignorance or callousness and are disciplined to lie. The culture does a great job of that. Nevermind that some people don’t eat lunch everyday, you moron. Luigione a ‘terrorist’. What a joke — what the State calls ‘terror’ is violence or self defense that the State resents and is threatened by — even as your precious State commits terror all the time of far greater magnitude than any so-called terrorism. So when the State arms and fuels a genocide and conducts drone assassinations or military bombings — hey! — that’s called ‘self defense’ or ‘a practical policy’ — by some miracle of insane rationalization. Good old White Empire. Meanwhile a health insurance executive like that thug Timpson and his company kills and injures tens of thousands of people who pay to be covered for their health care. Delay. Deny. Defraud. Kill the people. Well, then, don’t be surprised if you get Deposed. Go cry that an elite mass murderer got killed by one of his victims — direct or indirect. And fuck you, Kingsley.”
Sabia studies Kingsley's plate. She reaches her fork across the table and spears a potato. Then she pops it into her mouth and chews and holds his gaze. She makes a fist around her knife and jabs the dull tip into the tabletop.
“Don’t be such a tough guy,” says Kingsley.
“You eat with me, you get the People’s truth, whether you like it or not.”
A restaurant worker comes over, refills Kingsley’s coffee.
“You good, Sabia?”
“Food’s great but the company sucks.”
“This is super, thanks,” says Kingsley.
The waiter studies Sabia and Kingsley for a moment, especially Kingsley, then moves on.
“Sabia, I’m all for universal health care. I don’t like the health insurance and pharmaceutical scams any more then you do. But it’s not my business.”
“Says the big bad cop on the beat. You better watch out for the next Luigione, Big Shot. People’s patience — and hope — has ended. Something else has got to end now. People are done being terrorized by the death cult policies of the State. So they strike a blow for health care however powerfully or chaotically they might and the state calls it ‘terror’. You would be gun-first arresting Luigione if he walked into this restaurant right now, Kingsley. You’re nothing more than a hired gun of the State. Deputized to pull the trigger. A poll found that more than 40 percent of people under 30 viewed the killing of that CEO Timpson, white collar crime lord, as ‘acceptable’. Nearly half. People know enough to ask the poll question — which is telling in the first place — and to answer it. And basically 100 percent find the killing to be understandable. You’d have to be a complete fucking idiot and a liar to not think it’s understandable at the very least — white collar crime lords rampaging all over the place while blessed and protected by the corporate State. The assassination is so ‘understandable’ because the system and the institutions, the bad actors and the bad actions are transparently Evil. And the assassination is viewed as ‘acceptable’ because blowback can work — when nothing else seems to have a prayer. A shock to the system. At least one insurance company immediately changed its new policy, potentially life-threatening, as a result. Some people fight blood with blood. And you say Luigione is guilty as sin, Kingsley. Something and someone is guilty. Not quite who you claim. So fuck you. You have fucking shit for a name anyway. ‘Kingsley.’ What a fucking joke you are. You’re a dumb tool of Empire.”
“Tell me how you really feel, Sabia. You invited me to this restaurant. To these great plates of migas.”
“And you’re paying for it.”
“Fine. Why don’t you give me some real idea about where President Silver is being held? Surely there’s a deal to be made. And I think you want to deal. Just like I think you know where Silver is, or who she’s with.”
“You don’t know a goddamn thing, Kingsley. Why don’t you say a kind word about the kidnappers in public sometime. Maybe that’s what I really want.”
“You know I can’t do that.”
“Oh, well. No truth for you, right? You just said you agree with one of the kidnappers’ great goals — universal health care. But you can’t say a good word about the kidnappers themselves. Here I am, inviting you to lunch. But would you ever eat lunch with the ransomers of President Silver?”
“I would very much like too.”
“You would arrest them immediately. And you would eat their lunch in prison. You’re their sworn enemy, exactly as you know you are. Would you even trade a free President Silver for a free Mario Luigione? No, you wouldn’t. You might want to. But you wouldn’t. Or couldn’t. Why? Because you’re a true criminal, Kingsley. The State is criminal. It rules by force and deception. The ransomers are fucking saints by comparison. You don’t see them denying you or anyone life-giving care.”
“Not yet.”
“Director. Grow up.”
“Your words drip blood, Sabia.”
“Your brain drips idiocy, Kingsley. You’re so full of disgusting murderous rationalizations, you can’t think. You regurgitate and puke and call it policy.”
“This heated rhetoric. Come on, Sabia. It has nowhere to go. It can only explode.”
“You wish. Oh, it can go lots of places, Kingsley. Already has. Turn down the heat, why don’t you. You’re the one with your hands on the fuel.”
Kingsley and Sabia are no longer eating. They both hold utensils aloft — forks and knives.
“In the meantime, don’t threaten me,” says Sabia.
Kingsley notices that he is holding his knife and fork like a sword and dagger. He lowers his utensils. When he does, Sabia does.
Kingsley considers for a moment whether or not the kidnappers would ever entertain a trade of Mario Luigione for President Silver — if it could be made to happen, which it couldn’t. Probably not. To Sabia, her idea of revolution seems bigger than the people involved, including herself. Which makes her dangerous. Powerful. And wholly uncooperative.
Kingsley knows he will need to catch Sabia or her compatriots by hook and crook. He may be more like Sabia than he knew — and she like him, mirror enemies, but he feels instead like her opponent, in a winner-take-all sports contest. No real enemy. Not yet. But then he meets Sabia’s eyes again. If looks could kill— If looks could fillet— If looks could gut—
“I would trade Mario Luigione for President Silver and Ellen Lin in a split second,” says Kingsley, not entirely dishonestly. “I would try to.”
“And you would fail,” says Sabia. “Maybe you could throw Silver, Lin, and Luigione together into a blizzard and see what happens. That would be just like you, Kingsley. You know, it’s funny how everyone with any status at all in society bends over backwards to say that Luigione killing that health insurance executive who is responsible for enforcing policy that maims and kills the very people he draws his multimillion dollar salary from — everyone with status says that such killing is unacceptable and wrong. Then the reality check of the people’s poll comes out where nearly half of young people tell their truth and say the killing is ‘acceptable’ — because what other hope is there? Even Alecta can only do so much, so far. The corporate state is too vicious and too strong and too deranged and debased. So after the killing, health insurance executives start shifting their policies at least slightly in favor of the People so as to try not to antagonize then any further. For now. And that’s a good effect. And the pillaging class, the big owners, the big execs, instantly improve their personal security measures because they know what type of brutal and outraged world they create, maintain, manage, and enforce. Are not the real Sickos those who most directly perpetrate the Sicko system? The real criminals, the biggest killers wear suits and ties, are worth millions and billions, and they kill left and right and day and night, and are protected by their fucking laws, bought and sold, and there are no official manhunts for their psychopathic heads and sociopath ways. Hell, no, the entire police state throws itself against Mario Luigione who struck a blow for the People, who improved the People’s bargaining power, who put the real killers on notice — in a chaotic way that could backfire, sure, but then again might not, might continue to do its gruesome work for the People. As it has. Mario Luigione brings people the only hope for health care change in this country, aside from Alecta O’Roura Chavez and social warriors like her, including the ransomers of President Silver — liberatory revolutionaries and socialists near and far — sprinkled everywhere across the continent and planet. CEO Brad Timpson fought Alecta’s Presidential Order for free universal health care tooth and nail and now he’s dead and the other health insurance executives are still fighting, but a little less powerfully due to the Luigione effect. The Executioners’ odds of continued wins are a little rougher now, their Executioners’ songs a little bleaker, thanks to the attack against one of the worst white collar criminals who dared to walk among us, and who dared to cross paths with Mario Luigione. People say they can’t condone it. That’s because they want to protect their status and not be smeared by the asinine, the Evil, or the powerful, or they are so brainwashed and callous to people’s crying human needs and rights that they themselves are barely recognizable as human anymore. I mean, I get it. Sympathizers, some of them, at some times, in some places, need to protect themselves too. But corporate America is like a cartoon villain by now, and only the most deeply brainwashed don’t see it, can’t see it, or won’t. Or the most fraudulent. Like you, Kingsley, you’re a cretin people-fucker by day and by night, aren’t you.”
Secret Service Director William Kingley sits back in his chair. He stares at Sabia. He clutches his coffee. He feels cold inside. Almost — bloodless.
Sabia’s eyes are a great wall of refusal to any protest of innocence he might make. She seems bloodless too.
The restaurant worker comes by and says something to Sabia that Kingsley fails to hear and lays down the check on the middle edge of the table, and Sabia smiles and nods. Kingsley stares at the check. He sees only a white blank slip. He picks it up and pairs it with his credit card. Sabia notices. She is no longer all smiles, and in fact she looks ready — to — well — she looks worried.
It takes a worried woman to be human in this day and age. Fuck — Kingsley can’t help but think. Sabia in fucking Iowa. He knows he’s the outsider. He knows she’s the insider. He never thought the divide would be so great between — everything.
Maybe it’s not. Sabia invited him to this winter lunch. Drove him from her farmhouse to Des Moines in her old truck. Maybe Sabia will take him with her to the Yonkin farm to pick up the eggs she needs and he might get a close look at those mysterious gloves that she hid behind the truck seat.
What is she hiding, besides everything? He thinks he knows. But he cannot prove what he cannot prove — neither the whereabouts nor even the existence of Silver and Lin — ghosts that they have become and remain.
“Thanks for my meal, Cop,” says Sabia. “Leave a big tip.”
Kingsley complies.
They leave the restaurant, Sabia first, and they are clapped in the face by the cold, the glare of sun, ice, and snow, and the dry winter wind. They take shelter in Sabia’s truck.
Sabia starts the engine. “We’re going to Yonkin’s farm,” she says. “Then you put it on the road, Big Guy.”
Kingsley nods, to appease Sabia. Fuck that, he thinks. He will not be going back to DC without President Silver, Ellen Lin, and some restored bit of his dignity. And if that means that Sabia goes back to DC with him — in cuffs and chains — so be it.
In the kitchenette adjacent to the Oval Office, Chief of Staff Shakeeta Glazier, Press Secretary Tisha Noori, and Acting President Alecta O’Roura-Chavez snack on veggie sticks, barley crackers, and hummus. They are convened around a utility table.
“The intelligence agencies,” says Tisha. “Their new theories are crazy. There’s a wild one where they think Sabia’s friends did it. They think Sabia hosted her friends and allies at the farmhouse during the blizzard — activists, schoolmates —planning an action for the primary debate in Des Moines. And got lucky when Silver showed up stranded. Supposedly Sabia’s gang connived Silver away from the Secret Service agents — using sex, pot, music, whatever—”
“Please,” says Shakeeta. She and Tisha assume that Sabia is no violent populist. And no chaotic populist either. Alecta used to think that. Shakeeta and Tisha see Sabia as a progressive populist like them. Big difference. How better to battle back against pseudo populists, the fake populists groomed and bred by the toxic push and pull of the plutocracy than with progressive aspirations and realities, tactics and strategy, culture and society? You gotta know what it is. You gotta figure it out. You gotta live it. And Shakeeta and Tisha see that Sabia does. Or they think they do.
Sabia may be a progressive, chaotic, and even violent populist, Alecta thinks now. Alecta assumes that it was Sabia, or her allies, who dropped the private clue in the last ransom video. Well — anything is better than the fake populism of the usual suspects — the white collar crooks in power, the bazillionaires, the burn-it-all-down-but-us plutocrats and plutoexecs of the plutocracy, the plutarchy — rich in weapons, lies, dollars, and aggression.
“Supposedly Sabia's friends rushed Silver and Lin away from the bus into the blizzard,” says Tisha. “Then, surprise! The bombs hit Ground Force One, and — what? — Sabia mopped the Hell out of her house, as forensics show, and got Silver somewhere down the road, somehow, far ahead of the dawn rescue and recovery operation?”
“Let me get this straight,” says Shakeeta. “Sabia throws an action-planning party that ends with her abuelo dead and the President of the United States of America kidnapped. That’s a fairy tale.”
“What if there’s something to it though — something local?” says Tisha. “Real local. People used to live like dogs on the prairie. Dogs with guns, dug into the bluffs. European colonizers. The White advance. Maybe they’re still dug in. First they wiped out the Natives. Then they destroyed the land with their ecocide agriculture. Now they strangle the planet with oil pipelines. They poison and chop down the sky like Thoreau thought could never be done. First it was ozone, now it’s carbon dioxide, methane, greenhouse gases—”
“What are you saying?” says Shakeeta. “Sabia and friends—”
“Maybe the Natives came for the President. Big Whitey. President Silver and Ground Force One. Plausible, no? Who’s Ground Force One now?” says Tisha.
“Plausible,” says Alecta. “Corrective, even. But likely? Anything is possible without proof.”
“Sabia is a kid with a mouth and a platform,” says Shakeeta. “Use it or lose it, I say. Keep those FBI boys guessing. Cops love her — not. She sounds super sane to me. Say what you want, Sabia’s life matters, and she's not going to let anyone forget it. Her Youtube channel at least gets the message out. The people’s media, social media at its best, it can be.”
“Good thing Sabia was The Fig Girl online first,” says Alecta. “Something to fall back on. Something to build up from.” She points with a celery stick. “If standing against the world ever gets to be too much for her — we should encourage Sabia to not give that up — her figs, nuts, pawpaws, plants.”
“She hardly needs encouragement,” says Tisha. “An out-and-out partisan grower of people power and plants is what she is. That’s why the cops suspect her, and always will, no matter what,” says Tisha.
“First and last,” says Alecta.
“Facts be damned. They would be all over her anyway given the proximity of her farmstead to the bombing,” says Shakeeta. “Sabia can’t win — innocent or guilty — oblivious or deeply involved. And she ain’t oblivious.”
“And no evidence that she’s involved. It's so Evil, this thing called society,” says Tisha.
“No shit,” says Shakeeta.
“Left partisans — socialists — they’re the ones who led us to social security, Medicare, shorter work weeks, the weekend itself, safeguards and liberties of all kinds,” says Tisha. “Now they push for free health care for all, basic income for all, college education for all, housing, climate rescue, justice and security, on and on. Meanwhile, right partisans give us the KKK, gun culture, the police state, financial tyranny, and military conquest. Genocide too — from the establishments of both the Democrats and the Republicans. Oh — and the lie of the One True God who wants you to fucking obey the Big Man in the sky.”
“Right wingers are slavers and capitalist colonizers to this day. Wage slavery, white supremacy,” says Shakeeta. “They link hands with the plutocracy and establishment Democrats and all Republicans and sabotage every good thing. Even when they don’t think they do. Especially then. They demonize socialism and peace and popular choice in favor of profiteering and pillaging. The result — a world blasted — collapsing beneath bullets and dollars and lies and corporate kleptocracy. Poison of all kinds. And banksterism. Time to get rid of the banks, Alecta, that’s for damn sure. It’s in the people’s media — thanks to progressive populists — where you find reality and hope for better ways forward.”
“It’s our job to change things on the People’s behalf,” says Alecta. “As the people change us, move us all forward. It’s our job—”
“To revolutionize the shit out of things,” says Tisha. “Otherwise death comes for democracy and all human rights. That's what the national political police stalk — the FBI and other spy agencies of so-called ‘intelligence’ and ‘security’. The enforcers. Spies and liars, all of them. Tell it to Edward Snowden. Tell it to Julian Assange. Tell it to Chelsea Manning. State criminals came for them all — and for many others. It’s amazing how the culture pretends that this deranged rule of guns and money and lies and aggression is not life in the United States as we know it. Only the appointed enemies are bad — not us. Officials lie — to themselves, to the world — and they show the way for people to lie to each other. About the economy, about society, about basic facts of all kinds, about this or that make-believe One True God. About quality of life. About the state of the world. About what’s possible and what’s not. Meanwhile, America is the greatest producer and exporter of weapons and violence in the history of the Earth — always pillaging, always conquering — a brutal military state — a gun and dollar Empire — that destroys and impoverishes the People at home and especially abroad. It’s a plutocracy of settler colonists who never stopped colonizing, near and far. Guns, dollars, aggression, lies.”
“You go, Tish. You’re not our press secretary for nothing. All that shit is what we’re here to stop and to replace,” says Alecta. “We can’t hold back. Sabia doesn't. And neither do the FBI and the rest of the police state and the military and the oligarchs — none of them hold back against any of us. So they plot against Sabia and her friends, innocent or involved, right or wrong. They want Sabia to be tangled up in all this so they can crush her voice and her power of thought and action. I’m afraid they may get her, one way or another, in the end.”
“Run, Sabia, run,” says Shakeeta.
“Except Sabia doesn’t run. We know that. Anyway. I'm told there's an even newer line of thought in copland,” says Alecta. “They think Sabia's abuelo Roca is still alive. His DNA was never found at the site of impact.”
“Not only his,” says Tisha. “Those were submarine missiles. Kraken-like beasts from the depths. Obliterated everything — almost. Roca the kidnapper? Please. Show me the abuelo.”
“Priama Steiner, my new head of the FBI, she keeps her own thoughts, but she — she considers every point of view. She doesn’t not believe it. Could be Roca, Priama thinks. Could be a lot of people. She wants Roca’s DNA, she wants his remains IDed at the site of the blast.”
“Somebody get Sabia a lawyer,” says Shakeeta.
“Who knows who all was blasted in that blizzard,” says Tisha.
“Priama doesn’t play,” says Alecta.
“Nor does Sabia,” says Shakeeta. “Nor do we.”
Direct Kingsley stares from the cold of the slowly warming cab of the truck into the cold of the slate gray farm road that pulls Sabia and him south through winter Iowa. “Do you follow the conspiracy theories online about — you know — you?” Kingsley says.
Sabia shakes her head. “I know where you’re going with this.”
“Tell me.”
“Go on.”
“There’s a few interesting ones. 'Hashtag SabiaKnows'.”
“Sabia knows a lot.”
“What’s not to believe then?”
“For real, Kingsley? You’re the one with the investigators. What’s the matter — are the disinformation agencies no good at finding facts? How could a poor little farm girl in the middle of nowhere Iowa possibly know more than Director You.”
“The leading theory, now — to many analysts it seems the only possible one—”
“Except you don’t believe it.”
“Actually, I do. The theory is—”
“There’s no helping fools and children in the land of prisons, police, and graveyards.” Sabia considers hitting a pothole to fuck with Kingsley. Then she cuts by it. “Cops are the last to know, Cop. And they’re the last to care about so much that matters. For real.”
“Sabia, everyone is not all bad the way you—”
“Bad enough. If not everyone. You know it’s mainly the systems that kill. The plutocracy. You’re not a complete moron, are you Kingsley?”
“Look, the theory is that you and Roca were not alone that night. We know you have activist friends in Des Moines, Sabia. And friends and allies who live in the countryside. We know you attend meetings and events at the Catholic Worker House downtown. We know everyone there.”
“You think you do. It’s not exactly downtown.”
“Close enough. We know Jenna Ryzcek disappeared. Cut her ankle monitor and ran. And we know where she went.”
“Bullshit. You do not.”
“We do. We’re playing her.”
“You’re playing me. You are a moron. Where is she, Kingsley? Where’s Jenna? You think I’ll run and tell my compas that the Feds are on to Jenna, and on to them, or on to whoever you think is hiding her?”
“We know Jenna is with your allies, Sabia. The same friends who kidnapped the President. The same friends who were at your house the night everything went to Hell.”
“In the Empire everything is always going to Hell, Kingsley.”
“Who was at your home, Sabia?”
“I thought you knew it all, Boss — all and everywhere that people live and hide and plot and plan. Go ask them. Or has the whole world gone missing on you, Kingsley? Like in the blizzard. Did you lose my compañeras like you lost President Silver?”
“We don’t know everyone you know. That’s what I think.”
“So the Surveillance State is clueless. Shocker.”
“Your friends captured or killed the Secret Service agents protecting the President.”
“That's a damn lie.”
“Silver and Lin were in your house that night, weren’t they. With your friends. You scrubbed the place after everyone left. And in the confusion, when the FBI took over your house as control center, it destroyed any evidence you didn’t already scrub. Literally scrub.”
“Scent dogs that terrible morning, remember? Prancing through my house. One bit me.”
“No, it did not. I was sitting right there.”
“Felt like a fucking canine attack to me. You brought attack dogs into my house, Director.”
“It was a crime scene. You know — or it could have been. It could be. Maybe it was. Maybe it still is.”
“Okay, thanks for that. I’ll keep an eye out for the criminals, Copper. There was no President in the farmhouse. No lie. The dogs would have known, right? — no matter who scrubbed what. And I had no friends over. No lie. It was me and Roca alone in the farmhouse that night. The whole night, until— he was gone. And then fucking you all showed up.” Sabia shakes her head. “No lie. Now he’s gone.”
“You sent Roca away with the President and your friends under cover of the blizzard—”
Sabia considers the idea. “That might make for a good movie,” she says. “Too bad it didn’t happen that way.”
“I can’t think of a better movie, can you?”
Sabia’s face is a living breathing blank. The better movie is literally all she can think of.
“You're a real storyteller, Sabia. That's what I think.”
“You have no idea. Bill, I could tell you a story that would save the world. All my compas could. But would you listen?”
“Roca needed to be persuaded to keep his mouth shut, didn’t he? And you persuaded him. You and your friends. Did you kill Roca too?”
Kingsley purposefully pushes Sabia as he tries everything he can to throw her off. Her story he is convinced is a partial truth. As she knows he knows, he thinks. Nothing seems to work. What will move Sabia? What will break her?
“Fuck you, Kingsley. Fuck you and all your fantasies of shit.”
“Your friends were capable of blowing up pipelines and burning millions of dollars of heavy machinery. You know Jenna Ryzcek. We know that. Where is she now? And after blowing up pipes and bulldozers — how far then to killing agents and taking politicians hostage? And innocent people like Ellen Lin.”
“Innocent people?” Sabia looks at Kingsley briefly. “That’s exactly what you and all your work buddies do, time and time again. Go after innocent people. Heroic people. My people.”
Sabia stares silently down the road. A jagged pothole approaches — deep enough. She steers into it. Kingsley sees it coming. He braces but is rattled by the jolt.
“This fucking truck has shit for shocks.”
“Relax, Bill. You’ve got bigger problems than this truck and this road. But it’s not me. People like me — you know — progressive partisans — we’re people people — we don’t kill people. We save people. You officials are too corrupt to care about doing that good work for real. The whole system is corrupt. Genocide is your game. Cultural genocide — and the old-fashioned kind, mass murder. There’s this guy online — you would love him. He’s a poet. He has poems that tell it like it is. Poems against Empire. He has one that begins and ends the same—” Sabia speaks from memory:
The candidates are Evil. Their policies insane. The bombs they ship are deadly. And genocide is their game.
Palestine bombed to rubble and Lebanon burned the same. Gaza blown to ash — cremated. The West Bank slaughtered too.
The candidates are Evil. Their policies insane. The bombs they use are lethal. It’s genocide in their name.
“That’s what I’m talking about, Kingsley. The Empire does as it pleases— whatever makes the money boys ever more rich and powerful — no matter how bloody or depraved, no matter how murderous or sickening. Tell me it’s not true. Then the Empire preaches to everyone else about how to behave. Plutocracy. Bullshit and weapons and blood galore. People, animals, plants, and a planet destroyed. That's you, Big Guy. King cop. A cruel and vicious society. The plutocrats think it’s wonderful. And they hate those who object. Plutocrats always want more and more and more — for themselves.”
“You sound like an insurgent, Sabia.”
“A terrorist? Don’t be a tool, Kingsley. Look in the fucking mirror.”
“Insurgents all talk the same. It’s like you’re obsessed.”
“You certainly are. I’m obsessed with the language of liberation. Why not? You masters of death, you are the ones who drone on all alike. Think alike. Act alike. Kill alike and cry about your fake rights to pillage and profit, while denying our human rights, the People’s rights, to live and grow and heal. You speak for the official psychopaths, Kingsley, the pompous sociopaths. You fight the language of liberation — the romantic, the idealistic, the practical, the useful, the realistic, the inspirational, the imaginative. You belong to the death cult, Kingsley. Show me your gun, why don’t you.”
Kingsley stares out the passenger side window. “You may hate guns, Sabia, but your friends were armed. Heavily. Had to be. Or they used Roca’s guns. Didn’t they. Your friends are armed and dug in now. They must be. They know they’ll be found. And when they’re found—” Kingsley looks at Sabia. “Who dies first?”
“You’re guessing like you did on the day of the blizzard, Cop, sending Silver to her near demise. Fucking, idiot. There were no fucking killing machines in the farmhouse, okay. There were not and there are not. Do you need to look again? Get a fucking warrant. And how dare you say my abuelo is alive. Or dead because of me.”
“Sabia, I’m sorry—”
“Fuck you. Apology not accepted. I don't agree to be apologized too.”
“I’m sorry any of this happened,” says Kingsley. “Who was at your house? There’s no better explanation.”
“Go ask Castelan — consult with him. That guy is even more brain damaged than you are. Oh, wait, I forgot — you lost Castelan too.”
“It’s you and your friends who were going to disrupt the Democrats’ primary debate that weekend in Des Moines. You were plotting in the farmhouse. And then — boom! — the President falls into your lap. After a little gun play.”
“Is this what you people do all day — make shit up to sucker me and everyone else? Build a fucking alternate reality to trap us rabble in your Empire of lies. You found no bullets, Kingsley. No gun play. Not from me. Or anyone. That’s your style, not mine.”
“You don’t know what we found, Sabia. And wait until the snow melts.”
Sabia laughs. “Oh, okay. I always do. Might as well enjoy the deep freeze while it’s here. You need another vacation, Kingsley. I’m not even mocking. You can’t wish your way to a solution. You have zero evidence. You know nothing.
Kingsley stares out the window. Lonely out there. How can people not be lonely in a frozen land? Everything looks dead. Coast to coast winter death. Sea to plastic-choked sea.
“There’s a different theory, you know, Sabia, the wingnuts are obsessed — President Silver disappeared herself for the poll ratings. To win re-election.”
“Could be,” says Sabia. “Even a blind hog finds an acorn every once in a while.”
“Except I don’t believe it. And neither do you. I know Silver. And I think you do too.”
Sabia thinks of Silver and Lin — and now Castelan — stuck in the ground, deep in the coal mine survival bunker far beneath her farmhouse. A cold, hard place. The place they need to be. Buried alive.
“Sure I know Silver-Butt. Who doesn’t? The President of Death. She seems entirely transparent to me — as much as she tries to hide from the People.”
President Silver would never think to kidnap herself, Kingsley is certain. It would be too risky. And it would feel beneath her. Kingsley has the sense that Silver thought she should win despite the polls. “She would never do. Kidnap herself — ridiculous. People like Silver get caught when they try things that crazy. She probably even lacks the imagination for it.”
“No guts, no brains. Unlike you, right, Smart Dude? Silver should have fired your incompetent ass years ago. I bet she wanted to. I would have, first thing.” Sabia holds up her index finger like a knife to Kingsley, then makes a quick cutting motion across her own neck. “You're gone.”
Kingsley watches the snow-filled woods and fields and pastures rolling by. He’s the one who is supposed to be as tough as Sabia likes to act. Knife to the throat tough. That’s not Sabia, not for real, he thinks. That’s not the farm girl, fig girl, nursery owner, plant grower. She acts for him. Girl in revolt.
Or who knows? People are nuts — hard as nuts. Sabia the hardest nut to crack. And the land — it’s all rock beneath the surface. The land is even harder than the people — a hardness that grows into them. Sometimes you get nothing out of people no matter how much you might lead them to talk.
Sometimes. Not often.
Just every once in a fucking while.
Kingsley thinks of the mysterious gloves that Sabia hid from him behind the truck seat. May mean nothing. But he needs to find out.
Kingsley considers Sabia at the wheel — how many times she must have driven this road, in all kinds of weather. He thinks back to the night of the blizzard. If anyone could drive this road in a whiteout it would be her.
Like her or hate her, Sabia is a force. Beyond him at the moment, he can admit.
But he’s a force too, long time standing, and with the trust of multiple Presidents over the year — however he may have failed the most recent one.
Sabia and Kingsley in Iowa. They are the paradox of irresistible force — Sabia the unstoppable force and he the immovable object. And the other way around. Sabia the immovable object and he the unstoppable force. They are both force and object — unstoppable, immovable. Speeding down the road, locked together.
Which means what, for real? How does it end? The form and force of their collision is a null idea absent precise content.
Kingsley thinks of himself as a spear that can pierce any shield, and Sabia as the shield that is unpierceable. How can her shield be unpierceable when his spear cannot be stopped?
And what if Sabia is the spear, and he the shield?
No way. Kingsley holds the sword of power. Sabia should cower beneath him. She cannot break his blade. Why does she not cower?
Sabia can put no blade of her own to his throat. She cannot pierce him and end him anymore than he can penetrate her mind and look around.
It can’t last, he thinks. She can’t hold out. He can mistake her repeatedly, and with the full force of the state behind him, if she screws up just once, she’s done. The House always wins, the gamblers always lose — in the end.
Kingsley keeps his gaze on the road — down the road — Sabia’s road. He begins to sense how painful the end might need to be.
Fugitive ex-FBI Director Maximilian Castelan sleeps sitting up on the couch in the coal mine survival bunker far beneath the Perez farmhouse. He is tied to the wood frame by the neck, and otherwise bound hand and foot. He dozes in fits and starts.
President Silver picks up a book at the kitchen table by campaign manager Ellen Lin but she sets the book aside without opening it. She looks at a bottle of aspirin on the kitchen counter. She looks at Castelan. She keeps looking at him.
Silver walks over to the couch and sits beside Castelan. She leans against his healthy shoulder, closes her eyes, as if to doze too. Castelan wakes, registers President Silver against him. He strains against the rope on his neck.
Lin watches from the kitchen table. Castelan and Lin exchange glances. Lin does a once-over of Castelan’s bindings.
She glares at Castelan.
Weary, his mauled shoulder aching though Jenna picked out all the shot from Roca’s gun blast, Castelan closes his eyes, and again begins to doze. President Silver falls asleep against his healthy shoulder.
It occurs to Ellen that Kristen Silver might be the loneliest person she knows — caught between her too-taut genetics and the overwhelm of the Presidency, burned by a vacuum of love in personal relationships and the pervasive frost of her childhood. Does every one thing always compounds the other at every moment? Can it matter even now here in the bunker buried in the bowels of the Earth — time stopped, the world ended? Can it matter even more?
Ellen keeps a close watch over the two top officials limp anad dormant on the couch, pressed together, one strangely willing, the other less so, slipping in and out of what would seem to be their increasing discomfort of being conscious in the world.
From Des Moines south through the bleak wilds and snow-buried farmlands —Secret Service Director William Kingsley tries to see and sense every single tree, building, vehicle, person, and animal along the way. This is Sabia’s land. He needs to know it.
Sabia drives straight past her farmhouse and onto the temporary road around the blast site of Ground Force One before stopping at the Yonkin farm, about a mile from the end of the Perez nut groves and fruit orchards. The barns, the house, the granaries, the work vehicles — there appears to be no one out and about. Sabia parks between two huge piles of snow.
“Sabia, look, if you’re involved with the kidnapping — if you help lead us to President Silver, I’ll do my best to protect you, I will. Alecta could pardon you in advance of any admission.”
“She had damn well better, Kingsley. I’m her biggest and most devoted fan. And you’re desperate. Director.”
Sabia and Kingsley step out of the truck. Billy “the Moto Kid” Yonkin zooms from around a snow bank on his snowmobile and aims directly at Sabia. He clips the bank and spray snow on Sabia as he stops. He takes off his helmet, grins.
“What’s new, Sabia!”
“Billy you asshole! Trespass at my house again and I will kill you and bury you in front of your mother!”
“Whoa, Sabia, easy!”
Sabia walks up to Billy. “I will fucking bury you!”
Billy pushes his helmet into Sabia’s chest. He pops her with it — shoves her back. Director Kingsley steps between them. He knocks the helmet straight down out of Billy’s hands into the snow.
“Easy, Kid.”
“This pure little pale little Evil little prick here goosestepped onto my porch last night and banged on the door. He threatened me to stay away from his brother, Avery. He’s lucky I didn’t shoot his guts out through my own front door.”
“You don’t have a gun, Sabia,” says Kingsley.
“She does now,” says Billy. “Stole my brother’s shotgun and blasted my drone to bits.”
Kingsley examines Sabia with a long and lingering look.
So she lied about not having a gun in her house? Is everything she says a lie?
“Is that true?” says Kingsley. “You and a gun? In your own house?”
“Need to know, Kingsley. And you don’t.” Sabia points at Billy. “Come back around my place again and you and your precious snowmobile will meet the same fate as your spy drone, Thughead. Boom!”
Sabia and Billy crowd each other again. Kingsley pushes them apart.
“You told me you hated guns, Sabia,” says Kingsley.
Sabia throws off Kingsley’s hand. “That was before I was attacked by this racist bullethead thug and his spy machine.”
“She did me wrong, Director. Property destruction. She likes to destroy things, anything. You should see what she did to the school doors and on the steps with her filthy pitchfork. And at the football game, she fucking—”
“The entire Prison State needs to be destroyed, Billy, you creep. You bully. Billy the Bully Kid. You fuckhead, Billy.”
“Okay,” says Kingsley. “Let’s not—”
“You fucking prick, Kingsley.”
“She’s the one,” says Billy. “Crazy Sabia! I should call the cops on her every time! She’s fooling around with my underage brother. When you gonna pay for the gun, Sabia?”
Ms. Yonkin hurries out of the house putting on a shaggy coat as she comes across the drive. “Director Kingsley. What are you— What’s going on? What's wrong?”
“Everything,” says Sabia.
Director Kingsley and Ms. Yonkin shake hands.
“Ma’am. There seems to be a difference of opinion — and maybe facts — here between Sabia and Billy. They’re excited.”
“I stopped by for some eggs, Ms. Yonkin. Billy attacked me last night. Again.”
“What?”
“That’s right.”
“No,” says Billy.
“You did, you liar. Stormed onto my porch, late. Banging, hollering, screaming. Landing spy drones on my greenhouse. Charging me with your snowmobile. What a bully you are, Billy. You think you own the place. Every place. You don’t.”
“William Yonkin,” says Mr. Yonkin to her son. Billy looks away.
He looks back. “There’s a lot you don’t know, Mom. More than that. Sabia thinks she can do whatever she wants, whenever she wants, with whoever she wants.”
“It’s called life, Billy. Suck it,” says Sabia.
“Ma'am,” says Kingsley. “I expect to see more FBI personnel around the Perez farmhouse and blast site soon. You might better remind Billy here not to crowd them. Or Sabia. When they come, they come with guns.”
“Oh, I can take care of myself, Director,” says Billy.
“Not like I can,” says Sabia. “I've had to. And I can take care of you too.”
“Leave Sabia alone, Billy,” says Ms. Yonkin. “Go ahead and tell him what you need to, Director. And I'll tell you, young man, your Dad and I will take away that snowmobile, if you don't police yourself better.”
Billy shakes his head. “She started it. Sabia always starts everything. She gets away with everything. She's always causing trouble.”
“And I finish everything too, Billy Boy. You brainwashed little pisser.” Sabia turns to Ms. Yonkin. “Sorry, Ma’am.”
Billy steps toward Sabia again. Kingsley puts a hand flat on his chest and stops him. Kingsley tightens his grip on Billy’s jacket and leans into him. “How about you and I go for a quick walk and talk, Billy. You think you’re tough picking on Sabia? Tough is the opposite of what that is. Even is she wasn’t half your size.”
“She has a big mouth,” says Billy.
Kingsley looks to the barn. “Ms. Yonkin, you don’t mind?”
“Teach him some manners, if you can, Director. Sabia’s our neighbor. Not our enemy.”
Ms. Yonkin extends her arm to Sabia — and stares pointedly at Billy.
“I got all the eggs you need, Sabia. Come on in.”
Kingsley releases his grip on Billy and nods to the corn crib near the barn. “Let’s stretch our legs, Kid.”
Ms. Yonkin eyes Billy, until, reluctantly, fuming, Billy the Moto Kid follows Secret Service Director Kingsley to the barn.
“Teach him some manners, Kingsley!” Sabia yells.
By the side of the barn, Kingsley stops and faces Billy. “Look, Kid — basically it goes like this — women use their mouths, men use their muscles — okay? You don't fight her mouth with your muscles. If you do, you're a thug, an asshole. You pretend to not hear or to not care — they hate that — then you go your own way. Words to live by. And when you find a woman you want to live with, say, for life, and to care for and be cared by, then you open your ears back up and you negotiate. Way of the world, Billy.”
“You’re divorced, right?” says Billy.
Kingsley crosses his arms. “I’m experienced. I learn.”
Kingsley is well aware that, personally speaking, what he has learned, may or may not be very much, but it’s also beside the point, in the moment, at least as far as things sit with Billy.
“Fucking Sabia,” says Billy. “She always gets away with fucking every— She doesn’t stop!”
“You need to step back and re-set, Billy. You let her drive you mad. You need to stay out of her space.”
“She doesn't own this land. She doesn't own me. She doesn’t even look like she’s from around here.”
“For fuck’s sake, Billy. Goddamn think. Sabia has her own Native roots to this continent. And you — point blank — do not. You’re a snowflake — offended by immigrants, aren’t you. Not that Sabia is an immigrant though you make her sound like one. I think you should sing the song and grow up: 'This land was made for you and me'. That means for everybody.”
“This Land Is Your Land? It’s a fucking socialist song.”
“It’s a happy song, Billy. Neighborly. It’s way more populist than you are. What kind of miserable fucker are you? And do I look like a socialist to you.”
“You sound like one — sticking up for Sabia.”
Kingsley reaches out and grabs the hair and the tendons on the back of Billy's head and neck, then shoves a forearm into Billy's throat and slams him into the side of the barn. “You want to play bully, Billy. Let’s play bully. Or, maybe, just maybe, it’s time to come to Jesus, Son.” Kingsley puts his face close to Billy’s. “Not playin’, Kid.”
Kingsley may not look like much as security agents go, he's not bulky, but the fact remains that Kingsley is a trained killer, an athlete, and a top cop. He's seasoned. And he's armed. He’s got great cardio and muscles like cables.
“If you were in my office,” says Kingsley, “if we were alone — I would bounce you off every wall and cabinet — just like the side of this barn. And then I would detain you. But since we’re here on your home grounds, I want you to do something for me instead, Billy Boy. Matter of fact, I insist on it. Two things. First, I need you to fucking grow up.” Kingsley stares at Billy until the Kid meets his eyes. Billy quickly looks away after seeing more venom than he expected. “And the second thing — I need you to spy on Sabia for me, Billy. Can you do that, do you think?”
Billy is thrown by the demand. He’s not intimidated by the muscle. The problem is, he can't move. Not without excruciating pain.
“You just told me to stay away from Sabia,” says Billy, through gritted teeth. Kingsley’s sharp forearm rides up beneath Billy’s jaw.
“That's right, but what I'm telling you, now, in private — is be civil. Get me some information. Or maybe there needs to be FBI all over your parents' farm too, Son, thanks to you. Who knows what you've been hiding here? Or might hide here. You get me? Am I speaking the plain English you like so very much, Billy Boy. I mean, I bet we look around here and we find, say, some blast site artifacts that you're not supposed to have. And a few other things. Contraband. Guns. Drugs. Porn. You like porn, Billy?”
“I got nothing like that.”
“Oh, sure.” Director Kingsley knocks Billy hard again against the side of the barn. “Maybe not at the moment.”
“That’s a threat.”
“That’s right. Lucky for you, I'm your friend. And friends help each other. And you're going to help me.”
Billy tries to escape Kingsley’s vice grip, but the Director is too fit, too practiced, too pissed.
“You see, Billy, you do this to a women, and you’re a thug piece of shit. But among us men, I like to think we can come to an understanding on our own terms. Can’t we, Billy.”
Kingsley has such a tight grip on Billy’s head and neck that if there were a hook on the barn wall, he could pick Billy up and hang him on it like a carcass for aging.
Ms. Yonkin puts her right arm around Sabia’s shoulders. Sabia puts her left arm around Ms. Yonkin's back.
“We need to talk,” says Sabia.
“Inside.”
“About Billy. About Avery. About guns.”
“Let’s go inside where it’s warm, Sabia. I’m sorry about Billy.”
“Avery’s my boyfriend.” Ms. Yonkin loosens her embrace. Sabia steps away.
“I knew it already,” says Ms. Yonkin. She stares out across the road into the fields on the other side. “Avery is so easy to read.” She shakes her head. “I know Avery. And I know you. Avery goes the other way from Billy. Billy likes the blondes. Avery is so young, but already I see it.”
“Wait — what?” says Sabia.
“Avery likes short girls with dark hair, Sabia. He always has. Since elementary school.”
“You’re kidding.”
“It’s perfectly natural,” says Ms. Yonkin. “I mean, I don’t know any details about you and Avery, but—”
“You’re saying I’m a type? I’m not a type.”
“Well, I hope you are, Dear! Attraction matters. I married my type. It’s not everything — very far from it. But why do you think Avery wanted to work last summer at your nursery?”
“Jesus Christ.” Sabia looks around for Kingsley and Billy, but she cannot see them where they’ve gone, behind the corn crib, by the barn. “Avery came to work for my abuelo for the money. And because he likes Roca.”
“And you. He likes Roca a lot too — he did.” Ms. Yonkin smiles sadly. “It would be too perfect if you and Avery wound up together. Years from now. To be so close by! But you’ll go through half of college before Avery even graduates high school. And who knows — you may never come back. So many don’t.”
“Everyone is trying to send me away to college. Fucking Kingsley — the very day shit when to Hell — he told me — go to college. Thanks, Coach, Counselor, Preacher.”
“I thought you wanted to.”
“I did.”
“Good. There’s lots of experiences you can get there that you can’t get anywhere else. It was a whole new world to me. And, Honey — you know Roca would want you to go. You can always come back.”
“But can you?” Sabia looks up the road in the direction of her farmstead. “I think I’m getting more than my fair share of experiences right here that I can’t get anywhere else.”
Mrs. Yonkin looks in the direction of the bombing. Both in the same direction. Both seeing in their mind’s eye too many things they would rather not.
It’s cold, and getting colder. The day closes in on itself like a thousand doors shutting out the light of the sun. Ms. Yonkin puts her arm around Sabia again. She looks to the cold hard dirty ground as Sabia stares down the road. And then they go in the direction that neither one is looking — toward the settled life of the Yonkin farmhouse.
Billy is sick of being held by Kingsley. He’s choking. He shoves back against him, ready to all-out brawl even if it means ripping his own head off. He still can’t move, he’s blacking out, but Kingsley gives him a last tweak and crack and lets him go.
Kingsley steps back. Billy holds himself up against the barn. Kingsley examines the stark lines of the weathered plank barn, as if it holds clues he missed the first time around. “Look, Kid. I’m telling you I need a favor, and I’m telling you, you owe me one, whether you think you do or not. I need you to watch Sabia without watching her. Does that sound like something you could manage?”
“You’re serious.”
Kingsley gestures toward the snowmobile and the vehicles in the drive. “You get around here in ways I can’t.”
“You’re telling me you need a local with a camera who can ride powder?”
“I need someone who knows Sabia and her place. This place. If you truly want to spy on people, join the FBI. Or Cyber Command. Or the NSA. Or the Secret Service. Homeland Security. Join any one of dozens of intelligence agencies. Or become a regular cop. Or enter the military. There’s spies everywhere. But you’re a schoolkid, Billy, a classmate, and neighbor, a teen. And the brother of Sabia’s boyfriend, right? So be who you are — be neighborly — eyes and ears open — no policing, none. I need an insider. Not a cop.”
“Spying is not policing?”
“It’s not boot-on-the-neck policing. It’s invisible. It looks like something other than what it is. Best if it looks like nothing at all.”
Billy rubs the back of his head. “Any pay in this?”
“No. Our arrangement is invisible too.”
Billy considers. “Look, I already know what Sabia does for my online channels. That’s where the money is. People talk about her. I take video going down the road and cutting cross field to her farmstead and the blast site every day. People in the comments always say they see new stuff that means something. It doesn’t. People see shit that isn’t there. That’s what my channel needs. Keep ‘em looking, and liking, and me making bank.”
“You can’t pressure Sabia. Not so she feels it. That would be harassment. You’re no official cop, no formal spy. Not yet.”
“She’s psycho — you know that, right? You should see what she says online.”
“We may all be psycho, Kid. Use your brains more and your brawn less. Don’t get caught doing anything.”
“What about Sabia? She sticks her butt everywhere it doesn’t belong.”
“You can’t control, Sabia. It’s not your job.”
“Is it yours? She's juicing my little brother. I looked up the rape law, Director. Sabia can legally fuck Avery in this state, but that don’t make it right. Avery’s too dumb — he’s too young to know better.”
“For fuck’s sake, Billy.” Kingsley stares across the vast fields past a patch of woods and what’s left of the prairie. The psychodrama of society never ends. “The goddamn Puritans landed on this continent centuries ago, Billy. So cut the fanatical Christian act. You act like you would — if you could — round up any neighbor ladies who are rebels, or lesbians, trans, or healers and burn them as witches. The Salem witch trials are over, Kid. That was a third of a millennium ago, and you act like it was last week. If you hate that Avery likes Sabia, if you hate that Sabia is in to your little brother, if you hate that Sabia has opinions that go out into the world different from your own, then that’s your problem, your mindsink, and not Sabia’s strange behavior. No one gives a shit about Sabia and Avery, and neither should you.”
Kingsley contemplates the weather-worn side of the barn — blizzard-battered, sleet-scarred, scratched and chipped — old as sin and the sun. “Might be no one closer to Sabia than Avery right now. So be good to him, Billy. Maybe he’ll open up to you, without his being aware of it.”
“Avery’s a doofus.”
“You think you’re so tough and smart but you’re as pompous and ignorant as they come, Kid. This is your chance to be something bigger than what you are. And to be a good big brother.”
“Avery is as squirrelly as girl.”
“It’s Sabia’s older friends we want to know most about, Billy. The ones in Des Moines, mainly. Not her school friends. We know where they were that night. We’re not so sure about the others.”
“You think Sabia’s friends are in on this thing — the kidnapping — the bombing?”
“No one knows. There’s a lot of theories. None proven. All need to be disproven. So this is the angle you get. When does Sabia miss school? What days? If you go past her place, look and see — are there people coming and going? Who? What time? Simply observe. You might learn something.”
“Your people should do this shit if it’s so important.”
Kingsley looks around. “Our investigators, some of them, were part of the problem. You know that. FBI Director Castelan for one.”
“And he’s still missing. So that’s the guy. You should go get him and leave me alone.”
“You don’t want me as your enemy, Kid. Don't forget that. Look. Sabia has friends in high places — ever since the bombing. The highest. Some of those friends pulled the guard detail from her farmhouse. Maybe it seemed like the right thing to do at the time. You didn’t hear any of this from me.”
“So you really think Sabia knows about President Silver?”
“I think Sabia knows something she's not telling us.”
“And O'Roura-Chavez is in on this too, isn't she? She’s the one you need to watch. She’s a traitor. She gives away gifts like Santa Claus.”
“For fuck's sake, Billy. Do you seriously think the Acting President is not trying to help people and free President Silver?”
“It’s not her money to give away!”
“It’s not your money, Billy! President Alecta is acting more like Robin Hood than anything else, and you know it, don’t you, everyone can see it, and that little bit of warmth burns you because you’re so cold, Billy. You act medieval. You think a tortured life is not a bad thing. Let everyone suffer — fuck ‘em. Well, get up to speed, Kid. No one likes a Grinch, okay, nor should they. And Santa Claus? He's one of the all-time greats. AOC is not giving away your shit. She’s getting good things to people who are beat down. Including you and yours, including us all. You’re against gifts? From Santa? You hate Saint Nick? Is everyone crazy out here, Billy? Or is it just you?”
“Fuck you, Director.”
“No, I don’t think so.”
Ms. Yonkin sets three dozen eggs on her kitchen counter for Sabia, who pays in cash.
“When you say that Avery is your boyfriend, what kind of boyfriend do you mean exactly?”
“Avery thinks we’re going to get married. We’re not.”
“He’s 16.”
“Seems younger,” says Sabia.
“Because he’s a sweet kid.”
“What happened to Billy then? One zigged. The other zagged. Billy doesn't like me, to say the least.”
“Don't throw Avery in his face. Brothers are jealous of brothers. Billy is a little jealous of most everything, though he thinks he’s not. I think he knows he’s a little fish in a little pond and he doesn’t like that. He takes it out on Avery.”
“He thinks he’s the shit, though.”
“That too.”
Sabia sighs. “You want me to protect Avery from his own brother? How about we make a deal. I care for Avery. You take care of Billy. Billy is making money off my ass, literally, on Youtube. The more he bullshits about me online, the more he runs videos of the disaster and my farm, the more views he gets, the more scribecash. I don't mind him making that money. But I don't want him in my face and in my space doing it.”
“I’ll talk to him, Honey. Better yet, I'll have his Dad talk to him.”
“Somebody better talk to somebody. Soon.”
Billy grabs at his neck and points at Director Kingsley. “Santa Claus is make-believe. Santa Claus is for children. O’Roura-Chavez. She’s the one who needs to be watched and to grow up. Fast.”
“That’s beautiful, Billy. I’ll get right on that. Tell me — how often does Sabia come by your place?”
Billy shrugs, looks toward his house. “Never. Only for eggs.”
“How many eggs?”
“Who cares? A few dozen, a month, I guess.”
“Find out exactly. And do it without causing anyone to wonder.”
“Eggs are that important?”
“I doubt it. But what else and what all do you know about Sabia? You need to know people's habits to know people.”
“Spying 101, right?”
“Sure.” Kingsley nods. Whatever thrills him.
Billy thinks. What more can he say about Sabia and what she does. Not much. “Wait — there was a car. It was parked in her drive last night.”
“Really? Not a truck?”
“A car. With her two trucks. I didn’t think anything of it.”
Kingsley throws up his hands. “Well, shit, Billy. You do know shit. Now think when you look. Ask questions. Answer those questions. You can talk with me, if you want — no one else. Talk it out. It's called learning, Kid. You need to question to think, and to think to learn.”
“I don’t need another fucking teacher in my life.”
Kingsley puts his hand on the butt of his gun under his coat, at his hip. He pats it. “Yes, I'm a teacher. Kind of hard-edged, you know. We're all teachers. We're all students. And we're all warriors. Did you recognize the car?”
“I don’t know whose it was.”
“What kind?”
Billy shakes his head. “It was dark. The car was at the far end of the drive. Backed in. Facing out.”
“No shit. Quick getaway?” Kingsley looks up the road toward the Perez farmstead. Someone practiced in flight maybe. Could be an activist, a monkeywrencher, a pipe bomber friend of Sabia’s. Or could be a professional. Someone trained to track others. And to elude. Castelan.
“A lot of people around here back into driveways,” says Billy.
“Mostly their own driveways, I would think. License plate?” says Kingsley.
“No plate. I remember now. I guess it seemed odd.”
“Out of state then. Or plate removed. Or both. Did Sabia come onto the porch when you were there?”
“She wouldn’t dare. She stomped on the floor and banged the door from the inside. I pounded on the door myself. She got mad.”
“Okay, don’t do that, Billy. Stay off her property from now on.”
“What about flying over it?”
“You want to lose another drone? Don't get caught. Did you see Sabia or see and hear anyone else in her house?”
“She keeps the blinds closed.”
So who would visit Sabia on the sly? Partners in crime? Castelan? Another boyfriend?
“Don’t tell Sabia any of this conversation, Billy. Nothing at all.”
“Criminals return to the scene of the crime, don't they?”
“I’ll be in touch, Kid. We’re done here.”
So Castelan is scouting the Perez farmhouse? Or is it Sabia and friends deep in the abduction and conspiracy? If Castelan, did he surveil Billy too? Kingsley glances down the road. He and Billy walk back toward Sabia’s truck.
“Remember one thing, Billy — when you're a kind of outsider or when you’re treated like one, and when you're, you know, different, when you’re like Sabia, whatever she is, you kind of grow antennae that most people don’t have. You perceive things that others miss. You get to know different things and to know things differently. Understand? Sabia is as smart as either one of us — smarter in some ways. And she will fucking use that against you, big time, if you cross her. When she catches you—”
“I'm not afraid of Sabia.”
Kingsley wonders what is more damaged — Billy’s exploded drone or his fractured factual and emotional sense of reality. Either way, Sabia may burn them both before this thing is through.
Billy retrieves his helmet from the snow where Kingsley knocked it. Then Billy mounts the snowmobile and glides behind the barn across the corner of a field into the woods and out of sight.
Kingsley opens Sabia’s truck and finds the gloves where she threw them behind the seat before he got a good look. He lines up the pair and takes photos with his camera before he puts the gloves back into hiding.
Kingsley leans against the truck fender and hood. He watches the front door of the Yonkin farmhouse. He ignores a sudden squall of snow flurries as the cold intensifies. It’s cold, so fucking cold. The land is beautiful, the farm is grimy, the cutting wind is austere and unpromising, and Kingsley waits patiently for Sabia to emerge.
