Most Revolutionary - Chapter Twenty-Five
Enemies Closer
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 gains new evidence. Acting President Alecta O’Roura-Chavez restores surveillance to the Perez farmhouse. Sabia invites Kingsley to dinner. President Silver plots against fugitive ex-FBI Director Maximilian Castelan. Tucker Gere remains bound in the Perez underground home.
Chapter Twenty-Five — Enemies Closer
Presidential Aide Malcolm Xavier brings Priama Steiner into the Oval Office. Acting President Alecta O’Roura-Chavez steps out from behind the Resolute Desk.
“Ma’am, your new FBI Director, Priama Steiner.”
“Thanks, Malcom.”
Priama and Alecta shake hands as Malcolm withdraws. “Priama. It’s about time we got a woman to watch over these bad boys in the FBI. They need your conscience and your discipline — they need you in charge. A woman of color, for a change. For once.”
“Too much vanilla poison,” says Priama. She and Alecta clasp hands.
“Out with the reactionaries — up with progress,” says Alecta. “Racist nest of vipers all these years. Exceptions aside.”
“You know that reshaping the FBI may be like trying to turn the Titanic. If not the Hindenberg.”
“Icebergs and lightning storms, and worse, oh my,” says Alecta. “I suggest you move quickly.”
“Like that bastard Trump—”
“But to progressive ends. The klepto plutocrats have had their day.”
Priama Steiner, mentally and physically — a heightened presence — tall, solid like an Ivy League basketball forward, in state uniform. Though she might come across as a modern day renaissance woman in formal garb — athletic, intellectual, professional, a bit artsy — Prima Steiner is mainly a cop exalted by high office, not necessarily unlike her institutional hammer of a predecessor, Maximilian Castelan.
Priama Steiner was tough on the court through college and she still is, hard-edged, aggressive — in all courts — legal and political, personal and professional, emotional and intellectual. She prides herself on her sense of fair play — however biased she might or might not be. She hates corruption, she hates bad referees and rotten judges, she hates men and women who try to play her, even if they think they do not. She regards Acting President Alecta O’Roura-Chavez as the savvy and lucky little captain on her team who lacks what it takes to protect herself at all times. Priama has Alecta’s back now, and she expects that Alecta damn well better have hers.
Priama and Alecta sit facing each other on two couches.
“Regarding the bombing,” says Alecta. “We’ve talked about it — big picture. You're investigating the Navy, the Secret Service, and your own FBI. But what of the situation on the ground in Iowa? Tell me your thoughts on Sabia Perez.”
“A real operative, isn’t she,” says Priama. “Online. On the ground. In her own mind.”
“Is she?” says Alecta.
“She thinks she is. There may be something there. She’s the only witness to the disaster — supposedly. Bit of a performative firebrand. Voted 'Most Revolutionary' by her senior class. She orchestrates school protests. We IDed her in the Catholic Worker House in Des Moines on several occasions, and they never miss an event — petitions, complaints, protests, boycotts, strikes. Sabotage. These are the kind of people we police. Billy the Moto Kid continues to make Sabia known, even famous, online. That kid is no witting agent of anything — more like a talking points recycler. All about hits and likes. Apparently. Whereas Sabia grinds on about the demands of the kidnappers — and otherwise spouts off. For a farmgirl in remote southcentral Iowa, Sabia is extraordinarily close to the center of — too much. Is she connected to the lunatic right-wing traitors behind President Silver’s assassination attempt? I doubt it. And maybe she has nothing to do with anything. Which I can’t quite believe. I don’t believe that or anything else. I’ll find out.”
“So what’s the takeaway? Your action plan with Sabia?”
“There’s no way she’s clean. Not entirely. Could be wrong. Or Sabia could be a very dirty girl. So we investigate. Again.”
“How dirty?”
Priama shrugs. “We can’t move on Sabia, officially, Ma’am, if that’s what you’re asking. Unofficially—”
“Sabia speaks her mind — so what? So do a lot of people. So do I.”
“Like I said — it’s possible that Sabia has zero to do with any of this. I suspect otherwise, but it’s possible. The guards were pulled off. Off both her and her house. That was a mistake.”
Alecta looks to the ceiling. “If Sabia is an innocent bystander — and if her abuelo is truly dead—” She looks back at Priama. “It wouldn’t be right to move in on her.”
“Where's the proof?” says Priama. “Where isn’t the proof? There's no DNA of her abuelo Roca. Look at the proximity to her house, and her house alone, of the bombing. Look at her known activism. Listen to her mouth.”
“She’s like me. A go-getter.”
“Sabia likes you — but she lacks your temperament, Alecta. Sabia as an elected official? Please. Her land, her abuelo, supposedly — nearly her house and entire farm bombed, then occupied by a government that she has limited respect for. So Sabia bombs back with her mouth. And Silver and Lin are alive, somehow, somewhere, and very much missing. How? Where? I mean, I may not be a full-time profiler, exactly, but does Sabia care that Silver and Lin are missing? Or does she care too much.”
The two women gauge each other.
“So you have Sabia under full investigation. The little girl who took down the Empire,” says Alecta.
“We know it’s the ‘streetlight effect,’ Madam President. We know we lost our keys in the dark, and instead of searching where we dropped the keys, we look under the nearby streetlight. People ask us why we look there and not where we dropped the keys, and we can only say that we look where the light is. I’m not joking. The light by Sabia is the brightest — maybe there and in the crater of Ground Force One. When we look where we see, we see Sabia real well.”
“She’s just a kid,” says Alecta.
Priama shakes her head. “Not to me. Nope. You’re kind of old when your eighteen. You’re fighting wars. Sixteen even. I felt like an adult when I was sixteen, tenth grade, going out with my friends, downtown. It consciously occurred to me then — ‘I’m an adult.’ Sure your brain still develops — but shit grows up quick.”
“So, your investigation is kind of like identity politics,” says Alecta. “Solving class injustice would wipe out countless identity problems, not all, but a lot, and fundamentally. And also solve so much lethal class death and misery. But the problem is, the reality on the ground makes it far easier to fix any number of identity wrongs rather than the underlying class wrongs.”
So far, Alecta thinks. That needs to change now. Even if fighting identity wrongs can help fix basic class wrongs too, ultimately—
“I don’t know,” says Priama. “You go where the light is. And all the while you hope you’re not wasting your time.”
Alecta thinks of the bitter, seductive, and addictive politics of identity. She knows that the real perpetrators of identity politics are white supremacists and white empire, always have been and always will be — or so it seems. She knows the white fixation on itself against others weaponizes and propagandizes all kinds of bigotry and racism and narcissism, conflict, and diverts focus from the class issues responsible for so many subsequent identity problems. But you fight where the light is — you fight where the fight goes down — even though you know the main fight is both hidden and shielded in the dark across the street.
“It fucking sucks,” says Alecta. “It needs to change now.”
“We’re losing. The kidnappers are winning,” says Priama. “But we’ll find them. If Sabia check out, she checks out. If she doesn’t, we bust her.”
“The ransom demands for President Silver, Priama, coupled with my Presidential orders, are real class blows to the good. And we need to enforce these class victories against the bully boys and the profiteers, the plutocrats of Empire who strike back, always.”
“That’s your job, Alecta. My job — first things first.”
“We need to do it now,” says Alecta.
“I mean with Sabia. We need to do a better job watching her.”
“That poor girl,” says Alecta. “No wonder she hates the police state. Director Kingsley and I, it was us two — we double-dipped on pulling surveillance off Sabia. Castelan was a prick, a bully, squatting her house and home. Can you imagine — after that trauma? I expect you will treat Sabia differently, Priama.”
“That toxic fossil,” says Priama. “He may be gone for good, you know, forever even. Castelan has every fallback and crooked ally, every covert resource, every bit of clandestine knowledge he needs to disappear. If he wants to. Things are twisted upon twisted out there.”
“Let him run. I don’t care,” says Alecta. “About Sabia, Kingsley thinks we need guards back on her, with Castelan loose. Guards in disguise. Investigators. Disguised investigators. You and Kingsley work it out, Priama.”
“Yes, Ma’am. Let Sabia relax — mistake the day. If we learn something, we’ll swarm the site. Something was missed. It always is. Or maybe a player returns. The snow melts. Could be Sabia wears down.”
“Sabia crack? No way. That's not Sabia.”
“Everyone has their breaking point. People can only take so much.”
“Even the innocent, Priama? Do you mean to break the innocent? There’s too much of that already. Not everyone is guilty even if it can be made to seem so. Think about this — how did we lose the President in our own country? In Iowa. It’s the nation state that lost Silver — not Sabia.”
“So Sabia was sitting on her porch in the blizzard whittling away?”
“That’s where she lives.”
“Insurgents. That’s where they come from,” says Priama. “They grow from the ground up, like weeds. Too bad Kingsley doesn’t know jack. Does he. I don't see his value.”
“You think he should be replaced?”
“You’re the President. My agents saw Kingsley arrive at the airport in Des Moines a couple days ago. They said he looked — and I quote — 'vacant' — possibly 'adrift'. He may be an ongoing liability.”
“I told him to find Castelan. Gave him thirty days.”
“Well, Kingsley in Iowa tempts me to think the kidnappers are long gone with Silver and Lin. But I need to look for myself. I need to meet Sabia.”
“She’ll bite, Priama. Good luck with that. Keep me up to date, and we'll talk every other law and order issue when you return.”
Alecta stands. Priama stands.
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“Make sure you tour Sabia’s winter greenhouse while you’re there. That girl is dug in. She will not be moved.”
“Figs and oranges in Iowa, I hear. In winter. We’ll see about that,” says Priama.
“She’s a little magician, Sabia is.”
A light smile, mocking, almost escapes the bones of Priama’s stately face before dying in the negative cast of her lips.
“Do you believe in magic, Madame President? Disappearing acts? I don’t. It’s a trick. It needs to be figured out.”
They shake hands like teammates, like two captains — new FBI Director Priama Steiner and Acting President Alecta O’Roura-Chavez. “Good luck to you,” says Alecta.
“Luck,” says Priama. “I could take or leave.”
Director Steiner is quick to put her back to Alecta, the Oval Office, and Washington DC. She can’t wait to enplane for Iowa to get to Sabia.
There’s something off about Alecta, Priama thinks. Almost as if Alecta is emotionally on the side of the kidnappers, or on Sabia’s side, or both. The blowhard right-wing narrative. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. And the left-wing dream — could it be a reality?
Priama Steiner has no such luxury to pick and choose a side to fit her ideology. Her job depends upon her hurtling along on behalf of the interests of the state.
Sabia wears a form-fitting black dress. And brightly colored wool socks. Her hair is freshly washed, shiny.
She walks past Tucker, Roca, and Jenna in the great room of the Perez underground home. Secret Service Director Kingsley is due to arrive up in the farmhouse soon — with the Indian food Sabia told him to bring.
Tucker whistles. “Smell good, look good,” he says.
“Shut up, Tucker,” says Sabia.
“Feel good?” says Jenna.
Sabia flashes her fingernails, painted bright yellow, touched with red, matching her multicolor socks.
“Men don't appreciate shit like this,” says Sabia. “They don’t know how.”
“I do,” says Tucker. “Untie me and I’ll appreciate anything you want.”
“See — men are dogs,” says Sabia. “One track — hopeless. Off track — rudderless. It can be good to glam up every once in a while just to make a point, to yourself, to the universe, about who you are, or might be at any given moment.”
“Fashion before revolution?” says Jenna. “It doesn’t seem right.”
“Fashion for revolution,” says Sabia.
“Fashion is not revolution,” says Jenna.
“Well maybe today it is.”
“Mija,” says Roca. “Do you know what you’re doing? Kingsley is a pro who is not on your side. You can’t trust him. Don’t trust him.”
“I taught you that, Roca.” Sabia raises her hands and waggles her nails.
“Seriously,” says Jenna. “You have no back-up in the farmhouse.”
Sabia touches her hair. “I can make Director Kingsley a kind of ally, Jenna, whether he knows it or not. And we need allies. Including ones no one would ever suspect. Kingsley will get nothing from me that he can use against us.”
“I don’t have a good feeling about this,” says Jenna.
“Me either,” says Roca. “We now how to lie low, Sabia, mind our own business, steer clear of trouble, pay our bills, and be left alone.”
“I’m good at other things too,” says Sabia.
“Not these things,” says Jenna.
“Avery. I can call him in as a distraction, if I need to. Or a witness. I won’t.”
“Take your phone, at least. Text us.”
“Already stashed in the farmhouse bathroom.”
“Smart girl,” says Jenna.
“Got to be,” says Sabia. She opens a bottom cabinet door in the kitchen and grabs a bottle of vodka. “I need all your delinquent booze, Roca.”
“Take whatever you want,” says Roca. “But be careful up there.”
In the farmhouse kitchen, Sabia arranges bottles of wine, vodka, and beer on the counter. She selects music. She sets out napkins, plates, silverware, wooden utensils, and shot glasses. She lights a beeswax candle and sets a baggie of pot next to it. She turns on and off lamps and overhead lights until she sets the mood that she thinks will be most annoying to Kingsley and most calming to herself.
She turns off the music. Turns it back on. Turns it off. She flips on the TV news.
The moderators continue to milk the biggest story. “Still no sign of fugitive renegade ex-FBI Director Maximilian Castelan, accused by many now of participating in the plot to assassinate President Silver and overthrow the government—”
Sabia flips off the TV. She walks over to the couch and sits stiffly, upright on the middle cushion. She stares across the room at the kitchen table.
Kingsley pulls into the drive in a black SUV. He exits with a big brown bag of food and a decorative bottle of sparkling water.
On the porch he balances the food and bottle to ring the bell.
He waits. The porch is well lit, the house softly so. There’s no response.
He rings again.
Sabia meditates on the couch. She focuses beyond the room to the angular grain of wood along the edge of the kitchen table. She sees a lyric in the grain, the edge, verbs she sees, all verbs, unable to be articulated, a poem. The top of her head lifts off. She goes with it.
Then Sabia returns to the gravity of the structure of the day, her day.
She wills herself to think forward and not back.
She begins to wonder how strong she may or may not be — and need be.
Kingsley stands in front of the door. A blood-blanching blast of wind cuts through the porch. He rings again. He tries to look inside.
“Sabia? It’s William Kingsley. Director Kingsley. Sabia?”
Not getting any warmer for him or the food. Kingsley listens for any movement inside.
Sabia speaks audible only to herself. “Director William Kingsley—”
Sabia’s mind clears as much as it might. She stands in front of the couch.
She smooths her dress. She tries to speak in a loud voice.
“Come in.”
Kingsley listens carefully to the tone of Sabia’s voice.
“Okay.”
Still balancing the food and bottle, Kingsley opens the door and enters.
Sabia meets him in the kitchen.
Kingsley notices the varieties of alcohol on the counter. He sees the baggie of pot.
“Medical marijuana?” he says.
“You gonna bust me?”
Sabia stands elevated in black boots with thick blocky heels.
Is he being set up? Secret Service Director caught supplying booze and pot to high school teen. Photos at 11!
“I thought to bring wine,” says Kingsley. “But, you know — your age and the law and my job. And the law. I thought you might like to catch me at that.”
Sabia relaxes. It occurs to her, right or wrong, that Kingsley is an idiot. Conventional. Knowable. Even a bit of a doofus. Smart. But stupid.
“And so you have,” he says.
“I'm not out to get you, Director. You're out to get me. Remember?”
Sabia takes the bag of food from Director Kingsley, sets it on the table, unpacks it, inspects each item.
“Is there a listening device in here?” she says.
“Should there be?”
Kingsley holds the sparkling water until Sabia takes that too. Then he finally closes the inner door behind him. He hangs his coat on a hook on the wall. Sabia puts the water by the alcohol and the pot on the counter.
“Do you drink, Director?”
“Not especially.”
“Me neither. Smoke?”
“No.”
“And is that what your file says?”
Kingsley wonders for a preposterous moment if Sabia has read the files on him at the agency. Would Alecta let her, if she could? Of course not. Sabia is jabbing. Always jabbing.
Sabia pours vodka into two Mason jar pints, a third full. She selects a lemon wedge from the refrigerator and squeezes it into the vodkas. She adds honey. Then she fills the jars with ice. Finally, she pours a couple pints of sparkling water and sets them out for Kingsley and herself.
“Drink your water and you won’t get a hangover,” she tells him, as if he doesn’t know.
Kingsley watches Sabia playing host. It’s nice. Homey. He’s wary. He imagines what Alecta might say of her performance. She warned him.
Kingsley glances around. Homey old farmhouse once you get all the cops out of it. Most of them. A bit austere somehow. And cramped. Worn.
“I don’t drink much,” he tells Sabia again. He hangs his jacket on a hook by the door.
Sabia drinks deeply of the vodka. Then the water. She examines the spread that Kingsley has provided. They stand around the table as if there might be more company arriving. But it’s only them — safe and secure in the dwelling — in the brutal Iowa night.
“I brought several meals in case there’s something you don’t like,” says Kingsley. “Or you can enjoy it over the next few days.”
“You should drink,” says Sabia, and she does so again.
Kingsley begins to match Sabia. Why not? He's a long way from what little he has of a home these days. And he’s more-or-less off the clock tonight. He’s nearly out of a job. He lost the fucking President. To revolutionaries. Ransomers. In fucking Iowa. Who knew?
Of course he knew. People with revolutionary mindsets are everywhere these days, past, present, and future. Who exactly does not want to see things change, for the better, now and forever? A lot of change.
Until now, the revolutionaries had seemed so powerless. Until the blizzard. And then the missiles. And then who knows what.
Sabia continues to drink her vodka until it’s half gone. She and Kingsley stand around the table, the food untouched.
“You feel okay?” says Kingsley.
“I was reminded of something terrible, Kingsley. When you came in.”
Jabbing again. “The day we met was a terrible day, Sabia.”
“You were terrible, Kingsley. You really are. I want to tell you. I keep a gun in the house now.”
“What Billy said at his farm — I heard. Is he the problem?”
“You’re the problem, Kingsley. It’s a shotgun. 12 gauge. The neighbor kid Avery gave it to me, Billy’s brother.”
“The younger Yonkin boy. Your boyfriend.”
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
“Okay.”
“Fuck Billy.”
“Do you mind if we sit down, Sabia? And eat.”
“Do you like my dress?”
Is there anything genuine in Sabia, toward him, Kingsley wonders, or is she all snark and snap and growl and flippancy? Is this how anyone should act toward the Director of the Secret Service? Is this how the Director of the Secret Service should allow anyone to act toward him?
“It’s a terrific dress, Sabia. I’m sure you hold my opinion in high regard.”
“Not really, no.”
“Do you often wear dresses at the farm?”
“That’s no business of yours.”
“Well, you asked—”
“So you like my clothes.”
Kingsley looks far away — and for a way out of the bullshit. “Do I look like some kind of expert on clothing?”
“I don't give a shit about your expertise, Kingsley. You think you know everything about me. You don’t.”
Kingsley could say something, a lot of things, but thinks better of it.
Sabia sits finally on a chair at the end of the table. Kingsley selects a chair at a side angle to Sabia.
Sabia stands up. “I’m not hungry yet.”
Something’s wrong. Kingsley decides not to get up. She’s scared. Maybe the whole calamity has finally got to her.
Sabia stands by the counter. She drinks.
“How much money should I ask for, Bill? For the interview. On TV. You said you would advise me.”
Kingsley wonders. “As much as you can get.”
“How much is that?”
“Hire a manager. They will tell you. A manager will take care of everything. Structure your deals, get you an agent. Set your dates, your dollars, your events, your related business opportunities—”
“Can you do that for me?”
“Not my line of work.”
“I mean, get me a manager.”
Kingsley considers. “It might take a few days.”
“Forget it. I don’t trust you, Kingsley. You would put one of your own people on me. You know you would.” Sabia keeps drinking.
“Don’t trust me, Sabia. I don’t trust you.” He should not have said that, though it’s obvious. Sabia pushes enough buttons to eventually hit one that works.
Sabia drinks. Her vodka is mostly gone.
She sees that Kingsley notices her rapid consumption. It’s a fine poison, vodka. An intoxicating poison — a dangerous thing.
Sabia examines her glass. She pours herself another mix of fire and ice.
“Been a long day,” Kingsley says, in an attempt to recognize her fatigue. “A long series of days.” He wonders if Sabia has reached a breaking point that she will not admit.
“Let’s eat,” says Sabia. “Before your brain collapses into your face, Kingsley. Even more than it already has.”
Jenna sits on the couch in the great room massaging Tucker’s neck, where fugitive ex-FBI Director Maximilian Castelan torqued him, and almost ended him.
Tucker sits on the floor in front of one end of the couch. The rope wraps around his waist and extends, tied in a knot, around the structural pole.
Roca sits in his rocker, in motion. Stun gun on the stand beside him. His rifle leans alongside. “I can’t wait for this night to be over,” he says.
“She’ll be back soon, Roca,” says Jenna.
Tucker stares at the stun gun. “Sabia used that thing on me. She looked like she wanted to beat me down with a stick. She’s tough as nails.”
“Twice as brilliant,” says Jenna. “
“A little crazy,” says Tucker.
“Smart as the proverbial whip — on your ass,” says Jenna.
“She’s just a kid,” says Roca.
Sabia’s belly feels warm — combination Indian spice and vodka. Mostly vodka. She shows Kingsley her bright yellow nails, splotched red. “You like?”
Another dagger, Kingsley thinks. “Colorful,” he says.
“Is that all the compliment I get from you, Bill? I’m colorful? Sounds racist — coming from you to me.”
There it is. Dagger and trap. “It’s not racist, Sabia.” Kingsley examines her very short and — bright — fingernails at length. “That’s very pretty.”
“Oh, fuck you,” she says. “You’re no one to say.”
Sabia eats chana masala and rice, with a carved wooden spoon that she didn’t make but she likes. She’s hungry now — her stomach trying to buffer the poison of the vodka.
“You married?” Sabia asks.
Kingsley dismantles a couple samosas with a knife and fork. “My kids live with my ex.”
Sabia lets the potentially touchy fact hang. “That okay with you?”
Kingsley works his food with the utensils. “It’s better for them really.”
“And for you.”
“We make it work. I see them — I used to see them more.”
“You could see them all the time, if you wanted to. If you didn’t fuck it up. Why’d you split?”
“You don’t know anything, Sabia.”
Sabia stops eating. “You don't need to tell me, but you're gutless if you don't.”
“She went astray.”
“Oh — shit.” Sabia digs into her food again.
Kingsley didn’t need to tell her that.
Maybe he does trust her — a good thing.
Or maybe he doesn’t fear her — no good.
“Women will do that,” says Sabia. “Not as often as men.”
Kingsley reflects. “We married dumb and young. Others don’t but we did. There was — chemistry — and a lot of it. And then — there wasn’t.”
“She used you.”
“No.”
“Sure, she did.”
“It’s none of your fucking business, Sabia. It’s in the past and dealt with.”
“None of my ‘fucking business’. True,” says Sabia. “So let me guess. Sounds to me like, in the beginning, she let you choose her, and that was stupid by you, and not her choosing you — which was stupid by both of you. But mostly you.”
Kingsley drinks his water. The samosas are salty. Then he drinks plenty of vodka. Sabia is salty, naughty, bold, indelicate, indecent, and otherwise vulgar and coarse. This could be a long night. Already is.
“You don't know her, Sabia. We were both young. She was, you know, maybe misaligned with her feelings—”
“Misaligned? Was she ‘aligned’ with someone else?”
Kingsley stares at his pint jar of vodka.
“With your neighbor?”
Kingsley meets Sabia’s blunt and intuitive gaze. Good guess, he thinks.
“I’m just guessing — what do I know,” says Sabia.
“I left her. And then she left him. And that’s how it is.”
“She got what she wanted.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Do you?”
“It’s for her to say, Sabia. Not me. And not you.”
Kingsley scoops aloo gobi and rice onto a plate. He cuts into a large floret cluster of cauliflower. He chews with determination.
“So do you have a girlfriend now, Big Guy?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“I bet your ex-wife could tell me. I bet she would.”
“Whatever,” says Kingsley. He does his best to ignore Sabia.
Sabia puts down her wooden spoon. She touches her hair. She pushes it back from her face. She watches Kingsley. She looks around the kitchen. “What kind of person would marry me? Do you think.”
“Someone very brave.”
Sabia smiles.
Kingsley points his fork at her. “See, you know it’s true.”
“I didn’t think you could compliment me, Bill. I didn’t think you would. I’m glad we had this talk. You’ll feel better about yourself tomorrow.”
If he keeps drinking, he might. Or might not. Kingsley lifts the pint jar of vodka and toasts Sabia. “To therapy,” he says.
“It’s just talk, Bill.”
“I know what therapy is,” says Kingsley. He toasts Sabia again. “To healthy self talk. Now let it drop.”
Kingsley works through his aloo gobi. Sabia settles back in her chair, watches him.
Kingsley looks around at the first floor of the farmhouse. Different place, different planet compared to the morning after the bombing. “Nice old house,” he says. “How old?”
Old enough to know better, Sabia thinks. “150 years,” she says. “More than that.”
“Built to last. And taken good care of.”
“I’ll die here,” Sabia says.
“Why do you keep saying that? You said that the morning of the blast.”
Sabia returns to her food. She chews through the chickpeas, savors the curry. Kingsley realizes that as off-putting as Sabia is or tries to be, he's not put off by her. Even if he thinks he should be.
“Bill, what if it was me who was holding President Silver for ransom — for sake of the people, the country, the world?”
Kingsley sets down his fork.
“Are you?”
Sabia bangs the table with her right fist. “Oh, shit, yes — we talk and play cards every night. Me, Silver, and Lin. It’s so much fun.”
“You’re funny, Sabia.”
“You don’t want the country to get better, Bill? You don’t want people to have a decent quality of life?”
“I’m not the bad guy, Sabia. I know you don’t like me, you don’t like what I do. I’m the system — and the system is a cynical joke — to you.”
“It’s far worse than that, Moron.”
“So you know who holds Silver, or not, Sabia? If it was you, would you ever confess? For any reason?”
“There’s nothing to confess, Bill. I’m no sinner. You are. You and your Christo-fascism. You and your white supremacist culture of death.”
“I don’t even go to church, Sabia.”
“Because you’re above it all! You know your job too well — keep the money boys happy so nothing changes for good. Take me in, Copper. Arrest me. Interrogate me, for real.”
“And then straight to Youtube with your persecution, right, Sabia?”
“The people need to know. They want to know the world they live in. How bad it is. How bad you are.”
“I guard the President, that’s all.”
“Good job at that.”
“If you want a bigger shot at a lawsuit, Sabia, if you want more publicity, if you want to be more in the news, you won’t get it from me. All I want are my two hostages back from the beyond, okay? Do you know where they might be?”
“You don’t give up. I told you. I’m the kidnapper.”
Kingsley is less than amused. “I could arrest you for this shit — reckless, confessional, terrorist rhetoric.”
“I know you would if you could, Bill, but with all this vodka and pot you’re sharing right now with an underage teen — not a good look, Bill. Not in Evangelical Christian Iowa. You can’t do shit to me.”
“I could easily deny all that. I haven’t touched the pot.”
“I sprinkled it in your aloo gobi.”
“No you did not. You lie, Sabia.”
“You’ll test positive, you will.”
“Too smart — too smart-mouthed, for your own good.”
“Ain't no such thing.”
“Fly too close to the sun, you’ll see what happens.” Kingsley finishes his vodka.
“I’ll take my chances, Boss. My wings are not made of wax. I don’t melt easy.”
She burns though. She knows she does. And so does Kingsley. If only he could direct all that energy into his investigation, process it, control it. Then he might get what he came for. He could leave Iowa in no time.
Acting President Alecta O’Roura-Chavez sits at her desk in her personal office in the White House. She shoves a stack of documents to the side and glances at the time: 6:35 p.m.
She examines her fingernails, her favorite red manicure, classic, which she considers to be bold and empowering. She would paint her whole body gleaming red if she could — if it would give her superpowers.
Really she should get something to eat — or drink.
Alecta shoves back from the desk.
And then she drives her gaze into the opposite bare wall. Alecta thinks that if Sabia has the guts to ransom the President to save the world, then she should have the guts to — what?
How can she be as powerful as Sabia?
Gods help us all — what a stupid question for the President of the United States of America to ask. How can she be powerful? As powerful as Sabia. Fortunately no one hears her thoughts. That she knows of. She arches her head back half off her neck. The ceiling too is bare.
If only she had a Youtube channel. Her own. All to herself. All the time.
“Fuck,” Alecta says. “Why am I not on Youtube? All the time.”
She stands up. How stupid not to be. On Youtube — always, everywhere. That’s what that lunatic Trump did. To great and ghastly power.
It doesn’t need to be ghastly.
So stupid. Stupid, stupid. Why am I stupid? Yes! “Get me Malcolm,” Alecta says to herself. So stupid not to be smart. So impossible not to be stupid. “Malcolm!”
President Kristen Silver turns out the main light in the coal mine survival bunker and prepares for bed. Ellen Lin is already asleep. Captured fugitive ex-FBI Director Maximilian Castelan lies under a blanket on the couch, bound to the frame.
“Comfy, Max?”
“Not in the slightest.”
“You’ll do better another night. You’re welcome for the aspirin.”
“I only put the tracking device on Ground Force One, Kristen. I didn’t know they were going to bomb it.”
Silver leans over him, her face close to his face, as if she may taunt him or kiss him, or both.
“Well, they did. You pompous ass.”
“I mean I thought they would harass the convoy with, you know, wild pickup trucks and stuff. Like they did in Texas and elsewhere.”
“You’re a fucking liar, Max. For all I know. For all I can know.”
Silver pats Castelan on the cheek. Then she flicks his cheekbone with her finger. He flinches.
“Good night for now, Max. Sleep tight.”
Sabia’s glass is empty. The sparkling water bottle is empty. The bottle of vodka has taken a huge hit. Kingsley puts on his coat by the door, turns toward Sabia. She slides her arms inside his coat and hugs him, puts her head against his chest, and pins him to the door.
Kingsley holds out his arms. Is he being assaulted, or what? He slowly brings his hands to her back.
“Are you okay, Sabia?”
“I don’t trust you, Bill.”
He feels her thieving hands. “Are you trying to lift my wallet?”
She grabs at it. “What’s in it?”
“Nothing for you.” Kingsley stares down at the top of her head.
Sabia thumps him against the door. Then she steps back holding out his wallet to his face.
She puts it behind her back.
“It’s no use to you. It’s a stupid wallet,” says Kingsley.
“I’m glad you accepted my offer for dinner.”
“I’m glad you invited me.”
“So are we friends now?”
“I need my wallet back.”
“Lose something, again, Director Kingsley? It’s too easy.”
“That’s my wallet.”
“Come get it.”
Sabia holds up the wallet again to his face.
Then she holds the wallet against her black dress at her stomach.
Kingsley puts his hand on the wallet to take it. Sabia puts her hand on his hand and holds it on the wallet.
Kingleys and Sabia lock eyes as they maneuver for the wallet. Kingsley puts his other hand on Sabia’s hand. And she puts her other hand on his.
Then Sabia uses both hands to swipe the wallet away from him again.
She holds it up and takes his right hand in her left. She tosses the wallet onto the kitchen table.
She pulls him away from the table, and he allows it.
“Who’s in control here?” he says.
“I am.”
“Of course you are.”
Sabia laces her hands behind his neck and pulls herself up onto her toes. They breathe vodka vapers at each another.
“You risk your job by messing around with your suspect,” says Sabia.
He’s risking a lot more than that, Kingsley knows.
“Am I worth the risk? You could get in big trouble.”
“I take care of me, Sabia. You take care of you.”
Sabia nods. She has her answer.
“No shit, I take care of me, Director. No one else will.”
Sabia takes his hand again and leads him upstairs.
Dawn seeps through the curtains in Sabia's room.
Kingsley knows he needs to go now and maybe never come back. Fully dressed, he pushes aside a window curtain and looks across the road at the temporary FBI headquarters.
“Okay, Sabia,” he says.
“Okay what?”
“You win.”
Sabia rolls over onto her stomach — half under the sheets and blankets. Kingsley turns and examines again the colorful power fist tattoos on her back and shoulders.
Sabia feels that in allowing Kingsley full but fleeting power over her, she has more control than ever. Physical power is nothing compared to the mental in this. Sabia has mastered the moment. She thinks. She has bent the experience to her will. She is the real blacksmith here. She will decide what is to be done. As always.
Kingsley steps outside onto the winter porch.
He hears Sabia lock the door behind him.
On the edge of the porch, he stares into the bright bulb of the sun, like a molten egg of eternal energy, pushing up through the snow-crust horizon of Earth.
He looks to where Ground Force One was destroyed and where all the lives were lost.
He glances back to the farmhouse door, and to the windows, the blinds.
He holds the back of his neck with one hand. What the Hell has he done?
With his life.
He steps off the edge of the porch into the new rough and ragged energy of the day.
A black SUV like Kingsley’s moves down the road from the direction of Des Moines and slows, with its signal on, as it nears the temporary FBI center across from the Perez farmhouse. The driver then turns off the signal and drifts the SUV past Kingsley who stands in fresh snow in front of the farmhouse porch.
Two unmarked agents stare through tint at Kingsley as their SUV passes.
The agents park at the edge of the blast site. They get out and gaze down into the inverted dome of snow. Then they turn and look back at Kingsley, who stands by his vehicle watching them. The unseen are seen. The unseen is out in the open.
Sabia washes in the especially bright space of her farmhouse bathroom. She studies her prominent tattoos. The tattoos feel newly acquired — and never more her.
She may lack some vital emotion but she feels composed, preternaturally, and wanting, endlessly. And yet she is like the cold Iowa land and she knows it.
Sabia walks into and through the great room of the underground home. She goes to bed. She lies there and watches the dim aura of the night lights on the ceiling until she falls asleep.
She sees the 12 gauge shotgun coming at her sideways, to smash her.
Maximilian Castelan presses the gun hard against her throat. She can’t breathe.
“You played me!” screams Castelan. “You fucking played me!”
And then the face is Kingsley’s. He hits her with the shotgun.
“You played me! You fucking played me!” screams Kingsley. “Sabia! Sabia! Sabia!”
Jenna in her nightwear sits on the edge of Sabia’s bed. She holds both of Sabia’s shoulders as Sabia gasps and thrashes, eyes closed.
“Sabia! Sabia! Sabia!” says Jenna.
Sabia wakes — eyes wide, head forward. She focuses on Jenna.
“Sabia, it’s me, Jenna. It’s Jenna.”
Sabia’s head falls limp back against the pillow. She closes her eyes. The first pulse of tears leak and water the orbits above her cheeks. Sabia reaches for Jenna.
Jenna hugs her. Kisses her forehead.
Jenna slides under the covers with Sabia. Strokes Sabia’s hair.
“It’s too much, Jenna. We can’t win.”
“Girl, you already did.”
“They’ll take it all back. They're Monsters. They’ll crush everything. They’ll crush us.”
“What happened tonight?” says Jenna.
“Nothing,” says Sabia.
“We’ve got each other, Girl.”
Sabia touches Jenna’s face.
“Go to sleep,” says Jenna.
Sabia turns her head to the side, eyes open. “We can't win,” she says.
“We can,” says Jenna.
“We can't.”
“We can.”
“Too tired.” Sabia closes her eyes. “It doesn't matter. We did what we need to do.”
“Yes, you did. You won,” says Jenna. “We won. We’re winning, Sabia.”
“We tried,” says Sabia. “At least we did that.”
Sabia rolls into Jenna. And they sleep in full embrace.
