Most Revolutionary — Chapter Twenty-Eight
The Revolution Unleashed
MOST REVOLUTIONARY — A SERIALIZED NOVEL
During a killer Iowa blizzard, fearless DAPL militant and radical plant nursery grower Sabia Perez first saves then kidnaps the stranded President to ransom a better world.
Previously: Secret Service Director William Kingsley and new FBI Director Priama Steiner arrest Sabia Perez and handcuff her in the snow in the orchard then detain her in her farmhouse. Acting President Alecta O’Roura-Chavez daydreams aloud in the Oval Office to her Chief of Staff Shakeeta Glazier about slipping the burdens of office by secretly skipping town. In the coal mine survival bunker, captive President Kristen Silver threatens fugitive ex-FBI Director Maximilian Castelan over his role in the bombing, assassination, and coup attempt against her.
Chapter Twenty-Eight — The Revolution Unleashed
Sabia strips out of her bright yellow sweats to her underclothes. She stands on the old woven rung in the center of the farmhouse living room. Bright colors of tattooed power fists fresco her limbs and torso. Shiny handcuffs attached to her left wrist dangle at her side.
“Fuck you” curls on her lips — as she faces FBI Director Priama Steiner, who supervises, standing tall nearby. Steiner seems critical of everything, arms crossed against Sabia, back to Secret Service Director William Kingsley who posts himself in the kitchen adjacent to the living room.
Kingsley averts his gaze from Sabia and looks out the kitchen window past the two old pickup trucks parked on snow and gravel in the icy drive. He wonders about the DNA results of the oversized pair of winter gloves he found in one of the trucks.
Kingsley studies the sun-and-time-blackened boards of the barn beyond the trucks. Did he overlook an outbuilding somewhere in Iowa where President Silver might be hidden by the revolutionary ransomers who call themselves the American Liberation Army?
For all intents and purposes, Sabia is the American Liberation Army — its anonymous founder — not that Kingsley knows. The ALA is an idea she made up to meet the moment and one with a long history — more than a few American Liberation Alliances and Armies in the Americas, if not by that particular name. Not every idea or coalition can advance to victory — but some move the ball forward. And Sabia is not alone, as many other voices and agents for the revolution bloom online, in the streets, in communities, in every space imaginable, public and private, a spontaneous efflorescence. An ever-growing action and resistance network creates its own life, as need be.
The three big shots — Secret Service Director William Kingsley, Acting President Alecta O’Roura-Chavez, and new FBI Director Priama Steiner — they think Sabia is a bit player in the ALA, if not someone more — but how to move against her — recalcitrant and defiant, mocking and intransigent to every accusation backed by minimal evidence?
So there Sabia stands before Steiner and Kingsley — all but naked, apparently transparent — her resistance and revolution tattooed onto her skin. She’s like a ghost in the flesh. Untouchable, ungraspable — like a living idea. She’s vulnerable and strong. Sabia insists she’s blameless but seems willfully guilty — her posture proud and of and for the People. She admits nothing and claims everything.
Sabia believes her own fantasies, Steiner thinks. Could be the snow-dazzled, snow-stunned effects of the harsh prairie, living so isolated, so remote. The girl is free to dream — to be endlessly foolish and darkly playful.
Well, Steiner is not here to play. Steiner and Kingsley have a job to do, the work of the state, with their guns and their bullets, handcuffs and batons, darts and toxic sprays, cameras and spyware, drones and cops, cops, and more cops.
Sabia is no match for the power and might and, yes, the limitless violence of the state — with all its resources, all but infinite. So Steiner thinks. So Steiner knows.
And yet Sabia persists.
As if she can’t be taught. Or caught. There’s something wrong with her. How to be unteachable. Uncorrectable. A revolution unto herself. So Sabia thinks. Preposterous. Sabia Perez is a preposterous figure of her own mind. And Steiner is here to police her. A good thing.
Steiner knows she can and will break Sabia who is nothing never seen before. Well, almost nothing. Sabia is nothing that Steiner and Kingsley cannot yet make right. “Perez” means rock, or stone, but so does “Steiner,” in a different language. Steiner’s family and name trace to Bavaria in southern Germany — that notorious old place. Now Steiner works for the American state — high up — in keeping with the overlapping history. FBI Director Priama Steiner is convinced that she knows how to break Sabia Perez if anyone does.
In the kitchenette by the Oval Office, Acting President Alecta O’Roura-Chavez sits alone in a corner at a table.
She silently reads her impending big speech on a tablet. This one will rip the ground wide open. It had better. Half measures are out. Alecta reads the key refrain over and again: “Get your money back!”
There are other themes — “Real care now!” — “Make society civil!” — but Alecta keeps returning to “Get your money back!” It’s got the most bite.
White House aides come and go from the kitchenette, drawing water for a plant, grabbing drinks and snacks from the refrigerator, taking paper towels to clean up a spill.
They are surprised to see Alecta sitting there and alone.
“What’s new?” Alecta asks each person, and she solicits their opinions on the progressive populist catchphrases and rallying cries.
“Get your money back!” is the clear winner.
People like that. People need that. Capitalism has turned human beings into ATMs — cash machines, robots who create and dispense, create and dispense, in increasingly insane and destructive routines. People are made to make cash and then give it away to the corporate state, to the plutocracy until they are no longer recognizably human. They are wage slave mechanics impoverished and roboticized. Financially obsessed ATM androids.
What’s needed is a spiritual revolution, and what’s needed for that is a societal revolution. And what’s needed for that is a spiritual revolution. And what’s needed for that — round and round it goes.
“Get your money back. Goddamn it. You’re goddamn right,” says Alecta, to no one in particular and to everyone this fateful day.
In the great room of the Perez underground home — beneath the old farmhouse where Kingsley, Sabia, and Steiner spar, and above the coal mine survival bunker that holds Silver, Lin, and Castelan — Jenna paces beside Roca and Tucker.
Nine individuals alone together in southeastern Iowa — a trinity of trinities about to collide — unbeknownst to them all on this ultimate unholy day.
Roca makes tea in the kitchen. Tucker sits on the couch in the great room, still tethered, confined to micro-movements.
Roca and Jenna have just watched Sabia in handcuffs being hauled out of the snowy orchard by Directors Steiner and Kingsley.
“We’re fucked now, aren’t we,” says Jenna.
“Mostly,” says Roca. “If they take Sabia, we lose our person on the outside. We’ll be eating bunker food mainly. Sabia will never give up — or give us up. We can't go out. We can’t order anything in. Not easily.”
Jenna sits beside Tucker. “You good?”
“No.”
Jenna takes one of Tucker’s rough welder’s hands and holds it between both of hers. “It's better for you if they find you this way — tied up. You won’t be seen as complicit.”
“I’m not complicit.”
“What matters is how you’re seen — especially if you don’t want to get shot. Anyway, you said you would go along with us if we freed you. Were you lying?”
“If you free me, I’m with you,” says Tucker.
“Not today, Son,” says Roca. “We’re not going to get caught today, Jenna.” Roca has come a long way since Sabia first forced him into her People’s uprising — literally throwing him in the bunker with Silver and Lin when she could not be sure of his initial cooperation. Since then, Roca has survived a heart attack and knows he has nothing to lose now but Sabia and her revolution.
“Whatever makes you feel better,” says Tucker. “They will bust you. And soon. You can’t hold off the entire national security state.”
“You can if they don’t know about you.”
“They know. They know everything. They will.”
“Winning would make me feel better,” says Jenna. “I had a good life, a good job, a marriage I chose. Then after my tenth arrest, my husband left me. I had already walked away.”
“Arrested how many times total?” says Tucker.
“Twenty-eight.”
“Whoa.”
“My husband — Mr. Law-And-Orderly. I think he would have stuck with me in spite of every arrest, except I started blowing up pipelines. A pharmacist — sales and operations. I could have lived the good life in Iowa and kept living it. I thought I was. But I’m living it now for real — the best I can.”
“Why?” says Tucker. “You destroyed your marriage and job as nurse. Your family. Who are you to attack America? I mean, most people, if they had a good thing going—”
“America is not pipelines. I did not attack America. If anything, America attacked me. It attacks you. It attacks all of us. The systems are sick, Tucker. And deadly.” Jenna squeezes Tucker's hand. “If you really need to ask why I did what I did, can you ever really comprehend? You’ve got resources. You should know what’s what’s what. Do you?”
“I mean, was it worth it?”
“We stopped the oil that’s burning the planet — Me, Sabia, and Jasmine. For a while. If you pour your love, your mind and your heart into something bigger than you, something that means something, it can save you and save others.”
“You were a nurse — you were already doing that. You were so fortunate. I’m a welder for corporate America. I have to build a lot of bullshit projects.”
“I’m still a nurse.”
“You’re a captive to your own actions.”
“I’m a nurse for you and Roca and Sabia.” Jenna releases Tucker’s hand. “We’re changing the world, Tucker. We’re bigger than ourselves now. Way bigger. That’s how it is.”
“But you’re hiding out. Underground. You’re smaller than life down here, like a rodent burrowing below ground. And you’re holding me captive too. That’s not living.”
“It’s called ‘The Process’, Tucker. The revolution. It’s a way of being, acting, achieving. Good things don’t happen all at once. They can’t. And ease off the rodents, why don’t you. Those little creatures have warm beating hearts too, just like you.”
“I want to go home,” says Tucker.
“So don’t we all,” says Jenna.
In President Silver’s bedroom in the coal mine bunker beneath the Perez farmhouse Ex-FBI Director Castelan lies tied flat to Silver’s bed — his wrists and ankles lashed to the four corners with duct tape and strips of fabric. He is naked except for a pair of boxer shorts.
President Silver is dressed in nothing more than a slip. She lies beside Castelan and strokes his chest. “It gets boring being buried alive,” says Silver. “Wait till you're down here for a few weeks, Max. You'll go crazy like me.”
“This is by far the nicest coal mine anyone could hope to be captured in,” says Director Castelan. “This is not how I imagined your captivity at all. It’s like a secret cottage. With no windows.”
Ellen Lin barges into the room and stands by the doorway with her arms crossed. “This grotesque foolishness,” she says, “this is not going in my book about my days as hostage to Sabia Perez, Kristen. The country expects more from its President. I know I do.”
“Fuck the country, Ellen. Do we look like we’re living in the country right now? Or anywhere near it? You and I have only one life to live. And I’m going to live mine. I always have.”
“Above ground. In the light, Kristen. In public for the public. Where you do good things for the country. Not this.”
“This is no one’s business, Ellen. My people will find us sooner or later. Maybe much later. There’s nothing we can do now, except live.”
“What will they find, Kristen?” Lin points. “You and him — tangled together.”
“Max will keep his mouth shut. He has every reason. He will sign the mother of all non-disclosure agreements for a reduced sentence, or pardon. We’ve got him right where we want him, Ellen. Max did not the launch the missiles.”
“You don’t know that. He targeted you. You don’t know the totality of his involvement.”
“No one deserves any of this, Ellen, not even him. Certainly not me, the President. It’s so beneath me. It’s like we’re nothing — common people who have no control of anything down here.” With the fingers of her right hand, President Silver continues to stroke Castelan’s chest.
“Kristen, this is the stuff of sulfur and flames. Get away from him. You’re the President. Madame President.”
“Do you never tire of being you, Ellen? Leave me to be who I am.”
“No one pays me to get tired, Kristen. You don’t. You need to listen to me. But in this cave it’s like I don’t exist to you. I’m leaving.”
“I love you, Ellen Lin. You’ll save me yet!”
Lin returns to the main room. She leaves the bedroom door wide open. She will give the President no privacy. Maybe she will put everything into her notebook after all.
President Silver smacks Castelan angrily on the chest.
“You be nice to her.”
“I didn’t say anything!”
“You didn’t think anything good.” Silver scratches Castelan’s chest with her nails. Then she strokes Castelan’s wounded shoulder. “You’re healing.”
“Kristen — Ma’am — can you be sure there’s no real way out of here? How can the bunker door be locked from the outside? Isn’t that the opposite of what this place is meant to be — a secure hideout?” Castelan glances again around the room. “It’s not a cage — it’s a survival bunker.”
“Trust me. There’s no way out. Ellen and I tried.” President Silver thinks back to when she and Lin lured Roca and Sabia inside and then escaped the bunker, only to fail to correctly lock the bar on the door with Roca and Sabia still inside. “It’s an iron bar that slides and latches.”
“You’ve seen the latch?”
“Yes.”
“Describe it.”
Silver does, and in the process of describing how the bar slides across the door and the handle turns to lock or unlock she begins to wonder again how she and Lin could have failed to secure it properly. Would someone stronger — Castelan — would he have been better able to latch it? Silver considers.
Maybe not.
Maybe. Maybe — no.
“Fuck.” President Silver sits up slowly. Maybe they lied. The thought occurred to her before, but she and Lin examined every square inch of the door and walls and the whole bunker. They found no way to open the door from the inside. There’s nothing electronic about it, no control panel, no switch. Still—
“Maybe they lied,” Silver says.
“About the door.”
Silver looks at Castelan. She doesn’t know, really. She doesn’t know what she doesn’t know. She’s smart enough to know that. She leans back into the pillows beside Castelan. “They lie about everything, Max. Sabia and Roca. And Jenna. Those people — that’s who they are. They lie to get their way — right to my face and behind my back. And so do you, Max.”
And maybe so do I, Silver thinks, but she says no more.
All but naked in her bright skin of power fists, Sabia stands in the middle of the farmhouse living room. She offers her snow-soaked sweats to FBI Director Steiner.
When Steiner moves toward her, Sabia throws the sweats on the floor.
Director Steiner picks up the yellow hooded sweatshirt and sweatpants and examines the lines and folds inch by inch, exploring the pockets and creases, as if the brilliant choice of clothing might contain clues to the whereabouts of President Silver and Ellen Lin.
Finding no apparent secrets, Steiner drapes the sweats on an armchair, and then she examines the gawdy art of power fists tattooed on Sabia.
“You're an open book, aren’t you,” says Steiner. “Some ways.”
“You're a tight-ass, most ways, aren’t you,” says Sabia. “It’s not my fault you can’t find the President.”
“No?”
“That’s on you. And your boy Kingsley.”
Director Kingsley stares out the kitchen window into the Iowa cold. Neither Sabia nor Director Steiner can see his face, so he allows dark lines loose across his mouth and eyes.
Captured but unafraid, Sabia folds her arms across her chest, handcuffs pressed awkward and cold on her skin. Director Steiner puts a hand on Sabia’s shoulder. Sabia freezes — at the impudence of authority, the antagonism, the purposeful transgression of personal boundaries.
Steiner feels the damp strap of Sabia’s bra. Steiner removes her hand and visually assesses Sabia’s snow-melt butt. It seems like an accusation: “You’re soaked to the skin. How long were you lying in the snow beneath Director Kingsley?”
“Longer than you care to know, Director.”
Kingsley shakes his head.
“Life in the country,” says Sabia. “It was you interrogating me in the snow, Steiner. You kept me down. Kingsley would have let me walk.”
“Bill.” Steiner takes Sabia’s sweats and delivers them to Director Kingsley. “Put these in the wash.”
Steiner returns to Sabia. The Director has all the time she needs today. She can be as patient as a hawk, before it strikes, as calculating as a drone, as steady as a sniper, as brutal as a bomb, as targeted as a missile, as surprising as a street snatch, as gut-wrenching as a bankruptcy, as humiliating as a firing, as condemning as a law, as arbitrary as policy. Steiner feels free to do as she pleases to get what she needs. Sabia has no chance to escape today. Director Steiner will make sure of it.
As if speaking like a disappointed mother to a child, Steiner says to Sabia, “Clean dry clothes? Where?”
Sabia nods to the stairs. “My bedroom. Up and to the left. Go fetch it. Or shall I?”
“Up and to the left. Of course,” says Steiner. She looks to the stairs, then to Director Kingsley, his gaze still removed, seemingly free-floating outside. “Fuck, Bill. Sabia is not stripped here entirely naked. Watch her. She goes nowhere. I’m sure she can lead you to the washing machine.” Steiner turns to Sabia. “You do have modern appliances out here on the prairie, don’t you, Sabia?”
Sabia looks past Steiner to the blinds on the windows blocking any view of the front porch and wonders from which direction Jenna and Roca will attack — as they must.
“It’s not your prairie,” says Sabia.
Jenna and Roca will come from the basement, again, Sabia thinks, they should. They did it successfully before against Castelan.
Kingsley turns at last to Steiner and Sabia. “You get the clothes, Director. I’ve got Sabia.”
“That’s what she said.” There is no laughter in Sabia’s voice nor eyes — more of a predatory intensity. Sabia looks as if she is prey intent upon becoming predator.
Kingsley and Sabia match a gaze. Sabia’s eyes narrow farther. The handcuffs dangle from her left wrist — the right cuff loosed, the only way she could strip her sweats.
Why does Sabia act like she is never outnumbered when she always is? Like she always has the upper hand, from below. Her confidence, it’s aggressive. Kingsley feels, he knows, he must be alert to her every move.
Chief Of Staff Shakeeta Glazier throws open the door to the kitchenette by the Oval Office. She stands stern for a moment and contemplates her renegade charge, Acting President Alecta O’Roura-Chavez.
Shakeeta strides into the little room of domesticity. “There you are. Everyone knows where you hide except me.”
Alecta barely looks up from her speech. She nods absently. “What’s new,” she says.
“Too much. For anyone’s good. Especially mine,” says Shakeeta. “Too much for your apparently limited attention, Alecta.”
Alecta half hears. “That’s good,” she says.
Press Secretary Tisha Noori enters with Constitutional Law Advisor Iris Aetos. “This the place?”
Alecta sets her speech aside finally, and stands, greeting the tight cohort, coming forward with high-fives to all three. “Now it is.”
“Big speech today — final review!” says Iris.
“Today is the day. Today we do it,” says Alecta.
Malcolm Xavier enters the room. He studies the group in close huddle. “What cabal is this?”
“The People’s Cabal,” says Shakeeta. “The way it should be.”
Malcolm grabs a protein bar from an open box on the counter.
“To Hell with the Oval Office,” says Alecta. “Maybe this is how all the business of the People should be conducted. In a social space where the walls have ears.”
“That would create a quick feedback loop, I imagine,” says Malcolm. “But do I know? I only work here. Very low level.”
“Every level of government need lowering,” says Alecta. “To the common good.”
“To lift us up,” says Shakeeta.
“To do the job,” says Tisha.
“To do it well,” says Iris. “It’s good work. It can be.”
“It must be,” says Alecta.
“Power to the People!” Malcolm pumps his left fist on the way out.
“My speech today is going to light fire under asses. Or I’ll fail.”
“You have every right. Light it up,” says Shakeeta.
“You have every duty. By law. And by higher law,” says Iris.
“If not us, who? If not now, when?” says Tisha.
“This speech, these declarations, these orders, these actions will piss off the worst of the Swamp — the One Tenth of the One Percent. They will go berserk. But then — they already are.”
“All to the good,” says Tisha. “You'll piss off more than that. You’ll badly bruise the ideology of part of every class and position today. If you’re brainwashed you know less than you think — and you know it badly.”
“We’re ready,” says Shakeeta. “You are.”
“We must be.”
“It’s time,” says Iris. “Past time, long past. Things are in order. It’s due — a revolution for the country, the world. Humankind has come home to roost. The planet is burning. It’s now or never.”
“We need to banish the rot,” says Tisha. “It runs so deep. It destroys so much. We know how bad it smells.”
“Bad bad,” says Shakeeta.
“Then we’re agreed,” says Alecta. “Now is the hour. The People’s Hour of Power. Let’s do it.”
They are a kernel, their small huddle, self-encased, impervious to the elements, eager to sprout and bloom as the moment arrives.
They brace themselves for their forward venture. They are ready.
FBI Director Priama Steiner goes upstairs in the Perez farmhouse to get Sabia’s dry clothes from her bedroom.
Sabia goes to Kingsley and rips her sweats from his hands.
“Ever seen a butt like mine before, Bill?” Sabia locks Kingsley’s eyes. She smacks her backside. Then she punches Kingsley in the chest — not to move him — to punch him — to feel the power of her fist against his chest, driving — her fist on his uniform — her fist pointed brown and popping, calculated to remind the pale-brain Kingsley that Sabia exists in her own way, the way she will, and she cannot be moved from it. Sabia’s fist, fragile yet firm, hits him in the chest with more punch than his woven suit of armor can withstand, she likes to think, his utterly sterile and menacing corporate uniform, expensive, unfeeling. It’s nothing before her.
Kingsley holds her off with his eyes but he knows he is captured by the one he meant to capture. A tale as old as time, old as the prairie. Older. After last night, after every sudden consequence of his actions, Kingsley knows his fate is clawed into Sabia’s hands. Last night — that was a world apart but the results are omnipresent now. They must work together. But how?
“I’ll show you where the washer is, Kingsley. Then I’ll watch you do my laundry.”
“Where is it?”
“You know.” Sabia looks to the door of the basement. “You and your men searched the entire house. Inventoried it. You should remember. The washer is in the cellar. Let’s go.”
Kingsley considers.
He knows the weathered old wooden boards of the cellar door can stick when you try to open it. Humidity makes it worse. He cannot quite tell if the door is slightly ajar — or if the whole doorframe is crooked, after all these years. He knows where the washer is. He also knows that Sabia leads him to places he should not go.
“Take these chains off me first.” Sabia lifts her left arm and the shiny handcuffs, dangling carceral bracelet, barbarous insult to her being.
“Not yet,” says Kingsley.
“Be a gentleman, Bill. Free me.”
“That’s Steiner’s call.”
“I’m not even secured like this. I could swing these cuffs at you. You better be safe, Bill, and free me.”
“Talk to Director Steiner.”
“Fuck you then. Come on, let’s go. It’s laundry time.”
Sabia moves toward the basement door. She hopes Roca and Jenna are crouched there now, armed and waiting, hidden and ready to strike.
They did it to Castelan. Time to capture these treacherous officials and burn their cars to the bottom of Iowa’s ocean, Rathbun Lake. Been there done that. Now they need to do it again.
“We’re not going down into the basement,” says Kingsley.
“Why not? The washer—”
“No.”
“We are. Let’s go.”
“You’re not going anywhere,” Kingsley tells Sabia.
“Steiner said to. She’s the boss now — she’s the big man on the scene. Not you. You never were.”
“Relax.” Director Kingsley lays Sabia’s sweats over the back of a kitchen chair. He lowers his voice. “Listen. You know if you have my back, I have yours. But if you don’t back me all the way, then — well, you hang.”
Sabia swings the handcuffs at Kingsley. He dodges. And steps back.
“Remember this like you remember last night, Kingsley—” Sabia makes a fist with her free hand. “You need to have my back at all times, you want to have my back, and I don’t want anything to do with you and yours. Got it? Good. You buffer me from Director Steiner. You keep me here in my home. Or the first thing I do is I get half a dozen celebrity lawyers and name you in a lawsuit for violating everything about me. Is that clear. Is that what you want.”
“I can’t work with you, if you won’t work with me, Sabia.”
“Then let’s go downstairs.”
Sabia steps toward the basement door. Kingsley grabs the handcuffs and jerks her to a stop.
“No,” he says. “Does anyone ever tell you, ‘No’, Sabia?”
Director Kingsley pulls Sabia against his side with the handcuffs just to show her that he can.
Director Steiner glances around Sabia's bedroom. The bed is unmade, bra on a lampshade, the sheets and covers a jumbled mess, partly on the floor, one pillow also on the floor. As if a windstorm moved through. Steiner takes in the whole scene. She speculates.
Is there any hope for order in the world?
It’s the obvious aftermath of the carefree and the indulgent. Or the desperate. Passion unleashed. Intimacies, out of control.
Everything else about the room appears entirely neat and tidy. Almost immaculate.
Director Steiner uses her phone to take pictures of the incriminating mess. She begins to feel like judge, jury, and executioner — doing her job out her on the Iowa prairie.
Good thing she got the covert trace placed on Director Kingsley's phone. That was her first official act upon being appointed FBI Director by Acting President Alecta O’Roura-Chavez. Not that Alecta knows a thing about it.
Only Director Steiner knows exactly where Secret Service Director Kingsley was last night. And now she thinks she understands exactly what happened then and there — right here. With whom and how and probably why.
Men.
Director Steiner considers the scene and every implication. She picks the bra off the lampshade and holds it up to the window light to inspect. Men and women. Such a mess. She drapes the bra back on the lampshade.
Men and women — a ridiculous system.
Steiner speaks into her phone. “The former lead investigator into the disappearance of President Silver — Secret Service Director William Kingsley — appears to be entirely compromised by the sole witness. For how long?”
Steiner goes to Sabia’s closet where she finds a mishmash of both dark and bright clothes. Not as many clothes in the closet as she would have thought — not by far. Almost as if a transient lives here.
Now why would that be?
Does Sabia’s closet say something about Sabia’s life and mind? Is she broken in behavior and psyche? Is she merely poor?
Or is Sabia truly transient? If so, where else does she go — where does she live? What became of her clothes? Director Steiner speaks into her phone: “Are President Silver and Ellen Lin currently wearing Sabia’s extra clothes somewhere in captivity?”
Director Steiner feels inspired and imaginative. She considers what she does know for sure — that Sabia Perez is no wholesome country girl, by far.
Steiner sorts quickly through the few fabrics colorful and dark and picks out possible matches to make an outfit for Sabia.
Downstairs, Sabia pushes away from Kingsley with both hands. “Fine,” she says. “I've got your back. I'll defend you. And you protect me.”
“No choice, right?” Kingsley says quietly. “You and I — we never happened. And as long as you deny it, I'll protect you. As much as I can. You're innocent — of everything — as far as I know. You're as innocent as a song in a breeze, as far as anyone can know. Whatever I might actually believe.”
“Because that's the truth,” says Sabia.
“You don’t actually believe that.”
“Absolutely I do. That’s the truth. I really am innocent in all this.” Sabia jabs her index finger at Kingsley’s face. “Not that I care what anyone thinks.”
“Of course not.”
“There’s a world to save, Director. The ALA is innocent. I’m innocent. You should get in on the good thing while you still can. Save your soul, Big Guy.” Sabia looks toward the basement. “Let’s go,” she says.
Sabia extends her hand to Director Kingsley, but Director Steiner comes down the stairs. “You need to get dressed, Sabia. Right now.”
Sabia returns to the center of the living room.
Steiner stops on the bottom step. “I hope you two had a nice chat,” she says. “For both your sakes. It looks like someone had a nice time upstairs last night. Some ones.”
“You know nothing,” says Sabia.
Steiner ignores Sabia and watches Director Kingsley who stands imperious before her. Steiner can’t touch him, he’s confident, as long as Sabia backs him up.
Steiner drops Sabia’s clothes and the towel onto the couch. “There’s only one reason you’re not in a proper FBI interrogation room right now, Ms. Perez. I haven’t had a chance to replace Castelan’s crew yet. So you’re missing out on a really great formative experience. We both are. Soon enough though.”
“That’s not going to happen,” says Sabia.
“In the meantime, I’ve got you here all to myself.”
“You’ve got nothing,” says Sabia.
Steiner turns again on Kingsley. “Look away, Lothario. I'll deal with you later. Soon later.” Steiner’s teeth flash briefly through something less than a smile.
“Ma’am. I’m the Director of the Secret Service. I report to the President. Not to you.”
“That's one interpretation. Not a good one.”
Director Steiner taps Kingsley in the middle of his chest with the full flat of her right hand. Kingsley barely tolerates it. Everyone seems to think they can push him around now.
He will tolerate only so much, and then no more. He tries to advise Director Steiner with his eyes.
“Turn around, Bill. Stop creeping on poor Sabia. Let this young woman dress in peace.”
Kingsley turns away and faces the old clock and cabinet hung on the kitchen wall near the window above the sink. The clock does not work. Its wrought iron hands are stopped at a minute to midnight.
“Strip it, Sabia. Dry off and dress warm,” Steiner tells her. “I want you as comfortable as possible. This could be a long chat.”
Acting President Alecta O'Roura-Chavez stands behind the lectern in the crowded press room. She could not look more determined.
Tight rows of reporters sit before her. Alecta's key party members and other supporters crowd along all edges of the room. The fire marshal has been dismissed.
Alecta seems to glance at everyone, each in turn. She tries to miss no one. The ruffling and the gabbing and the joking and then the hushing of the many onlookers feels heavy and anxious, expectant and disturbed but most of all excited, almost over-stimulated. There is a low, loud rumble of consciousness. Something is going to happen this evening. Something is happening now.
Director Castelan remains splayed flat, bound on the bed in the bunker, except now he is layered under sheets and covers and President Silver is under those sheets and covers, and on top of him.
“This is how fucked I am,” says Castelan.
“Very funny, Max. You made your own bed.”
“I’m a hostage. That makes this rape.”
“You’re a mass murder, Max. An assassin. A coup plotter. You tried to kill me. Do you want me to climb off?”
Castelan adjusts his wounded shoulder and grimaces. “What do you want?”
“Go ahead and talk, Assassin.”
“You’re sick.”
“Pot calling kettle black. You said you were willing to earn your semi-pardon. You said you would do anything. I don't think I'm asking too much, Max. Am I?”
“You really are out of your mind. Madame President.” Castelan practically spits out her title. “Look — I did what I was forced to do.”’
“You were the Director of the FBI. You were not forced to do a goddamned thing.”
“You don’t understand.”
“No — I don’t care to. I’m the President of the United States of America. And you’re not. And I'm a traumatized hostage — don’t forget. There will be no mercy for you from anyone. Mercy comes only from me, if it ever does. Got it?”
Silver leans forward toward him. Castelan turns his face away. “You’re depraved,” he says.
“I’m the President. I do what I want.”
“Full pardon,” says Castelan. “I pulled no trigger. I was blackmailed into planting the device.”
“Fuck you, Max.” Silver slaps him. “Look at me.”
Finally he does. And she slaps him again.
Fifty feet of cold dark earth above the coal mine bunker, free of handcuffs at last and newly dressed in red sweats and bright yellow socks, and now sitting at the kitchen table in the old farmhouse, Sabia hunches over freshly brewed herbal tea. She does her best to ignore the two Directors dressed in their gloomy official garb who crowd her.
Sabia sits on the barn side, back to the kitchen sink, while FBI Director Priama Steiner and Secret Service Director William Kingsley sit at each end of the table, facing each other — front door at Kingsley’s back, cellar door at Steiner’s back — each seeing the opposite door. Bad logistics, Sabia thinks. She can’t do much about it, yet.
Steiner cradles her cup of hot tea. Kingsley grips a cup of his own. He does not much want the tea, but he intends to mimic and reflect Sabia as much as possible.
“Now, Sabia. Spit it out,” says Director Steiner. “Who took President Silver? Where is Ellen Lin? How is Roca involved? Where is he? Who holds the President? It’s prison for you today, or give it all up.”
“Either way I go to prison. I know that. You know that.”
Steiner and Kingsley exchange a look.
“Careful, Sabia. That sounds like a confession,” says Steiner.
“I tell you nothing. And you deserve to know nothing. Maybe it’s you who should be careful here, Director. The bigger they come, the harder they fall. I could call Alecta and get her to kick you in the ass right now. How ‘bout that? You have no right to be here in my home.”
“Sabia, that’s a non-denial. And a threat. Look. I'm glad you get along with President O’Roura-Chavez. My guess — she will give you an immediate pardon, even a preemptive pardon — if you confess. So why don’t you? Nothing to fear. Whatever your role — we’ll keep it from the press as long as possible. You get to stay on the farm — your home. You can hide out here as long as you like. We’ll even guard you from the press under guise of site-based national security. I understand that you got in over your head here, Sabia. Alecta cares very much for you. Isn't that correct, Director Kingsley?”
“It would seem so,” says Kingsley.
“No one trusts the FBI, okay, Steiner. Nor should they. No one should talk to the cops. Ever. I’ve got nothing to say to you.”
“You talked to me,” says Kingsley.
“You’re a plain idiot, that’s why.”
Steiner slaps her palms flat on the table. “Who survived the bombing, Sabia? Besides Silver and Lin? Someone else—”
“Stop guessing.” Sabia pushes her chair back from the table and stands up. She leans over, hands pressed to the wood surface, face to face with Director Steiner. “No one survived the bombing — no one that you don’t already know about.”
“Another non-denial.” Director Steiner leans to one side and shows Sabia her gun on her right hip. “The Directors are armed, Sabia. You're going nowhere. I called in other agents and guards. They’re standing outside. It’s too late for you. It’s too late now. There's nothing you can do but confess.”
“You pompous ass,” says Sabia.
“Roca survived the bombing. Admit it, Sabia.”
Sabia takes her tea. Sips it. “Prove it, Genius.”
“Hospital security footage. The FBI has excellent digital identification technology. We’ve got Roca walking into the hospital and walking out. Nine days after the fact! We proved it. When it's useful to be made public, we will do so.”
“That’s his twin. Identical. From Mexico. I told the hospital. And you know it.”
“Stop lying.” Steiner stands up. She walks away from her chair and back again. “This doesn’t need to be a long conversation. But I’m ready for it.”
“I talk only to Alecta and to Alecta only. I don’t trust you.”
“Do you trust him?” Steiner nods at Kingsley. “You two seem to have quite a connection. A real tight connection.”
Sabia's scowls. “Kingsley is brainless.”
“You opened up to him last night. Didn’t you.”
Sabia steps away from the table. “What’s wrong with you, Steiner!”
“Director, please—” says Kingsley.
“You fucked the primary suspect, Kingsley! I obtained a warrant to track your phone, and track it I did. You spent last night in this house.”
Kingsley is stunned. He looks at Sabia. She looks away.
Acting President Alecta O'Roura-Chavez sounds remarkable, at ease and in command. She looks powerful at the Press Room lectern. She glows and radiates. She is one hundred percent in control, authoritative, relaxed.
“Today is the day that We The People finally push back against the masters of money who push us all down. Today is the day that you get your money back. Get your money back. We the people own all the money — by right, by law, by Constitution. All of it. It’s our money to do with as we will. And we will. We make it, we distribute it, we regulate it. In the beginning and in the end, we own it. Such is the law. Such is our right. Corruption allows the money to slip too far from far too many of us. That time has come and gone. Now is our time. It’s time to get your money back. The Peoples' time. The People’s money. The corruption ends now. The financial hoarding ends now. The financial abuse and financial lashings end now. The new day begins now. We will make society civil. With real care now.”
Alecta engages in shared looks one-by-one with many of the reporters and supporters, officials and other invited observers in the press room. She lets the moment draw out.
“By the end of today, the US Justice Department will file corruption charges against more than half of the Supreme Court. I urge Congress to impeach and remove each of those alleged money-trafficking individuals. No longer will corrupt judges be allowed to deprive We The People of our health, our education, our freedom, our rights as the good, fair, and just people that we strive to be.”
Alecta allows another dramatic pause.
“By the end of the day, I will recommend for nomination to the Supreme Court outstanding judges who will either replace the corrupt judges or be added to the Court to balance out the harm that the corrupt inflict.”
Alecta slaps the lectern with her left hand, fingers spread wide.
“We The People will be pushed around no more! No more! No more! Today you will get your money back!”
On the bed in her bunker bedroom, President Silver straddles Castelan and drops forward so that her forearms sharpen into Castelan’s neck, choking off the blood and air in his throat.
“Talk to your President, Max. Tell me about the assassination attempt.”
Castelan tries to speak. Silver eases up. Castelan’s voice sounds mean, low, and threatening. “You always want more,” he says. “You don't deserve more.” Silver can hardly believe what she hears.
How dare he defy her. She lifts up from Castelan and drops hard back down onto his face and neck. “I’m the President,” she says. “What I say goes.”
“You take and you take,” says Castelan, mean and threatening as he can muster. “You take from the wrong people.”
President Silver holds perfectly still, her weight on his neck. She stares down. “You’re all the same — you right-wingers and the left-wingers — you and Sabia. You think you get to tell me what to do. I’m the reasonable middle. I’m the President, I get to do what I want. No questions asked. You are a murderer, Max. And Sabia is a kidnapper. It’s a damned good thing that the respectable people in this world like me exist.” Silver slaps Castelan. Then she grinds her elbow harder into his neck.
Castelan tries to twist away. He partially lifts his head. Finally he gives up as Silver lords over him. He drops his head back to pillow.
“I’m the President,” she says. “You answer to me. You and everyone else.”
Alecta grabs the lectern with both hands. She sounds and looks as strong as can be — in full command in the press room, in the nation.
“I hereby declare a state of emergency. A state of national and international emergency. People are dying. The planet is dying. Society is dying. Our kin all across the world are dying. Our people. All the peoples. All the plants and animals. We are tight in the grip of the sixth great extinction. The planet is broiling. If the Greenland ice cap melts the seas will rise twenty feet. If the Antarctic ice cap melts the seas will rise 200 feet. Science has shown that if we continue down this path, the seas will boil dry! People are dying of poverty, and disease, and malnutrition, and violence — all around us and all across the globe. Money could save them. Peace could save them. Education and good care, good works could save them. And by them I mean us. Everyone.”
“Fuck you!” shouts Silver at Castelan. “I’m the President! Me and no other! Who’s your President, Max? Who’s your President?”
Castelan turns his head to the side. “You are,” he says. “You’re the President.”
Acting President Alecta O'Roura-Chavez is feeling it. She feels full of energy and exasperation in face of those gathered before her. She points with alternating index fingers of first one hand then the other to emphasize each policy and order that she announces:
“We the People are left with no choice. It is our right, it is our duty to save the world, to save ourselves, to save our planet and all the great life upon it. And so — given the National and International Emergency, I hereby declare a Climate Emergency, a Health Emergency, an Education Emergency, a Housing Emergency, a Peace Emergency, a Debt Relief Emergency, a Monetary Emergency, and an Emergency of Justice. All of my progressive populist Executive Orders must be implemented, effective immediately. The money-grabbing profiteers will no longer call the shots. We the People call the shots — now. And to this end, I, Alecta O’Roura-Chavez as Acting President and Commander in Chief of the United States military, including the National Guard — I hereby order the timely closure of 750 US military bases in 80 countries. Each and every soldier and staff person will return and be retrained as necessary and be redeployed on home ground as a Civilian Community Corps that will help rebuild and restore the country and the world to a green and thriving future. The vast bulk of our weapons and weapon systems will be decommissioned in simultaneous accord with those of the other powers of the world. We will exchange the bloody lunacy of our menacing and lethal swords for the cooperative acts of survival, prosperity, and peace. We will nationalize the banks. We will nationalize the energy and agriculture industries. We will nationalize the health care system. We will double the payment of Social Security and lower the retirement age. And we will provide monthly universal basic income. Or we will fail utterly in our potential. It’s time to get your money back — from the robber barons, from the lethal industrial giants, from the plutocrats and technocrats, from the plutarchy, from the weapons dealers, and from the billionaires who don’t give a damn! We will make our lives and planet and society new. Anew! Anew! We will make society civil for the first time ever. There will be real care now. Our torturing and slave-driving prisons will be vastly shrunk from their ghastly bloat — and those few that remain will be transformed into health centers and universities — lively campuses of human change and possibility. Our bomb-raining, genocidal, and profiteering military conquests will be ended permanently. Unlike all the American bomb-throwing Presidents before me, I will not be one who could be hanged by the standards of the Nuremberg trials, post-World War Two, when the top Nazis were prosecuted and convicted of the ultimate crimes. No more genocidalists — no more genocides. The bloody plutocracy will be replaced in all sectors of society with a progressive, friendly democracy. America and the world will be a place where the Good Samaritan would be proud to call home. We will be a nation and a world of universal care and prosperity or we will be nothing.”
Standing strong behind the lectern in the Press Room, Acting President Alecta O’Roura-Chavez raises both arms in a V-shaped sign of victory. She makes a power fist with her left hand — her right palm upturned to the ceiling, as if to meet the invisible indivisible sky above.
Her supporters applaud and holler. The reporters are simply astonished. Some make furious notes. Others appear to be in shock. White House staff and observers applaud, vibrant, impulsive, responding with wit and affirmation to colleagues. The scene is electric. Alecta makes people glow. In glowing herself, she spreads the freedom to shine.
Alecta is super strong. She is on point. She is in purpose. Full of details in a big sweep. You can feel it, you get it — the strength spreads.
You can understand it.
President Silver holds her hands on Castelan’s chest as if she is going to perform CPR on his still beating heart. She drips sweat onto him. She breathes heavily, chest heaving, body pinned to his. “I am your President. You work for me. You do not attempt to kill me. I am your leader. I am the leader of the country.”
Lin slips into the doorway behind, at an angle to Silver. She leans against the doorframe and crosses her arms. Neither Castelan nor Silver is aware of her presence.
“What the fuck are you doing, President Silver?”
Silver sags. Her head droops. She continues to recover her breath.
“You’re the leader of the Free World, Kristen. Do you realize right now that Alecta O'Roura-Chavez is giving the craziest speech of her life?”
“I couldn't stand to watch, Ellen. I'll suffer through it on the news soon — too soon.”
“She's practically giving away the country,” says Lin. “And the re-election campaign.”
“To who, Ellen? To the people? You know they never get what they want. So let Alecta try. When I get back in charge, I’ll fix it all again.”
“We'll lose the vote, Kristen. It may be too late now.”
“No, we'll win, Ellen. They'll spin it. They’ll make it about the hostage situation — you and me. Alecta's people are professionals too. They know how to win. Anyway, the people who despise her will vote for me no matter what they think of her as my Vice President. Plus, she has her own supporters. We can’t lose now. And soon Sabia will put out a new hostage video, featuring Castelan here, can you imagine? You up for it, Max? With my crazy chopped hair that Sabia butchered. The campaign is over, Ellen. Relax. We see how the polls go. We're the only hostage game in town. I won.”
“You need to think about more than the election, Kristen. You know if I put this little sex-capade of yours here in my book, I would be rich beyond your wildest dreams.”
“It's your book, Ellen. Not mine. This is my last election.”
“It's not like I can change the names to protect the not-so-innocent.”
“Innocence Buried. I think you've got your title.”
“Endless Despair, more like it.”
“You’re no innocent yourself, Ellen. Even if you think you are. You're no better than me.”
“I don't judge, Kristen. I do evaluate.”
President Silver taps Castelan between the eyes. “And Castelan here is no innocent by miles. Come over here and look at him, Ellen.”
“I can see plenty from where I stand.”
“Don't be afraid. We'll keep this monster tied up, you and I. Get some towels. We should wash him or he’ll stink.”
“I’m not doing a goddamned thing,” says Lin.
“Breaking through to the Presidency, in the first place — that was beyond difficult. This is nothing, Ellen. We'll get through this too, you and me. And we’ll deal with Castelan. We’re still winning — no matter what Alecta says. I'm buried in a bunker, and I’m the President. I can do whatever I want down here and anywhere else.”
“That’s not the Kristen Silver I used to know.”
“That’s exactly the Kristen Silver you used to know. Take a look in the mirror sometime and see exactly what there is to see, Ellen. You and me, together, as one.”
Lin watches from the doorway as Silver continues to prod at Castelan. Then Lin slips back into the main room.
“Who’s your one and only President, Max?”
Castelan stares up at her. “You are, Madame President.”
“You’re goddamn right I am.”
Acting President Alecta O’Roura-Chavez concludes her speech with great power:
“If you want to get your money back — and I know you do — and if there is to be a free and fair, just and prosperous, caring and healthy society — then the pharmaceutical companies must be nationalized, the banks must be nationalized, the biggest industries must be nationalized, because the national and international Emergencies demand it! If ever there were a time when we could let giant financial entities burn and play around with all our money and resources, that time is gone, long since. Gone, gone, gone! Get your money back! We are all on the brink of death now, not just the impoverished and terrorized masses. The climate will kill us all if we don’t nationalize our society. That means democratize our society — build a livable, hospitable, convivial future. It's what we must do. It's what we ought to do. Long since. It's what we will do. And I’ll take your questions.”
Alecta's supporters applaud and shout, while reporters practically throw themselves from their chairs trying to get the Acting President to call on them for their questions that come as often as not in the form of accusations, indignations, and outrage — sometimes phony, in service of their corrupt and profiteering masters, and sometimes real, in service of the reporters' own broken and backward ideologies — fake and toxic lines of thought imprinted by the systems of plutarchy onto brains dented, damaged, and destroyed. And yet there are a few reporters more keen and open of mind.
Acting President Alecta O’Roura-Chavez keeps a firm grip on the lectern and answers as she will.
President Silver remains on top of Castelan in the bunker bedroom. Lin returns to the doorway.
“I'm not getting involved in this, Kristen. Clean up Castelan yourself, if you want. What if our rescuers come in and find you this way?”
Silver seems to look through the painted rock wall.
“I feel good, Ellen. Therefore, I don't give a damn. You do realize that all the religious wackos from England settled America. Invaded, really. The Puritans. They were horrible people, by many accounts. Terrorized everyone. They came to found a religious empire and to rule this land with an iron and bigoted fist, like Castelan. Sabia could tell you and she would. Castelan and his ilk continue the terrible tradition today. All the intolerant religious tyrants fled to the New World when they were sent packing from the old one — which was bad enough. Here they were free to persecute and terrorize as they pleased. It's about time they paid the price for being so horrible. The Puritans were the first cops, the first invaders. Castelan’s ancestors. I don’t feel an ounce of pity for him. We can allow a bit of the truth down here in the bunker, can’t we, Ellen?”
“What are you talking about, Kristen? How will Castelan ever pay any price for anything with you naked on top of him?”
“It’s Alecta. I'm talking about Alecta, Ellen. The religious bigots and the big money managers despise her. Let Alecta have her day. And let me have mine.” Silver looks at the prostrate Castelan. “Hey, you down there. How do you feel?”
Castelan ignores Silver and stares at Lin.
This is too much for Lin, who throws up her hands, drops them, and walks away.
Then Castelan focuses again on Silver.
“Okay, my President,” he tells her. “I do for you, you do for me.”
“You will be at my complete and total mercy, Max. What precious little there is of it. You’re at my mercy now, and you always will be.”
Silver leans back, crosses her arms, settles over him. “Do I seem obscene to you, Max. A bit thuggish?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he says."
“Not to you? No more obscene than you, right? No more thuggish.”
Castelan shrugs, flat beneath her.
Silver pulls her slip off over her head and throws it on the floor. Then she adjusts her position on Castelan. “I’m the President. Don’t forget that.”
“How could I?”
“Good. Try to kill me again and you die.”
“Okay,” he says.
“So you confess at last,” she says.
“Is that what you want?”
“You must.”
“Then I do.”
“Go ahead — confess.”
“To what?”
“To trying to murder me.”
“I confess. But it wasn’t—”
“Great!” Silver pushes aways from Castelan and climbs off the bed. She goes to her phone on the nightstand and checks that it’s still recording. She holds up the phone to show Castelan. Then she stops the recording. “You Moron,” she says. She smiles. “I told you. No mercy.”
“You sick psycho,” says Castelan.
“I’m the respectable one here, Max. I’m the President.”
“You’re so sick, Kristen Silver.”
“Back at you.” President Silver slaps her phone onto the night stand and picks up her blouse from the floor. She gets dressed. “Ellen!” she calls out. “We got him!”
Director Kingsley is furious. He shouts at Director Steiner. “You spied on me! I was staking out the Perez farmhouse. That’s all. You’re nothing but vipers in the FBI!”
“That's right,” says Director Steiner. “You were staking out this place — you irresponsible incompetent clown. It looks like a tornado went through Sabia’s bedroom. Sheets and covers on the floor. Bra on the lampshade. And the rest of the room perfectly neat and tidy like the rest of the house. Must have been quite the passionate stakeout — up there.”
“My private life is none of your business,” says Sabia.
“A DNA test of you and your sheets is entirely my business, especially when the Secret Service Director is literally screwing the sole witness to the crime of the century. The greatest crime of our country’s entire history.”
“Please,” says Sabia. “The greatest crime?”
“The bombing and kidnapping of the President.”
“Forget slavery and the genocide of the Native Americans, and the massacre of Koreans, and Vietnamese, and Salvadorans, and Iraqis, and Palestinians, and on and on and on. Talk about the crimes of the Country, the crimes of the centuries. Maybe the Country is the crime. States are violent institutions, and you’re the top cop on the beat, on this land, Director Steiner. You can’t and you won’t see the crimes of this country when they happen smack dab in front of your face. But the truth is out there.”
“You spied on me?” says Director Kingsley. “You’re horrible, Priama.”
“What he said,” says Sabia.
“Fuck you, Bill Kingsley. You’re done. You’re no real investigator. I am.” Director Steiner scans the kitchen. “Could there be more alcohol on this counter?” She indicates the bottles that Sabia arranged last night. “And look—” Steiner picks up the empty vodka bottle. “Nothing left.”
Director Steiner pulls open the refrigerator and assesses the contents.
“Indian food. Lots of it. Wonder what fingerprints I’ll find on those containers, Director Kingsley? How many ways do you want to lose your job today?”
“Goddamn it!” Kingsley stands up. He and Steiner and Sabia are all standing — face to face to face — around the kitchen table. “You got a warrant to track the Director of the Secret Service, Steiner? How?”
“Think about it.”
Kingsley considers. He begins to look deflated.
“That’s right. Castelan’s favorite FISA judge. That guy was ready to sign your death warrant when I made it known that he could help clear Castelan by letting me track you.”
“I’m no suspect, Priama.”
“You sent the President into an Iowa blizzard. And you made no progress in finding her. And now we know what else you did — and did not do.”
“Our boy Kingsley here is quite a guy. None finer,” says Sabia.
“You pulled the guards off Sabia, Director Kingsley.”
“Alecta did that.”
“You convinced her. Don't you fucking lie to me.”
“Look,” says Kingsley. “It was Castelan. It's Castelan. Chase him. Don’t throw this shit at me.”
“I'll get him too.”
“No you won't,” says Sabia.
Or maybe she will. Priama Steiner is no William Kingsley.
Sabia feels weak suddenly. Like she could vomit. She sits down. She leans forward and presses her forehead to the tabletop.
“I’ll get Castelan,” says Steiner. “And I’ll get Roca. I’ve got Sabia. I’ll get Silver, and I’ll get Lin. Then I’ll get you, Kingsley. For now, it's enough that you stay out of my way.”
Sabia lifts her head. She looks to Director Kingsley.
“I’m not going to prison,” she tells him. “And I'm not going to leave my farm. Not yet. Not alive.”
Kingsley returns the look. “You might,” he says.
And so might he. Whether he and Sabia team up or not.
“Not happening,” says Sabia. Peripherally, she glances at the cellar door. “There will be blood tonight.”
“What did you say, Sabia?” Director Steiner moves toward her.
“Nothing.” Sabia circles around the kitchen table away from Director Steiner and moves into the living room. She sits down in the middle of the couch.
Steiner follows her. “‘There will blood tonight’, you said.”
“Fuck, yeah,” says Sabia. “Or maybe even today.”
“If there’s blood, I’ll be the one to draw it,” says Director Steiner. “But it won’t be on my hands.”
“No, of course not,” says Sabia. “It never is.”
“You’re incorrigible, Sabia Perez.”
“Too true,” says Sabia.
“And why is that?” says Director Steiner.
“I don’t know,” says Sabia. “I guess because my hatred is pure.” She leans back into the couch. She waits for Jenna and Roca to make their move. “It’s too true. I can’t be taught by the likes of you.”
