Jane and I drove into town late Sunday night on the 12th. We were both exhausted. I did most of the driving. Because of the assassination plot, ten times as many people had tried to attend Jane's events. We managed to move two of the events into larger venues. All of her events were televised. For me, it was nice to see so many people coming out to see and listen to Jane. I have to say that she is a very impressive speaker. She reminded people that this was the second attempt to kill her. At each event, she took off her gold collar and passed it to her panel. She showed where the bullet which killed Cynthia (her double) had nicked the inside of the collar. It was very emotional. I was very proud that my middle name is Cynthia.
My mother reminded everyone that “I was enslaved at age 15 because of the debts of my parents.” She used that as a way of saying that “A society that offers no lifeline to the poor and innocent is a cruel and wicked society.” She went on to say that “At various historical moments, societies both left and right have been very cruel to ordinary people. Given a choice, I would rather be ruled by an open society dominated by the wealthy than a closed society run by an extremist political party. Why? A rich daughter can marry a poor man and the poor man ends up running and expanding the family business. In a society run by a political party, the only way to power is to assassinate, blackmail, or buy your way to the top. I prefer to be ruled by smart people who know that they need to stay on their toes since they could be replaced by those who are smarter. One of my favorite jokes is that the wealthy want 45% of the economy of a vibrant society, while the communist party wants 100% of a stagnant economy. I want to point out the dangers of allowing a narrow band of extremists whether ex-slaves or not take control of our nation.”
Jane pointed out that “The expression, ‘We all should work together.’ was meaningless. If there is a job opening, and you need a job, you want to get that job. You will not step aside for anyone else. At that point, you are not helping your fellow citizen. You are in it for yourself. But in that struggle for the job, we can as a society find ways to learn about people's needs.” Jane pointed out, “Every company should report to a local government office each job listing, and how many people apply. The local government can alert the business community of the untapped skills that are available. In that way, we can organically grow the economy to fulfill the needs of the people in each community.”
Anyway, we came to Des Moines late, found our room, and collapsed asleep. In the morning, the whole family got together to catch up and plan. When I say, “the whole family,” I also include Mary Davis, who is a part of the family now. I should be clear that I address both Mary and Jane as “Mom” when I am talking just one-on-one. Mary was the person who recognized Jane at a restaurant on product launch day sixteen years ago. They had kept in touch all these years. Jane hired her to help keep her household running. Mary did not do child care, but she acted like another parent in a house with two busy parents. Dad runs the New York Constitutional Bank, and Jane has her social programs to run in her effort to avoid yet another civil war in America. I always joke that Jane has a much more difficult job than dad has.
I read Deb's notes on her investigation. I was amazed that she had a name for the guy who made the loud noise that preceded the shooting at the theater. Deb can be very intense when she wants to. I think everyone recognizes that she would have been happy if she had married Jane instead of Cathy. But that was not what happened. I always find it amusing that Deb wrote in her Fairy Tale that she was secretly in love with Jane, but never mentioned that her own wife is black. I also find it amusing to think of what people one or two centuries ago would have thought of a mixed-race lesbian couple sharing a seat in the US Senate representing the interests of the billionaires of America. And they are doing a superior job of that as well. The whole Rockefeller family must be twisting up their underwear in their graves over that one.
I was glad that all three of my parents had rented cars. I asked Mary to drive me to a local clinic since it was time to take off the bandages off my face. My brothers came along. At the clinic, I got an idea. After the bandages had been taken off, I asked the nurse for instructions and extra bandages so it would look like I still had my nose all packed up. Mary learned how to fake bandage me up. I paid a fair amount for all the extra supplies. On the way back to the hotel, I had Mary stop the car at a hair salon. I got a short haircut and dyed my hair blond. I bought a wig that looked like my current appearance. When I had to make official appearances, I would use the wig plus add the nose bandages and the sling. When I wanted to go undercover, I would go without the medical appliances, with grungy clothes, and with dirty, unkempt short blond hair. I told Mary, “Mom, I am planning to go undercover.” She just shook her head and said, “Baby, be careful. These people tried to kill Jane.”
Since I got mad at Deb for not writing down people's racial makeup, I should mention that Jane is white with some black heritage, my dad is mostly Arab, and my other mom (Mary) is black. I am the daughter of Jane and Amir; my brothers are the sons of Mary and Amir. What really counts is how well we all work together as a family unit. I don't want to get into personal details, but I will say that my parents get along very well. If they argue about petty things, I have never seen it.
Jane tries to keep the ex-slaves from unraveling our society. Meanwhile, I liked to dress and hang out with X-minus kids (as long as they never knew who my parents were). I never understood why people got so hung up on racial identities. It is the social identities that are tearing us apart.
Jane always told us these stories about keeping two identities, her normal identity, and her cover identity while she spent five years on her big project. I told her that “Now I can play two identities: Rose with my black hair and a face bandage and a sling, and an anonymous worker with short messy blond hair with no face bandage or arm sling. I know how to look like a typical X-minus teenage girl: black clothes, a white stripe on my forehead, old work boots, an old T-shirt, some ripped pants, and no underwear.” Jane was not happy. She just said, “Stay safe.” From her expression, I knew she was scared out of her mind that I would get into deep trouble. She sighed and slowly walked away. I was hoping that I could do something that she could not do.
Mary dropped me off near the entrance to the Hopkins Machinery Center. I walked in and asked for the employment office. I told them who I was and that I just wanted to work for a week or so. I said I did not need to be paid, but I just wanted to look like I was working there. They told me that I might as well do some of Mike's work, seeing that he was not at work anymore. They gave me a work ID card under the name Cynthia Hassan to wear around my neck and told me to find “Sarah” in the back of the building near the dismantling center.
I found Sarah and told her that I was assigned a temporary one-week position. She showed me the dismantling area and taught me how to unbolt bits of equipment, locate odd parts that were left on the floor, how to tell the good parts, from the bad, and let me work. I did not mind doing repetitive work. It was different than any job my mother had ever assigned me. My fellow workers were pretty nice to me and helped me when I made obvious beginner mistakes.
For lunch, I walked to Lucy's Liquid Lunch, the bar that Brian and Mike met. I was glad that they did serve food, but I did order one beer so that I could fit in. I told a few people that I was new to this area and asked for advice on lunch and dinner places. One guy wanted to take me to his apartment after work. Thankfully, I just told him “No thanks, I already have a place where I can stay,” and he left me alone. I did not want to do anything obvious on the first day.
I found a hidden loading dock where Mary could pick me up. She was a bit alarmed at how grimy I was. She called Jane and Amir to discuss things. They decided that it was better for me to rent a room at a cheap hotel so I could either sleep there or wash up and then join the rest of the family. Mary rented a room for me on the fringes of town. I washed up and changed into good clothes (and dark wig plus face bandages), so I could join the rest of the family at the nice hotel. As Jane taught me, playing a role can be tricky. Jane made sure that she was interviewed on TV with me looking very different than I looked while dismantling very old and greasy machinery.
The next day, I hit the jackpot. I was at Lucy's for lunch and in walk these three guys from work. They were all dressed like X-minus's, and one asked if I wanted to join them. It was not long before they started talking about how they tried to kill that bitch, Jane Foreman. My heart started pounding. I had a camera recording with the camera eyeball hidden in my ripped shirt. I decided to switch the mood by asking angrily, “Can you talk about something else?” My contempt in my voice for their project got them pissed off, asking why I didn't want to talk about it. So I said, “Fine, tell me what you did and why.” I could not believe they opened the door that I tried to close on them.
They told me that they all came from red families. I could not believe it. They were describing the factions in the wars of the 2020s. Of course, it all started with the fighting between the Trumpers and the anti-Trumpers. Soon it devolved into combat based on your home, your social standing, and to some degree, your race. It was all a jumble in my head. I knew that there were the grays, the whites, the blues, the reds, the burbs, and the techies. I only had direct experience with the various factions of ex-slaves. I only knew that the terms “whites” and “reds” were a reference to the chaos after the Russian Revolution during and after World War I. I knew that Jane and Deb could fill me in on the militia wars of the 2020's. I could not believe that I was sitting down with actual communists. I thought they had all been wiped out. I tried to say a few things so I would appear to be friendly.
I decided to stick to my identity as an X-minus. I behaved exactly like I always did when I wanted to blend into a new group of X-minus's. I told my fake family story about my parents being forced into slavery, and how I was six when slavery was abolished. I tried to say how much I resented slavery for not giving my mother and father to have a chance to do anything but farm, hunt, or look for garbage at the edge of civilization.
I got a lecture about how it was the rich who exploited everyone, and the rich need to be killed. These guys, who never identified themselves to me, recommended a book written during the second civil war that was a manifesto to eliminate the rich from society. I asked where I could get a copy, and one just pointed to the bartender and said, “Ask her for a copy.” I said, “Right now?” He said, “Sure.” So I got up walked to the bartender and asked for a copy of the book. She went to the back room and gave me a copy of the book wrapped in a paper bag. I asked if I needed to return it, and the bartender just said, “Of course, comrade, of course.” I had a few beers at that lunch. My head was spinning when Mary picked me up and dropped me off at the cheap hotel. She told me that Jane was giving a major presentation tomorrow night, so I had to leave work early, and switch into my real identity, and show up as the stage manager.
On Monday morning, I tried to get oriented with my family and the investigation. Deb had done some fantastic work with the videotapes and convincing witnesses to co-operate. In mid-morning, I learned about Rose's intention of going undercover at Mike's job site. I was not happy, but I insisted that Rose use an app that streamed signals. I listened and watched carefully. I nearly fell on the floor when I observed the Tuesday lunch with the three co-workers.
I collected my wits and ran into the adjacent office and asked the three lawyers in the room knew about people in Des Moines who identified as reds 50 years after the civil war was over. One woman said, “In Des Moines, most people who had families that lived through the civil war have kept their old affiliations.” One by one, the lawyers said how much of their families were white, blue, burbs, or gray. There were no reds or Inners in the group. I wanted to know more. They said that a lot of the civil war, the factions held different parts of Des Moines, and peace came as an announcement from outside. It took a long time to take down the barricades from the streets and from people's hearts.
The lawyers all wanted to see the video. They wondered who the three men were, and what they had done to plan the attempt on my life. I did not want these guys to roam free. Don Hamilton (one of the lawyers) made the obvious point, “The first step is to identify them. Then we can chase them down.”
Once the viewing party was over, I started asking why the militia factions seemed to be so important in Des Moines. Don said, “In Des Moines, there was a final battle between an army made up of the Red, the Whites, and the Reds against the Grays, the Burbs, various factions of farmers, and the Inners. When the fighting stopped, there was a lot of vicious infighting as different factions accused others of betrayal. Some really ugly things happened.” I was so confused by this. I asked, “Why would there be an alliance between the rich and the communists. Why would the police and military join them?” Don answered, “There was a union of convenience between the rich and the communists. They have been working together for a long time. The other factions were defending their territory, their homes.”
I got an idea to find people in Des Moines who strongly identified with the old factions. I asked the lawyers to find me someone who identified as a gray, a red, and a burb to add to the panel for the presentation the next day. In one hour, they had those, plus a blue. I added one additional citizen and expanded the panel from five to ten.
I did remember some of the factions. I knew the blues were military and police, the reds were socialists and communists, and the whites were the rich folks and their hired armies. I had to ask for more information about the territorial factions. I learned that the Grays were rural people who did not want city people invading their lands; Burbs were suburban people who did not want anyone invading their lands; and the Inners (as in “Inner City”) were the people most endangered by racism and were also the people who took racism to new levels.
Of course, the nationwide picture was very murky. No one at the time was sure who won. There were so many regional alliances, and so many times units changed sides, that it was unclear what the point of it all was. One day, there was an announcement from most of the factional leadership that the war was over, and it was time to rebuild the country. Organized groups that wanted to keep up the fighting found that they were being starved as well as being under attack. Eventually, all armed conflict stopped. When the truce was announced, the whites used their advantage to squeeze or destroy their comrades in arms. But that is all ancient history. With the end of the factional fighting, the billionaires took over with their Supreme Councils and their fortified cities. All I could think of was what could have caused America to lose itself in factional fighting. There had to be more to the story than “America lost its mind after the military coup that took down Trump.”
Turning my attention to the investigation, I was intently focused on keeping Rose safe. We instructed Rose to avoid these self-described communists. For the rest of the week, Rose packed a lunch and ate it at her job. We made sure that Rose used a bicycle to get to and from work, to lower any suspicion on her connections. Before she arrived or left her workplace, we had several people scan through the area by car, bike, and walking to make sure no one was ready to ambush her. We even used a silent drone to monitor Rose's progress on her bicycle. I was so relieved when her work week was over.
The communist book that Rose borrowed was a revelation. It was unknown outside of Red faction circles. Our investigators searched the book for fingerprints. After that was done, I scanned the book to record the contents. Of course, I wore gloves while handling it. After Rose had finished her work week, we mailed the book back to the bar, with a note of thanks for lending such an insightful book. I alerted a few anti-subversive organizations with electronic copies.
Also on Friday, I announced the new forum to discuss the factional fighting in Des Moines over 50 years ago. The city leaders lost their minds when I said each faction would be represented someone from a Des Moines family that still identified them. I was accused of attempting to cause an insurrection in town. I was totally blindsided. Every single person who agreed to the panel called up and withdrew. Of course, I changed the format of the meeting. I did take a few minutes from my speech to ask the audience if they identified with a faction or knew someone who identified with a faction. As far as I can tell, about 80% audience raised their hand. At least that put an end to all the talk about me making things up. I also asked the audience to raise their hands if they thought that easing tensions over lingering factional identifications would be helpful. This time a handful of people did not raise their hands. I just had to figure out how to raise this issue without angering town leaders.
While Jane was dancing a jig over finding a rare book, gnashing her teeth over Rose working in a nest of X-minus, and worrying about the backlash against her precious publicity tours, I had an investigation to run. And that investigation hit a brick wall very quickly.
We did have Brian in custody. He refused to talk. We threatened him with the death penalty. It turned out to be so unnecessary. We had Robin and Houston who did a better job of testifying than if Brian had confessed. Brian did not keep detailed records. He did not have videos, audios, transcripts, and diaries. The investigation had almost all the data we needed about Brian. We did not tell Brian about this since we still wanted him to talk.
The video that Rose recorded in the bar was amazing. As expected, Robin and Houston were able to identify them. They were all members of an extended family with Ukrainian origin. There were only a few ex-slaves in the family, so the identification with ex-slaves was a mystery. I concluded that they were part of an organization that was exploiting ex-slaves.
On Monday, the 20th of September, there was no trace of my Ukrainian friends at all. They all disappeared from their houses, lives, jobs without anyone any trace whatsoever. No one noticed them packing. No one got a goodbye message. It was as if they had each vanished into thin air while alone in a bathroom. But in that case, each one would leave a smelly mess in a locked room as a clue. I seriously thought that someone had murdered all three. After a few more days, I knew that was unlikely. Murder always leaves a clue. Besides, Mike Sarno also disappeared without a trace.
This disappearing act was astonishing. Vanishing like this takes lots of money, political connections, false identities, and a seamless organization. No X-minus organization I ever heard of had this kind of money or organization. Eventually, I got a clue from Robin and Houston. Sometimes while recording Mike and his friends, there was talk about “going to the woods” or “staying in the woods.”
These phrases were a mystery to Robin and Houston, but I figured that they were hiding in the white zones, the wild places inhabited by escaped slaves, non-conformists, and various malcontents. As I explained in a phone call to my spouse, “Some people live on the fringes of civilization, living in the white zone and preying on normal society. Some people live deep in the white zone, growing their own food and making their own clothes and implements. Since food was scarce in the white zones, it was a very poor hideout. Perhaps someone found a truly remote place and packed a cabin with food and supplies; they could hang out for a year or two.” Cathy answered, “Yes, but who has the resources to find a spot in the white zone that has no neighbors within three miles that would be hidden enough. How could you bring up countless supplies into the white zone without one of the road pirates noticing? This is still an implausible scenario.”
Cathy also reminded me, “We took advantage of the existence of the white zones. Much of our ‘funny business’ with ID cards we did back during our project took place in rooming houses at the edge of the white zones. These were often places where illicit goods were traded into and out of these forbidden areas. We had official mail, such as ID cards, mailed to some of these rooming houses. We had someone who would check the mail and pick up items mailed to phony names. No one paid much attention. So we all got to be billionaires by taking advantage of the white zones. If I accept your theory, the attempted killers of Jane are using the white zones as their hideout.”
So I had people telling me these four men (Mike and three Ukrainians) were dead. I thought they were hiding in a cabin or cabins deep in the white zone. Others thought these men had multiple ID cards and were able to slip into a new area under a new identity. I knew that government computers were always scanning people's accounts for gaps of no activity. Eventually, there would be a police investigation to see why these gaps existed. Even I was convinced that these four men would eventually reappear with new ID cards.
I also wondered if some of the hideouts for some of the factions might exist in places now known as the white zones. Of course, this was another guess. But I was wondering if there was some connection between the old factions and the hideouts. There are many mysteries and dead-ends. I decided it was about time to wind up the investigation. I wrote an official report and archived all of our data. I made sure that anyone who used the identities or accounts of our targets, the law firm would get the alerts. There were countless details, but I knew it was time for me to end this and to head back to Washington DC.