“No, thank you. It’s too late in the day for me. I’d be up all night.”
Knight laughed a bit too long and loud as he sat down at his desk and pointed to the worn chair across from him. “Please, have a seat.”
The man looked down at the chair, which had seen better days many years earlier. He declined to sit. “I won’t take much of your … valuable time,” he said, “but I’ve come to offer you a job for a client that I think you’ll find both lucrative and interesting.”
Lucrative. Knight’s heart skipped a beat and then started pounding like a drum. “I’m all ears,” he said, wondering if the smile on his face looked as desperate as it felt. “May I ask the client’s name?”
His former boss smiled back. “Of course. Her name is Nadya Malovo.”
10
Westlund groaned impatiently when his cell phone on the nightstand next to the bed started playing an old Rolling Stones song. He usually wouldn’t have answered a call in the middle of having sex with a member of his congregation, but “Sympathy for the Devil” was the ringtone for his chief of security, Frank Bernsen, a little inside joke between the two of them. Bernsen knew better than to interrupt his boss when he was “entertaining” unless it was important.
“Pardon me, angel, but the Lord’s work calls,” he said, sitting up in bed and swinging his long hairy legs over the side. He grabbed the cell phone as he stood and walked toward the bathroom so that his guest wouldn’t hear the conversation. “Yes, brother, the Lord’s peace upon you,” he said loud enough for her to hear before closing the door.
“What’s up, bro?” he growled.
“We have a visitor,” said Bernsen, who was known as Frankie the Cat in another life, when he and Westlund both rode with a motorcycle gang. “Ellis. He says he wants to see you.”
“About what?”
“He won’t say, except that it’s between you and him. … But he’s pretty hot.”
Westlund frowned. This didn’t sound good the day before the Ellis trial. “Did you tell him that I’m … uh … busy?”
“Yeah, but he says he’ll wait in the chapel,” Bernsen said. “You want me to toss his ass out on the street?”
Westlund smiled at the thought. “Sounds good, bro,” he replied with a chuckle. “But I better hear what the man has to say. It may be nothing, or at least nothing I can’t talk him out of; if I still don’t like what I hear, we’ll figure out what to do about it then. Give me ten minutes and then send him up.”
“You don’t want me to come with him?”
“Nah, I can kick that punk’s ass blindfolded. Just frisk him; I don’t want any surprises.”
Westlund hung up and thought for a moment before returning to the bedroom. “I apologize, my love, but the blessing of our union will have to wait for a few minutes,” he said to the woman curled up on a set of red satin sheets.
“Do you want me to leave?” she said, disappointment verging on despondency welling in her eyes.
“No, not at all, sister,” Westlund replied, leaning over to stroke her face with his hand. “In fact, would you do me a favor and stay in here as quiet as Lazarus before the resurrection, and just listen at the door to what is being said?”
“Listen? Why?”
Westlund kissed her gently on the lips. “You’ll understand soon enough,” he said as he stood. “But I believe that Satan may have entered my visitor’s heart with the purpose of posing a threat to my ministry here in this evil city.”
The woman’s eyes narrowed. “Why would anyone do that?” she demanded. Then tears sprang to her eyes and she buried her face in her hands. “I couldn’t stand it if something took you away from me.”
Westlund placed a finger on her lips. This one is always on the verge of a psychotic breakdown. “Shhhhh,” he whispered. “Just listen … would you do that for me? Would you do that for this love that God has given us?”
The woman nodded. “Of course,” she whispered back. “I love you. God sent you to me in my hour of need … I would do anything.”
“As I would for you,” Westlund replied. “Now I have to get dressed. … And, sister, my love … bless you, you are an angel.”
As Westlund pulled on a track suit, he thought about the day he introduced himself to the Ellises in Memphis, Tennessee, two years earlier, when he was going by the name of John LaFontaine. Doctor John LaFontaine of the Holy Covenant Church of Jesus Christ Reformed, he reminded himself with a chuckle.
Westlund was no believer, but he played the part well. That day after he’d knelt with the Ellises at their son’s bed to pray-just a simple Pentecostal prayer he’d picked up from the Internet-he patted the boy on the shoulder and stood. “I’ll keep you in my prayers tonight, too, son,” he said kindly.
The parents had risen with him and stood looking down on their son with hopeful expressions. “How do you feel, Micah?” Nonie Ellis asked.
The boy shrugged but smiled slightly. “A little better I think. Is Jesus going to help me not be sick?”
Westlund seized the moment to grab the boy’s hand. “If you believe, Micah. Jesus provides miracles!”
The preacher could feel the hope, and his opportunity, enter the room like a ray of sunshine through clouds. Even the father, who Westlund could tell was going to be a tougher sell than the mother, smiled and patted the boy’s leg. Meanwhile, Nonie shook his hand effusively and asked him if he could stop by again and pray with the family.
Westlund had scrunched up his face and shaken his head, noting that his was a “traveling ministry” and that he had “a lot of ground to cover in this evil city.” He then paused to allow the mother’s face to register her disappointment, before adding, “But I’ll do what I can to find some time.”
He’d then waited a few days before showing back up at the Ellis house. Long enough for the woman to start despairing, but not so long that her husband’s reticence took over again.
There was another reason for the delay. He’d done his homework and talked to the right people, and he knew that the more time that passed immediately after the brutal chemotherapy treatments stopped, the better the boy would feel as his body healed itself. And, if he timed it right, the child’s recovery and general feeling of well-being would coincide nicely with prayer sessions and the laying on of hands.
As for the disease itself, the astrocytoma tumors, his “research” indicated that the chemotherapy would probably cause the tumors to shrink, at least at first, which would-along with the cessation of the treatments-alleviate the symptoms caused by the disease. He was aware that normal protocol would be for Micah to return to the hospital to be tested and, if circumstances warranted, to begin a new series of chemo sessions. So he also had to time his appearance on the worried parents’ doorstep, to “spread the Word of God” and pray over their sick child, so that he got to them before they returned to the hospital for the tests and resumption of treatment.
The Ellises weren’t the first victims of this particular con, and he’d perfected it along the way. Of course, it didn’t always work out. Sometimes he got the door slammed in his face. Or the parents would politely reject his offer to pray over the child. But if he chose his marks right and did his homework, more often than not he would find himself on his knees praying with desperate parents, and from there he was well on his way to worming into their confidence and their lives.
The next step was to convince them that their child could only be saved by renouncing Western medicine and placing “one hundred and ten percent” of their faith in praying for God’s mercy and compassion. Part of his “research” was identifying which parents had religious leanings, and then he relied on biblical scriptures related to Jesus’ healing the sick by laying his hands on them and invoking the Holy Spirit. There were several Christian denominations that practiced “faith healing,” especially Pentecostals, which he’d learned relied on an intermediary, such as a preacher, to serve as the conduit for the Holy Spirit.
When he returned to the
little house in East Memphis, he brought with him “Sister Sarah,” a sometime girlfriend and shill who helped him with the con. “She knows what you’re going through, as well as the temptations and lies those who preach the gospel of Western medicine use to lure you into their web,” he told the Ellises. “But, as I’m sure she’ll tell you, she turned to faith and her child was saved.”
Nonie had immediately asked Sarah to tell her story, but as he instructed her, Sarah insisted that they first pray with Micah. When the prayer ended, the boy was again queried as to whether he felt better, and looking up at his mother’s hopeful face, he said yes.
Westlund then suggested that Sister Sarah share her story over a cup of tea. As though reliving a nightmare, the other woman wept and shuddered as she recounted how her young son, “Kevin,” had been diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia. The doctors at the Children’s Hospital had warned her that without chemotherapy her son would die, but added that the treatments they felt were necessary were “experimental” and could even kill him outright.
“As you already know, the things they put my poor little boy through were horrible,” Sarah whimpered. “My child was being tortured and poisoned, but I thought it was the only way to save him … that’s what those … doctors told me.” She hung her head and wiped at her cheeks with a tissue handed to her by David Ellis. “But I didn’t know what else to do. My husband had left me when Kevin was diagnosed and I had no one to turn to …”
Sarah stopped and smiled sweetly at Westlund. “Our great friend, our blessed brother John LaFontaine, spoke at our little church, and with the truth he gets from God, he turned me away from liars and to Christ. It wasn’t easy … he had to battle first for my soul so that I could believe enough … I had been a terrible sinner-”
“Yes, you were, sister,” Westlund said, and chuckled.
“-and my sins were visited upon my innocent child,” Sarah said to Westlund, “but you saved me.”
Westlund had held up his hand. “Not I, sister, it was your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, who caused the Holy Spirit He’d once used to heal the sick and raise the dead to move through my hands so that I could cleanse your son of the disease Satan had planted in his blood.”
Sarah had reached into her purse and pulled out a photograph of a young boy with blue eyes and blond hair. “This is my son now,” she said, “three years after the doctors said he would die. Oh, they claim his recovery is a ‘spontaneous remission’ without a known cause, but I know who cured him … the Lord and this good man here.” She’d paused to show the Ellises the photograph.
“He’s a beautiful boy,” Nonie Ellis said. “Like my Micah, only older …” She suddenly burst into tears.
Ready for the moment, Sister Sarah jumped to her side before even David Ellis could get there to console her. “It’s okay, Nonie,” the con woman cooed. “Help is here. All you need to do is trust in the Lord … and Doctor LaFontaine.”
Nonie had been persuaded ever since. But David had been a tougher sell, though he’d gone along with his wife’s wishes and, as his son improved, warmed somewhat to Westlund. However, the woman had confided that her husband sometimes argued with her about getting Micah checked at the hospital. So one day when Sarah, who often came on his visits, was occupying Nonie with Micah, Westlund asked David if he could talk to him alone.
“Brother, I know you have reservations about me and my work,” he said after they sat down in the living room. “And I wanted to say that I understand your reluctance to embrace what I’m telling you. Not many people know this, but I was a ferocious sinner until one day I met a man of God hitchhiking by the side of the road and I was overcome with the Holy Spirit through what he had to say. It was the Truth, and I knew it when I heard it. And, in that moment, I went from a hell-raising, motorcycle-riding, womanizing spawn of Satan to preaching the Word of God. That roadside preacher told me that I had been given a gift, the gift of healing body and spirit. And, brother, I have tried my best to share that with you and your family.”
Not quite sure what to make of the conversation so far, David looked confused but then nodded. “I understand that and I really do appreciate all the time you’ve spent with us,” he said. “And Nonie, well, she thinks the world of you, and I know Micah does, too.”
“Thank you, brother. But what about you?”
The question caught the young man off guard. He stammered a bit before answering. “Well, I think you’re great as a person and you obviously care about other people. It’s just that … well, just that I’m not convinced that prayer is the only thing we should be doing for Micah right now. I think that God works in different ways, including medicine.”
Westlund held the young man’s gaze for a moment, then dropped his head and nodded. “I hear ya, brother, I really do,” he said. “And to be quite honest, I was afraid we’d reach this point. You see, for me to heal through the Holy Spirit, it’s not enough for the afflicted to believe, or for some of the people who love them to believe, or even for those people to believe but not with every bit of faith they have. I know there are many gray areas in this wicked old world, but I believe that faith is an all-or-nothing proposition. What sense does it make for a man to say, ‘I have faith in God to heal my son, but I don’t want to take any chances so I will place some of my faith in hospitals and doctors and the poisons they want to pump into my child’?”
Westlund paused and appeared to wipe away tears that had apparently formed in his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I know I get worked up about this, but it’s because I truly have come to care about you, Nonie, and Micah … he is such a beautiful child.”
Suddenly, Westlund stood. “However, I respect your beliefs, and after all, he is your son. Yet I cannot in good conscience continue my work here when I know that your faith is torn between God and man’s arrogance. I’ll just say good-bye to Micah and Nonie, and then I will leave you to your fate-though I will, of course, continue to pray for all of you.”
As expected, David Ellis had looked at him in alarm. “Really, I don’t mind your being here,” he said. “I believe in God and Jesus. I just think that-”
Westlund held his hand up. “No need to explain, brother, I understand,” he said. “I respect your position, but I’m afraid I need to be going.”
At that moment, Sarah entered the room with Nonie, who saw the two men facing each other and asked, “What’s wrong?”
Westlund smiled and shrugged. “There is nothing wrong, dear little sister, just a difference of opinion. But it is time for me to leave your family in peace and go where I am of more use.”
“What? No!” Nonie cried in alarm, looking from her husband to Westlund and back to David. “What did you say?” she demanded.
Westlund pretended to play the part of the peacemaker. “It’s all right. God gives us free will to make decisions and David is exercising his, but it means I must leave.”
David began to protest. “But I never said-”
“I explained to your husband,” Westlund interrupted, “that for Micah to be saved through the Holy Spirit, those who love him the most must give themselves over entirely to faith in God and no other.”
“But I do believe,” Nonie cried out, bursting into tears. “And Micah believes. Please don’t leave us!” She turned to David, her eyes flashing with desperation and anger as she snarled, “How could you? Haven’t you seen what he’s done for Micah?”
“Honey, I didn’t ask him to go,” David pleaded. “I just think that maybe we should follow up with the doctors for Micah …”
Nonie glared and her voice hardened. “What? So they can poison our son with the devil’s lies again? You want to put him through that torture? Next they’ll want to use surgery that they already told us might kill him!”
“I just want what’s best for our son and-”
“I don’t care!” Nonie shrieked. “I don’t care what you want … our son is going to die and it’s because of you! I hate you!”
David El
lis looked like someone had hit him over the head with a two-by-four. Now tears welled in his eyes until at last he nodded and looked at the ground. “You’re right,” he said to Westlund. “It’s all or nothing. I believe in God or I believe in the doctors.” He looked at his wife, who nodded and began to smile. “I’ll believe in God with you, Nonie.”
As the woman beamed at her husband, Westlund placed his hands on David’s shoulders. “Hallelujah, brother!” he exclaimed. “I’ve been waiting to hear those words for so long. I believe, Sister Sarah, that we have witnessed another miracle in the making of a new warrior for Christ. Let us get down on our knees and thank the Lord!”
“Hallelujah!” Sister Sarah shouted.
Hallelujah indeed, Westlund thought as he waited now for David Ellis to arrive at his apartment door.
11
Waiting in an interview room at the varick Federal Detention Center Facility in downtown New York City, Nadya Malovo opened the buttons on her jail jumpsuit to reveal a hint of cleavage. One of the jail matrons was sure to make her button it up again later, but for this meeting she hoped to make good use of her physical assets. She glanced over at the one-way mirror, nodding at the man she knew was watching from the other side.
Settling back into her chair, Malovo gave her short blond hair a final shake and smiled slightly, satisfied. Everything was going according to plan. But these are only the first steps, and there are many more, she reminded herself.
She knew that even with her meticulous planning, she was walking a razor’s edge; all it would take was one slipup and it would all be over. However, it did not trouble her that her plan was a desperate one; it was simply a fact that she used to keep herself focused. She’d been walking an edge since her early twenties, and if anything she needed that adrenaline rush to feel alive.
Nadya Malovo, a.k.a. Ajmaani, had been an orphan scraping for a living on the cold hard streets of Moscow, where her nascent criminality and her unreal physical abilities as a sometime cat burglar got her noticed by the authorities. But instead of prison they sent her to a “special school for girls” to be trained as a spy and assassin.
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