Deep State Stealth

by Vikki Kestell

  “However, now that the initial shock of surprise has passed, the President’s move is being hailed by members of Delancey’s party as “out-of-the-box,” and “a brilliant stroke of bipartisanship.” While the President’s party is somewhat less enthusiastic, they have yet to publicly criticize President Jackson’s selection.”

  “Jillian, how does the congressional reaction bode for Delancey’s confirmation?”

  “Frankly, Tom, Delancey may be the least controversial administration nomination for any office in decades. Senator Delancey is well known to the American people and respected by the majority of Congress. If Gerald Ford’s hearings and approval were conducted in six weeks, we may be looking at less than that for Senator Delancey.

  “Reporting live from Capitol Hill, this is Jillian Framer, WJLA News.”

  ZANDER WAS ANXIOUS to get out of the house and revisit Donna at the hospital. He’d called yesterday to make sure she’d be at Kaylee’s side this morning. She’d sounded despondent when he’d spoken to her.

  “They are going to start chemo tomorrow, so I need to be there around 8 a.m. The doctors said the drugs will make Kaylee sick to her stomach . . . and they said she’ll lose all her beautiful hair,” Donna whispered.

  “I’m so sorry, Donna. Try to remember that Kaylee’s hair will grow back when the chemo is over. Listen, I have a few errands to run first thing tomorrow, but I’ll see you after, okay? Hang in there.”

  Lord, chemo is so rough on kids. I hope the news about the car will cheer Donna up a bit—it truly is an answer to prayer!

  Zander put on slacks and a new shirt and tie, left the apartment, and drove to Jack’s job site, a prosperous-looking landscaping concern. Jack introduced Zander to his boss.

  “Pastor Cruz, this is my boss, Leonard Hammond.”

  “Nobody calls me Leonard, Pastor Cruz. Please call me Lenny.”

  “Nobody calls me Pastor Cruz; please call me Zander.”

  They shared a mutual chuckle, then Lenny said, “Okay, Zander. What’s this Jack tells me about the car I offered him?”

  Zander grinned larger. “It’s one of those times when you know God has had his hand at orchestrating things, Lenny. You see, I was at the hospital Friday with Jack’s ex-wife and their little girl, Kaylee. We were praying for a car for Donna about the same time Jack was here, applying for work.”

  Lenny looked from Zander to Jack, then back. “Seriously? The same day?”

  “That’s what I understand. He applied here Friday, right? I met Donna the same day. Jack didn’t call and tell me that you’d offered him your old Vee-Dub bug until Saturday, and he didn’t know I’d prayed with Donna for a car until we talked.”

  “And your little girl? Why is she in the hospital, Jack—if you don’t mind me asking?”

  Jack chewed the inside of his mouth. Zander could see how hard it was for him to frame the horrific words. “The doctors say she has . . . leukemia.”

  Lenny was silent for several moments. “I’m really sorry, Jack. Of course, Donna can have the car.”

  Zander nodded. “Thank you for your generosity, Lenny. Without a car, Donna would have to use public transportation to take her sick child to her appointments. You can imagine all the germs and bugs that would subject Kaylee to.”

  Lenny shuddered. “I’m glad she won’t have to do that.”

  “Lenny, if it’s okay with you, I wanted to get the make, model, and VIN so I can buy some auto insurance before I bring Donna by to pick up the car.”

  “Not a problem. In fact . . .” Here Lenny fidgeted as though wrestling with a decision. “Ah, what the *blank.* Will you let me pay for the first six months of insurance? The title change will cost something, too. I’d like to give you some cash to cover that.”

  Thunderstruck, Jack rasped, “Boss . . .”

  “Don’t start with me, Jack. You just get rid of that fungus crap that’s killing my shrubs; I’ll handle the details with Zander here.”

  Jack didn’t budge. “Th-thank you, Lenny.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” He jerked his head at Zander. “Follow me. You,” he pointed at Jack, “get to work.”

  He strode away. Zander grinned at Jack, slapped him on the shoulder, and ran to catch up with Lenny.

  ZANDER MADE IT TO THE hospital after eleven—later than he’d wanted, but still in the morning. He couldn’t wait to take Donna to fetch the car.

  But as he approached Kaylee’s room, he hesitated. About a dozen people milled about in the hall or stood in Kaylee’s doorway.

  Zander’s heart plummeted. Lord? Please! Please help Kaylee and her mom—

  “That’s him! That’s the guy!”

  The crowd rushed Zander. Before he could react, hands grasped at him and voices shouted for his attention. They pulled him in different directions, the crowd’s insistence growing.

  Five or six doctors and nurses, hearing the commotion, spilled from Kaylee’s room. Donna came out with them. She stared at Zander with wide eyes.

  “Is that the man?” A tiny but senior-looking female doctor pointed at Zander.

  “Yes. That’s him. Zander Cruz.”

  The doctor motioned to the other medical staff. “Get those people off him and bring him to me.”

  The staff members were ineffective in calming the crowd; the hands pawing Zander were desperate. He felt one of his shirt buttons pop and fly into the air. Next, his breast pocket tore. He was certain his sleeves would give way next.

  Topmost in his thoughts was, Oh, man! This was my new shirt!

  “Hey! Hey! STOP THIS, I SAY!” The doctor’s authority cut through the pandemonium.

  Brought to their senses, most of the dozen sets of hands released Zander. One woman clung to his arm.

  “Mrs. Wong, release that man or I will have security remove you from the hospital.”

  “No! I need him to come pray for my son. He must come!”

  Zander glanced down at the woman and saw how desperate she was. “Is that what you want from me? You want me to pray for your son?”

  “Yes. He is dying from cancer—like Kaylee.”

  The crowd’s clamor jumped up. “Please! Please pray for my boy!” “No, please come lay your hands on our daughter!” “We’ll give you money—anything you want—just come, please, and pray for our baby!”

  “But—”

  “I said, SILENCE!”

  The crowd hushed again, but belligerence distorted their expressions.

  Zander felt like he had been jerked into an alternate dimension.

  Lord, what is happening?

  The sensation intensified when a curly-headed rocket burst from Kaylee’s hospital room and jetted down the hallway away from the crowd. Donna ran after, shouting, “Kaylee! Kaylee, come back!”

  Zander’s mouth fell open—and two-dozen hands again engaged in a none-too-gentle tug-o-war over possession of his body.

  The doctor who’d shouted for quiet strode up to Zander and grasped his arm. She slapped away the hands claiming it. When she’d extricated him, she commanded, “You. In there. Now.”

  Zander allowed the woman to drag him into Kaylee’s hospital room; he was, in fact, grateful to be rescued from the wild rabble in the hallway. The rest of the medical staff in the hallway followed them into the room and closed the door.

  “Those people out there are nuts!” Zander exclaimed. “They about tore me in pieces. What in the world is going on?” He glanced at the doctor’s credentials. “Dr. Gupta.”

  Dr. Gupta folded her arms and frowned. “That, Mr. Cruz, is what I intend to find out.”

  Zander nodded. “Okay.”

  “Did you visit Kaylee Grober Friday morning?”

  “Yes. Sure. I’m a licensed minister.” He frowned. “But wasn’t that Kaylee who ran down the hall just now? She seems a lot better.”

  “A lot better? A lot better?” The woman, the top of whose head barely reached Zander’s arm pit, waved her finger under his nose. “Mister Cruz, we want to know what you did to Ka
ylee.”

  “What I did . . .”

  A frisson of foreboding crept up Zander’s back—along with the story Jayda had told him of the nanomites eradicating a man’s brain tumor. He’d even had his own experience with the nanomites mending him after Emilio’s uncle had beat the ever-living snot out of him. And Abe! Abe had suffered so much brain trauma that he would not have made it if it hadn’t been for the nanomites.

  Zander licked his lips and asked silently, “Nano . . . Nano, did you—”

  Zander Cruz, we did nothing.

  “You didn’t, um, fool with Kaylee’s bone marrow? Kill the leukemia cells? Perform some kind of nano-surgery?”

  No, Zander Cruz. We understood that we were not to draw attention to ourselves. We did nothing . . . although we most certainly could have.

  They uttered those last words with acerbic disdain.

  “But if you didn’t, then . . .” Zander’s query tapered off and he wiped his face with a hand.

  Only one possibility remained; he had just one answer for Kaylee’s doctor.

  “Dr. Gupta, I am a follower of Jesus. When I was here Friday, I prayed for Kaylee. I asked Jesus to heal her. That is what I did—and that is all I did.”

  Dr. Gupta’s hand fell to her side. She took a step backward, so she could better stare up into Zander’s face. The two nurses and three doctors observing their conversation went still.

  “May I go now?” Zander asked. He was anxious to see Donna and Kaylee.

  One of the attending physicians asked, “Aren’t you interested in Kaylee’s condition?”

  “Well, sure. Of course, I am.”

  “Dr. Pradesh.” Dr. Gupta shook her head. “We cannot share Kaylee’s medical information with Mr. Cruz.”

  “Oh. Right. I apologize. I got caught up . . .”

  Zander, sliding his eyes from one doctor to another, edged toward the door. Then he remembered the small mob waiting for him.

  “Those people out there. Who are they?”

  “Parents. Parents of other pediatric oncology patients.”

  “And they all want me to pray for their kids?”

  “I assume so,” Dr. Gupta sniffed.

  Zander, shaking his head, backed through the door. On the other side, the parents waited.

  This time they were silent.

  Deferential.

  Organized.

  A spokesperson emerged from their ranks. “Pastor Cruz? My name is Kyle Oxbow. We know you prayed for Kaylee and healed her. Respectfully, would you please pray for our children?”

  Zander took a breath, but Kyle didn’t let him speak.

  “And we want to apologize for mobbing you, for pulling on your clothes.”

  Someone handed Kyle something that he took and held out to Zander. “Here’s, ah, the button we tore off. We apologize, and we, uh, would like to buy you a new shirt.”

  Zander took the button. “That’s not necessary. And I’d be happy to pray for your children. It would be my privilege.”

  Far down the hall, he saw Donna coming his way, a dejected Kaylee in tow.

  “Okay, let’s figure this out. If you will go to your child’s room and wait for me, I’ll be along shortly. How many . . . ?”

  “There are eight on this floor.”

  “Eight children.”

  “Yes. Not all the parents are here this morning, but we’ve kind of gotten to be friends, you know? Since we share the same, um, problems.”

  He could have said, “the same heartache” or “the same anguish.”

  “I understand. I’ll visit each child; I won’t leave until I’ve prayed for all of them. I’ll start as soon as I have a word with Donna.”

  With their eyes glued on Zander as if they were convinced he would bolt and make a run for it, the group of parents slowly disbanded and went to their kids’ rooms. He noticed that several stood in the room’s doorway. Waiting. Watching. Ready to give chase, if needed.

  Zander breathed slowly. “O Jesus! What wonders have you done?”

  Donna drew near while Kaylee alternated hopping up and down and dropping to the floor, trying to break the hold her mother had on her hand.

  “She wants to run,” Donna said. Unchecked tears slid from her face and soaked the front of her blouse. “She hasn’t had this much energy in months. She wants to run and run and run. Instead of starting chemo, the doctors drew blood all day yesterday and this morning. They performed every test they could think of. They can’t find any leukocytes. Her cell count is normal. Even the bruising is gone.”

  Zander stared at Kaylee’s left arm. Where it had been pale and mottled with blue and purple on Friday, he saw only clear, pink skin.

  Kaylee’s brown eyes beamed up at Zander, and she raised her free hand to him. Zander bent over, Donna let go, and the girl came to him. She hugged him and breathed into his ear.

  “Jeees.”

  “What?” Zander whispered back.

  She dimpled. “Jeees.”

  “Jeees?”

  Then he understood. “Jesus?”

  She wagged her head with vigor and pointed up. “Jeees.”

  ZANDER GOT HOME THAT evening after I did. The slump of his shoulders told me how beat he was; the fire in his sweet gray eyes hinted at how elated.

  “Zander, what’s going on? Where have you been?” Then I looked closer. “Hey! How did you trash your new shirt?”

  “First things first. I spent the last two hours with Pastor Lucklow. That’s why I’m late.”

  “Doing what?”

  Zander laughed. “Kind of a debrief or an AAR—according to Malware, Inc.”

  “You’ve lost me.”

  He rubbed his chin. “Yeah, that was my line for most of the day.”

  “Want to tell me over dinner?”

  “Definitely. I’m starved. Skipped lunch.”

  “You skipped lunch? Now I’m really intrigued.”

  He wouldn’t say another word until we were tucked into a private corner in our favorite Chinese restaurant. Then Zander started with his meeting Jack’s boss, Lenny, and how Lenny had paid for Donna’s auto registration and insurance.

  “That was so kind of him! And did you take Donna to pick up her car?”

  “I’ll get to that; you really need to hear my day in sequence. So, after we paid for the insurance and printed out temp proof of insurance cards for Donna, I went to the hospital.”

  Because of the vivid way in which Zander described his encounter with the mob of parents and the doctors, I could almost feel the hands grabbing and fighting over him. “Is that why your shirt is torn? But, why? What did they want?”

  “They wanted me to pray for their children, Jayda, the way I prayed for Kaylee.”

  “But . . .”

  “There’s no ‘but’ this time. Just as I was about to be torn apart like a Thanksgiving wishbone, Kaylee flew out of her hospital room at speeds close to Mach One. She jetted down the hall with her mom trailing behind. Donna had a devil of a time catching Kaylee.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  As hungry as I knew Zander had to be, he couldn’t eat much. He was too full of news and excitement. “Donna told me that Kaylee was supposed to start chemo Sunday morning. Instead, the doctors drew blood and ran tests on her all day.”

  Zander tapped his chopsticks on his plate with nervous joy. “Kaylee’s blood was normal, Jay. No cancer cells anywhere. She’s healthy and full of get-up-and-go.”

  I put my hand over my mouth. “Oh, no! The nanomites—”

  “Nope.”

  “What? No?”

  NO, Jayda Cruz. We did NOT heal Kaylee’s body.

  Zander leaned forward and mock-whispered, “Careful. Touchy subject.”

  I stared into Zander’s face, finally understanding his jubilation. “Jesus did it? Jesus healed Kaylee?”

  “Yes, he did. And every parent in the pediatric oncology wing, after witnessing the staff’s uproar and Kaylee streaking up and down the hallway like a twin-turbocharged
entry in the Indy 500, wanted me to pray for their child. So, I did. And I shared Jesus with them, too. I told each child how much the Lord loves them, that Jesus was God’s child, that Jesus volunteered to suffer and die in our place. A few of those kids were old enough to truly relate to the sacrifice God the Father made. I prayed with children and I prayed with moms and dads to receive Jesus as their Lord and, in one case, an entire family surrendered to Christ.”

  Stunned, I sat back. Now it was my dinner that grew cold.

  “This is . . . this is miraculous. And wonderful. And marvelous!”

  Zander’s face crumpled. He squeezed his eyes closed, and tears leaked from under his eyelids. “I’ve been overwhelmed all day.”

  “Oh, my sweet husband . . . God is so good, and we are so blessed!”

  He cleared his throat. “When I was finally able to get away from the other parents and back to Donna, Kaylee had been discharged—discharged with strict instructions to have blood drawn every-other day for a month.

  “I took Donna to the landscaping company and introduced her to Lenny. It was a little difficult explaining to Lenny why Kaylee—who was bouncing around like a kangaroo on crack—didn’t look the least bit sick. So, I just told him the truth, that the doctors were stupefied. I told him we knew it was a miracle, that Jesus had healed Kaylee.”

  “And Jack? Did he see Kaylee?”

  “Yes. Jack was watching us from across the nursery floor. When Kaylee spotted him, she was off like a shot.”

  Zander wept again, covering his eyes with his fingers. “There’s no way to describe that moment: Jack dropped to his knees and Kaylee jumped into his arms. They hugged like forever. It was such a beautiful moment. We were all crying—Me, Donna, and Lenny.”

  “Donna didn’t get upset? She won’t report Jack for breaking the restraining order?”

  “I don’t think so, or at least I don’t see Donna reporting him—and technically, he didn’t break the restraining order. Anyway, Donna just looked at me and said, ‘Please tell Jack thank you. For everything.’