Deep State Stealth

by Vikki Kestell

  “Then Lenny gave her the title and the keys to the car. Jack sent Kaylee back to her mom, and they drove off home.”

  My husband smiled. “I went over to Grace Chapel and unloaded on Pastor Lucklow. Like I said, an AAR. We made so much noise rejoicing, that Christine, Pastor’s secretary, came to see what the fuss was about—so then, I had to repeat it all.”

  He sighed, grinned, and picked up his chopsticks. “And that, my dear, is why I was late getting home.”

  Chapter 24

  JAYDA CRUZ. IT IS TIME to get up.

  Jayda Cruz. It is time to get up.

  Jayda Cruz. It is time to get up. “A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest—and poverty will come on you like a thief and scarcity like an armed man.” Proverbs 24:33 and 34.

  “Whatever! I’m up already.” I dragged myself from the bed and stumbled to the shower. Despite yesterday’s wonderful events, I hadn’t slept well. As the hot water hit me and my mind began to wake up, that stupid, horrid dream of several weeks past reared its ugly head.

  Again.

  Although Zander and I had prayed over the nightmare and although the abject terror of it had faded, the dream was never far from my thoughts. Over and over it played. For almost four weeks at this point! We’d dissected the dream from every angle, but my disquiet persisted, as if an element of the dream remained locked, an aspect I hadn’t yet grasped.

  Whatever “it” was, it nagged and troubled me. Last night, it kept me from restful sleep.

  What is it?

  I leaned against the shower’s tile and let the steaming spray pound me while I rewound the dream to the place where I’d first spotted the serpent’s winding form beneath the mist.

  Although the head of the snake was severed, the President has uncovered evidence . . .

  “Yeah, yeah. Enough already.” If I never heard Gamble’s voice repeat those words, it would be too soon.

  Where did I leave off? Oh, yeah.

  Through the soupy fog I followed the broad, pointed snout leading the undulating body closer, ever closer in my direction. Then I caught the quick glimpse of one golden eye.

  Although the head of the snake was severed, the President—

  “Shut up! I’m trying to think here!”

  The serpent’s head rose from the mist and fixed its malignant eyes on me.

  “The head.” I shivered despite the hot, stinging needles of the shower. “But Harmon died, so what can it mean?”

  The snake’s eyes held me in their thrall, and I felt myself falling deeper into them. “In the name of Jesus, stop. Just STOP IT!”

  I pulled my gaze away from the snake’s—then jerked it back. Something had changed. The alteration was subtle but marked. No longer entranced by the serpent’s gaze, I focused on what was different. The eyes . . . they were darker, more of an amber, and something about their shape bothered me. They had a slight slant to them, and—

  What had teased and eluded me burst on my consciousness.

  As if the spray pummeling my skin had turned to ice water, the force of the revelation dropped me to my knees in the shower stall. The air whooshed from my lungs.

  Instead of being concealed or obscure, the truth had been too obvious.

  “Harmon wasn’t the head,” I whispered. “Someone else is.”

  I scrambled to my feet, wrenched the faucets off, and grabbed a towel. “Zander!”

  No answer.

  I dried off and dressed as quickly as I could. “Zander? Zander!”

  “Yeah?” He appeared in our bedroom door, hair disheveled but coffee in hand.

  “The dream! I’ve figured it out. The dream—the part . . . the other piece of it.” I was flustered and incoherent.

  Zander saluted me with his mug. “Hon, you need coffee.”

  Yes, I did. Minutes later we were seated at our little dinette, a mug grasped between my hands.

  “Okay, now what about the dream?” Zander asked.

  “It was too simple,” I replied. “What Gamble said, Although the head of the snake was severed?”

  “Yeah? Head severed. Harmon dead. Got it.”

  “No. That’s the point. It wasn’t Harmon. We thought he was the head, but he wasn’t.”

  Zander went still. I saw when the gears engaged.

  “But, if Harmon wasn’t the head . . .”

  I nodded. “All of us—the President, Kennedy, Gamble, you and I—we’ve been operating under the presumption that Harmon was the leader of the conspiracy, that he was directing the other players. My infiltration of the NSA was to flush out the remnants of the plot. We assumed that with Harmon’s death, the plan to unseat the presidency was largely over.”

  “But . . . if we are wrong?”

  “Then the conspiracy is alive and intact—like the serpent concealed in the mist, hidden, but still stalking its prey.”

  “The President.”

  “Yes. We need to tell Gamble. Now.”

  I grabbed my phone and keyed in Gamble’s number.

  He answered on the second ring. “Yeah?”

  “Gamble. I need to tell you something, something important.”

  WE HIT THE DOJO THAT night basically to work off our frustration. Well, my frustration.

  Okay. I was the one frustrated. Seriously so.

  Zander and I viewed the final revelation from my nightmare as a momentous and vital piece of information. But, when we’d called Gamble that morning, let’s just say that he had been less than enthused.

  “Let me get this straight. You, Jayda, had a bad dream. I had a bad dream once. Right after I ate Thai food. Turns out I’m allergic to MSG—and it was loaded with it. Gave me hives. Made me itch.”

  “It wasn’t that kind of dream, Gamble. When I woke up, I remembered every tiny detail of it and was able to repeat it to Zander.”

  “But you had this dream, what, a month ago now? And just this morning it made sense?”

  “It always made sense, Gamble, but one piece of the meaning sort of eluded me. I’ve been trying to puzzle it out since then, and I finally got it.”

  “Jayda, I don’t mean to imply that you guys are strange or anything, but not everyone believes that dreams have real meaning.”

  “Some dreams do, Gamble. Not all, but some.”

  “And you can tell which ones do and which ones don’t . . . how?”

  Grrr!

  I knew then that we weren’t going to convince him. Nevertheless, I had persisted. “The upshot, the reason I called, is this, Gamble: We’ve been working from the supposition (to quote you) that Harmon was ‘the head of the snake.’ But if Harmon wasn’t ‘the head,’ and if he wasn’t the leader, then someone else is. And that means that the conspiracy is still active. We should be looking for the real head, the hidden leader.”

  He grunted, not convinced. “Okay. I’ll pass your thoughts on to Kennedy, but I doubt he’ll put any more credence in the source than I can.”

  Then he hung up.

  “He doesn’t believe me, Zander.”

  “I don’t think it’s about believing you, Jay.”

  Jayda Cruz, perhaps this scripture applies to Agent Gamble: “The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.”

  “The nanomites are right, Jayda. Gamble doesn’t believe in God-given dreams because he doesn’t believe in God, because he hasn’t surrendered to Jesus. That makes him blind to the realm of the Spirit.”

  The nanomites chimed in, adding, “The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.”

  “You shouldn’t encourage them, Zander.”

  “Even when they get it right for a change? It’s simple, really: Gamble doesn’t know God, so he can’t perceive the things of God.”

  I’d gone off to work in a huff, but I’d kept to myself and had nursed my worry
and aggravation most of the day. That evening, when I got home, I was still frustrated and more than a little down.

  Zander and I ate dinner and headed straight to the dojo. It took two hours of non-stop sparring as though my life depended on how I fought, but Gus-Gus and Ninja-Noid managed to beat most of the vexation out of me.

  I was no longer frustrated. Just depressed.

  Ugh.

  On the way home, Zander’s hand snuck out and snagged mine.

  “Hey. Will ice cream make it all better?”

  “I dunno,” I sighed. However, after a moment of reflection, I asked, “Ice cream with sprinkles?”

  “But, of course.”

  “And crunched-up Oreos?”

  “Yup.”

  “And gummy bears?”

  “You can have anything you want, sweetie. So, ice cream?”

  “Yes, please.”

  I sniffed to myself, Ha-ha, Mr. Special-Agent-Man Ross Gamble. I’m having ice cream and you’re not—and I’m not sharing with you.

  Ya big dummy.

  Somehow that made me feel better, too.

  Chapter 25

  Wednesday, July 11

  “JOHN-BOY. RIPLEY. WELCOME to your third tradecraft class.”

  Mal was still a little peeved with us. “It’s obvious from last week’s SDRs that it wasn’t your first rodeo, and we’ve decided—so as not to waste your time or ours—we’ve decided to take inventory of your skills and focus on what you need.”

  He handed each of us a sheet of paper. I pursed my lips, rubbed my nose, and kept my eyes down. I was not going to smirk.

  “Fill this out, and we’ll go from there.”

  Some of the lingo on the sheet was unfamiliar, but the nanomites supplied meaning and context for what I didn’t understand. I answered the ten questions and handed my sheet to McFly, who was hovering around our seats.

  He and Mal looked over our questionnaires.

  Mal cleared his throat. “Neither of you are proficient with a handgun?”

  We both shook our heads.

  “Well, then, looks like firearms are your weakest area, and we should focus there. You’ve never fired a gun?”

  That question was directed at me. “No. Never.”

  “But you have, John-Boy?”

  “Yes. I’ve handled 9mm and .45cal semiautos. Can’t say I’m any good, but I’ve loaded and shot them.”

  “Okay. We’ll cover the basics here then take you to an indoor range for practice.”

  “An indoor range this time of night?”

  “We have an understanding with an owner.”

  With that, Baltar drilled firearms safety into our heads and had us handle blue guns—polyurethane hand gun replicas designed for training law enforcement and military.

  “The first rule of gun safety is: All guns are always loaded. Doesn’t matter if you think a gun isn’t loaded. Doesn’t matter if you know a gun isn’t loaded. Doesn’t matter if the gun is a trainer. You always treat a gun as if it were loaded. Always. Got it?”

  Zander and I nodded our understanding and stared at the “LE-blue” semiautos and magazines on the table in front of us.

  “The second rule of gun safety is: Never cover anything you are not willing to destroy. That means you never point the muzzle of a gun at anything or anyone unless you are willing to kill it. When you are handling a firearm, always point the muzzle in a safe direction, usually down. Do not sweep the muzzle across someone’s body. Ever. Got it?”

  “Yes.”

  Logan stepped to our table, a blue gun in his hand. He stood sideways and held the gun at about a thirty-degree angle. It was still pointing toward the floor, but we could see it. He held his index finger outside the trigger guard, along the barrel.

  “The third rule of firearms safety: Keep your finger off the trigger until your gun sights are on your target and you have made the decision to shoot.”

  Logan moved to the side of the table next to Zander. “Now, stand up.”

  Zander and I stood. Deckard stood behind Zander, and Dredd hovered behind me.

  “You will lift your gun with your dominant hand and hold it at the angle I am holding mine. Your dominant hand goes on the grip first with your trigger finger in the ‘index point’ position as mine is. Bring your other hand to the grip and wrap its fingers over the fingers of your dominant hand, then align your thumbs side by side.”

  I was scared spitless, but I picked up the gun in front of me and did as instructed.

  Dredd murmured, “Snug your firing hand into the grip, Ripley. You want a firm hold, high on the grip, with the web of your palm pressed into the grip.”

  I adjusted.

  “Better.”

  “Fourth rule: Be sure of your target and what is behind it. A round can penetrate doors and walls. You can easily kill someone you cannot see.”

  The next hour was spent handling the guns. We loaded and unloaded training magazines with training rounds, inserted the magazines into the training guns, chambered a round, released the magazine, and expelled the chambered round. Again and again.

  “A chambered round can kill. Always check that the gun is empty. Lock the slide back and slip a finger into the chamber to ensure that no round remains. Even then—”

  “All guns are always loaded,” Zander and I recited together.

  The guys grinned their approval, and we moved on to stripping, cleaning, and reassembling the guns.

  “You are only as proficient with a firearm as you are familiar with all of its needs and functions. Handling a weapon over and over in a safe manner makes you less likely to negligently discharge it.”

  The guys then demonstrated the isosceles stance, where the shooter squarely faces the target, feet set apart at shoulder width, upper body leaning forward at the waist, knees slightly bent, arms extended toward the target, forming an isosceles triangle.

  “This stance is comfortable for most shooters and helps you to balance your weight side to side. It is a stable shooting position—but it is not always the right position. When you’ve become proficient with this stance, we’ll also teach you the Weaver and fighting stances.”

  “Shooting a handgun is a perishable skill,” Mal said, “meaning that continual practice is necessary to earn and retain your skills—so let’s get some practice in.”

  We got into Malware’s van and drove for half an hour. When we got out, we were parked in front of an indoor range that looked like it was made of preformed concrete walls. Mal had a key and was familiar with the location of the lobby lights.

  “Ears and eyes,” McFly intoned. He handed us shooting earmuffs and safety glasses.

  We donned muffs and glasses and entered the range itself through two sets of doors that kept most of the noise confined to the fifteen shooting lanes inside.

  Dredd hung paper targets on clips in lanes five and ten and, with the push of a button, ran them out to three yards. Baltar pointed me to lane five and stood behind me while McFly stood behind Zander on lane ten.

  “Three yards. Nine feet. This is close quarters for handguns. When you’ve demonstrated that you can put three consecutive rounds inside the target ring, we’ll move you out to seven yards.”

  The guys then drilled us on about a hundred different things to remember while shooting: weight forward, elbows slightly bent; sight down the barrel—line up the two rear and single front sights; squeeze the trigger—don’t pull or jerk it; hold the gun steady; don’t allow the recoil to pop the muzzle up.

  Zander and I loaded and shot three magazines each, then reloaded and shot again. Baltar’s commands over my shoulder started to sound a little like Gus-Gus counting off steps and demanding that I go faster.

  After twenty minutes of nonstop load-and-shoot, we were done. Baltar supervised me stripping, cleaning, and oiling my weapon, then reassembling it. Even though we’d worn ear protection, my head was muzzy from the echoes of enclosed shooting.

  Back in the van, I glanced at Zander. He was buoyant, p
leased with our training activities.

  Me, I was okay, but I was pretty sure Baltar’s voice would haunt my dreams tonight.

  Zander leaned toward me. “Miles on the mountain, Ripley,” he whispered. “Miles on the mountain.”

  Thursday

  ZANDER DROVE ALONE to the weekly Celebrate Recovery meeting because Jayda had stayed late at work for a required class. He found the parking lot fuller than usual. Busier. He stepped from his car and spied a small crowd waiting at the door. Getting out his keys to the fellowship hall, he walked toward the door.

  “Pastor Cruz!” Zander recognized the man and his wife from his second visit to the hospital where Kaylee was a patient.

  “Hi. It’s Josh and Emily, right?”

  “Yes. Pastor, thank you for praying for our son. We wanted to let you know that he’s responding to the treatments—so much better than the doctors told us he would.”

  “I . . . I’m so glad.”

  “You gave us your card and it had the Celebrate Recovery meeting times on it. We brought my brother and his wife, too.”

  Another couple asked, “Do you remember us from the hospital, Pastor Cruz? You prayed for our boy, too, and he has gone into remission. We wanted to thank you in person . . . and we wanted to hear more about Jesus.”

  “Welcome. I’m delighted you’ve come.”

  Actually, I’m stunned, Zander thought.

  Tom and Becky drove into the parking lot. Zander caught Tom ogling the crowd of newcomers.

  It’s gonna be a great night, Zander realized.

  “Come on in, everyone. We’ll be serving coffee and cookies in a few minutes.”

  Saturday

  WHEN HER PHONE CHIRPED an incoming call, the woman was in her car, speeding away from D.C. toward her home in Virginia. She raised the soundproof glass between herself and her driver and answered.

  “Yes?” She had been expecting the call; the team she’d dispatched to New Mexico had better have the answers she sent them to unearth.