“Speaking of former spies,” said April, glancing at her watch, “Gilda still needs to meet Jasper. Follow me, Gilda.”
“Nice to meet you, Matthew.” Gilda followed April from the office reluctantly, wishing she could ask Matthew a few more questions.
“Jasper is the executive director of the museum and a former CIA senior intelligence officer.” April led Gilda into a large corner office where an expansive desk and a leather-covered armchair filled a room lined with bright windows—a striking contrast with the cluttered cubicles of the room where Matthew, April, Marla, and Janet worked together.
Gilda suddenly felt mortified as a suntanned man with salt-and-pepper hair rose from the desk to greet her. It was the man from the Metro—Jasper Clarke! “But—” Gilda stammered, “you said your name was Jake!”
“All my friends call me Jake. You said your name was Penelope Stunn from California.”
April was amused. “Well, this seems like a match made in heaven.”
Gilda couldn’t believe she had already been caught fibbing to the executive director of the Spy Museum. “I guess I was practicing ‘living my cover identity’ to get into the mood for my first day of work,” Gilda explained.
April cackled. “Seems like you might have a real spy recruit here, Jasper.”
“Indeed.”
Gilda was relieved that April found the exchange funny, but she was unnerved by Jasper Clarke, who regarded her with very blue eyes that seemed to look through her. His poised demeanor suggested the social graces of a man who had been to hundreds of cocktail parties in as many cities—someone who could converse with just about anyone on just about any topic. He also struck Gilda as someone who was constantly processing secrets in some part of his mind—taking speedy inventory, noticing a million details at once, and filing away data to draw upon if it became relevant later.
“Actually, I apologize,” said Jasper. “I should have introduced myself and told you exactly who I was when I overheard you talking to your roommate.”
Gilda felt a queasy mixture of embarrassment and vulnerability, realizing that he had been watching her—that he had known all along exactly who she was from the first moment she had attempted to fool him.
“That’s terrible, Jasper. You let Gilda think you were just some weird guy on the Metro?”
“Old habits die hard.”
“Jasper likes to see how much information he can get from other people without telling anything about himself.”
“Ah,” said Jasper, pointing a finger in the air. “But Gilda didn’t tell me anything about herself. Only lies.”
“Excellent work, Agent Gilda,” said April with a wry smile.
This is the first time I’ve ever been praised for lying, Gilda thought. She was surprised to feel as disconcerted as she felt relieved.
Jasper picked up his briefcase and began stuffing some folders inside. “I’m actually just on my way to a meeting, but, Gilda, I hope you’ll have a wonderful experience here at the Spy Museum.” He extended his hand again and Gilda shook it. “No hard feelings, right?”
“Right.”
“Has Gilda checked out the permanent exhibit yet?”
“That’s where she’s headed next.”
“Well—enjoy!”
As Gilda left Jasper Clarke’s office, she felt excited to discover more of her surroundings at the museum, but also uneasy. With these people, I’ve met my match, she thought.
6
The Life of a Spy
Dear Wendy:
I just finished my first day of work. Picture this: I’m sitting in my apartment in Washington, D.C., wearing my red power suit. Pretty mature, huh? Now picture this: I just put on a wig and also practiced applying a fake mustache from my disguise kit. (I don’t want you to worry that I’ve become too serious and sophisticated now that I’m working in the nation’s capital.)
I know you’ll be relieved to hear that I’m totally in my element at the Spy Museum!
Today I watched a Spy Museum movie about the good and bad reasons people become spies. Good reasons: patriotism and a passion for intrigue. Bad reasons: greed and egotism. The movie also talked about the risks of getting caught spying on a foreign government--little things like deportation, jail, and death.
“Do YOU have what it takes to be a spy?” the movie asked.
My answer: a resounding YES. However, it’s also true that I’m not a “perfect” spy.
My strengths as a spy:
I’m naturally curious and even nosy.
I pay attention to details.
I don’t mind being an outsider (well, half the time I don’t mind).
I’m a “people person.” (Please stop sniggering.)
People underestimate me: they assume I’m not a threat, and this gives me more time to investigate them.
I’m used to keeping secrets from my family. (Best friends are another story altogether.)
I’m courageous. (Hey, I didn’t say I don’t get scared.)
Psychic abilities!
My weaknesses as a spy (keep snide comments to yourself, please):
Spies are supposed to “blend in with the scenery,” and my penchant for fashion makes me stand out in a crowd.
My need to tell my best friend (that’s you, in case you’ve forgotten) everything could become a liability.
I have little interest in technology and no experience with surveillance equipment.
Lack of decoding expertise. (By the way, when I toured the Spy Museum, I learned how the Nazis used a code-making machine called ENIGMA during World War II: it resembles a sinister-looking typewriter. Anyway, a bunch of mathematicians managed to decipher this very complex machine-made code during the war. Let’s hear it for the math kids! Maybe you can ask if you can learn some decoding techniques at math camp, okay? That might be more useful than all of these pointless long-division problems you keep doing--or maybe it’s calculus, but whatever.)
Since you aren’t here to explore this place with me, I’m sending you another installment of my Washington, D.C., virtual travel service! Aren’t you excited?
“WHO KNEW?” GILDA JOYCE HIGHLIGHTS,
FAVORITES & “JUST PLAIN WEIRD” OBJECTS
AT THE INTERNATIONAL SPY MUSEUM
The Lipstick Gun (the “Kiss of Death”): This was created by the KGB (the intelligence agency for the Soviet Union during the Cold War in case you’re clueless). There’s something spooky about looking into what you think is a lipstick and instead seeing a little hole from which a bullet might fire.
“Sisterhood of Spies” Exhibit: Listen, there’s A LOT they don’t teach us in school. Who knew that there were so many female spies throughout history--women who went around hiding secret notes in their bonnets, sausage curls, petticoats, and china dolls?
The Jefferson wheel cipher: Who knew that Thomas Jefferson, one of the Founding Fathers of our nation, also invented a way to encode and decode messages? (And why is it that presidents don’t invent things anymore? I guess they’re way too busy to carve things out of wood.) The wheel cipher Jefferson made looks like a little wooden rolling pin, but it’s actually made of twenty-six round wooden pieces, each engraved with letters of the alphabet and threaded onto an iron spindle. When you turn the wheels, you can scramble and unscramble words in lots of different ways. Great for passing secret notes during math class!
Rectal tool concealment kit: This is exactly what the name says. It’s basically a container concealing a bunch of tools--lock picks, drills to be stored “where the sun don’t shine,” as my Grandma Joyce would put it. It was for very serious spies who were in imminent danger of being captured--kind of an emergency escape kit. I don’t see why you’re laughing. I’m sure the people who had to use it didn’t find the idea of spies going around with tools concealed in their butts the least bit funny.
MOLES, SIGNAL SITES, AND “DEAD DROPS”: No, a “mole” isn’t a nearly blind furry animal that burrows underground, and it isn’t a beauty mark on your
skin. In the spy world (or “intelligence community,” as they like to call it in this town), a “mole” is a person who has access to important secrets--probably someone working for the military, the CIA, or the FBI. But this person is also secretly working for an enemy organization, and informing them of classified information, often in exchange for money. Because it’s too risky for moles (and other spies, for that matter) to meet their contacts in person, they use code names and “dead drops” to communicate with their foreign contacts without being seen associating with them in person.
DEAD DROPS: It’s usually too dangerous for spy handlers (like CIA officers working overseas) to meet directly with their “assets”--the people who are willing to give them secret information. After all, if spotted together, they might be arrested or even killed. Instead, they use “dead drops”--agreed-upon locations where they will drop off messages and packages of information for each other to pick up without meeting in person. They use “concealment devices” to hide the information they drop off: an empty soda can or a twig can be left out in the open while hiding classified information. Spies usually have “signal sites”--maybe a chalk mark on a mailbox or sign--to alert one another that a communication “drop” has been made.
SPY CITY: Even though the Cold War is officially over, the Russians and Americans (among others) are apparently spying on each other as much as ever. Kind of makes you wonder what’s going on right outside the Spy Museum!
Looking up from her typewriter, Gilda peered out the window to check for any interesting activity in the apartments across the courtyard. She was pleased to discover that at this hour of the day, she could actually see directly into a few apartments.
In one window, a tall man wearing a business suit talked into his cell phone as he paced through his living room. Gilda had seen this man in the elevator, and he seemed to be one of the few people in the building who greeted her with a friendly “Hello!” She didn’t know his name, but she thought of him as “The Politician” because of his fierce, broad smile. In another window, a young man who had the disheveled look of a college student studying for final exams thoughtfully picked his nose while he stirred something in a pot on his kitchen stove.
Gilda gasped when she glanced up at a window on the next floor. A mousy woman wearing glasses stared directly at Gilda. How long has she been watching me? The woman didn’t avert her gaze. She didn’t wave. Something about her stare seemed in explicably hostile.
Feeling her pulse race, Gilda jumped up and pulled the blinds shut.
Why was it so unnerving to discover her looking at me? Gilda wondered . After all, I’m sitting here looking at other people, too. I guess it’s funny how I love people-watching, but I hate the idea of someone spying on me.
Gilda cautiously opened the blinds, forcing herself to take another look. But when she looked back at the window, the woman was gone.
7
CIA Project MINDSCAPE
The psychic spy emerged from his trance. It always took several minutes for him to reorient himself—to feel connected with his immediate environment and the people around him. Just minutes before, he had transported his mind from a condominium building in Washington, D.C., to the bowels of a government building in Iran, where he had searched for evidence of a clandestine military program. During the past few weeks, his mind had traveled the globe—Russia, Syria, North Korea, Afghanistan—while his body reclined in a leather easy chair.
He had been secretly hired by the government as part of its top-secret “remote viewing” program—an attempt to access foreign intelligence through psychic techniques. The official CIA program had been terminated years ago amid public ridicule at the notion of “out-of-body” spying, but the psychic spy had been more recently recruited as part of a newer, top-secret program headed by a CIA intelligence officer named Loomis Trench. Project MINDSCAPE was an effort to continue researching and exploring the possibilities of using psychics to spy on people and places that were formerly inaccessible.
The room from which the psychic spy worked was spare—almost clinical. It contained little more than his reclining chair, charts, a computer, and notebooks. Loomis, the spy’s supervisor, was a longtime CIA intelligence officer with a penchant for wearing dark suits and bow ties. He took detailed notes of the objects, people, and even documents the psychic spy observed while in his trance state. Sometimes a military doctor came to monitor the psychic spy’s pulse, brainwaves, and other vital statistics, but most often it was just the two men—the psychic spy searching for targets around the world, his CIA observer taking notes and passing the information along to higher-ups in the CIA and military.
At first, the project was a success: the psychic was amazingly accurate in his remote viewing sessions, and Loomis was excited about such an intriguing and seemingly magical way to gather information.
Sometimes Loomis scrutinized the psychic very intently, as if trying to see into the man’s brain—trying to learn the secret of psychic knowledge. “Someday we’ll develop a pill or an injection that gives anyone in the military power to do what you do,” he said. He regarded the psychic with a fixed stare—with something close to envy.
“Perhaps,” said the psychic, feeling annoyed at the comment. “And that will be either a wonderful day or a very frightening day.”
“So how do you do it?”
“Do what?”
“What’s the trick? Why can’t I do what you do?” More than anything, Loomis wished he had psychic powers to know things that others didn’t—to know what others were thinking—particularly what others were thinking about him.
“For me, it’s like channeling a spirit,” said the psychic. “I make contact with an entity who takes me to the locations we want to view.” The psychic spy did not mention something important—a potential problem. Recently, his spirit guide had been failing to turn up as she always had in the past. He didn’t mention the inexplicable visions that had begun to muddy his field of vision, confusing his ability to search for the targets Loomis gave him. He assumed some form of counterespionage must be the problem. Maybe some other psychic spy from a hostile country or terrorist organization is attempting to thwart my remote viewing sessions, he thought. At any rate, the last thing he wanted to reveal was his greatest fear—that he was losing his precious psychic skills.
His supervisor held a report in his hand. “According to this report, the targets you viewed last time didn’t check out at all when our men on the ground went to investigate. They were disappointed because your first sessions were so accurate.”
The psychic spy felt his skin grow cold. His field of vision narrowed: objects around him flattened and blurred slightly as they sometimes did preceding one of his migraine headaches. “Nothing checked out?” His voice shook. I’m wasting their time, he told himself. “If my readings aren’t yielding anything useful,” he said, “then maybe we should go our separate ways. Far be it from me to waste taxpayers’ money.”
“Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no! It’s not a waste at all.” His supervisor peered at him earnestly through rectangular glasses; his eyes were the color of evening fog. “On the contrary, our work together is incredibly useful. No—we mustn’t stop. Now—let’s move on to the next target.”
The psychic spy leaned back in his chair and did his best to relax his body and release his fears—to allow himself to focus on the target. He had the usual floating sensation that preceded his ability to view a distant place, but he was disturbed by the stray images that emerged. He abruptly pulled himself out of his trance when that face appeared again: the cold white skin, the dead stare of those eyes, and—most disturbing—the star-shaped blood stain.
“Something wrong?” Loomis asked.
“No—not really. I just need to start over.” For the first time in his life, the psychic spy felt he couldn’t be honest. He was under pressure to find a specific target and he couldn’t let his country down. The face is irrelevant, he told himself. It’s a distraction.
&nbs
p; The psychic spy closed his eyes, slowed his heartbeat and breathing. Gradually, his brainwaves changed and he felt as if his body were floating, moving swiftly through the misty realm from which he would attempt to perceive objects and people around the globe. He knew he was drawing closer to his tar get—a suspected terrorist training camp in a mountainous region.
But as the mist cleared, he didn’t see mountains. I’m in the wrong place, he told himself. He found himself in an apartment building, but he saw no signs of weaponry or combat training. For a moment, his spirits lifted, because he spied a girl in the apartment—a girl who resembled his spirit guide. She came back, he told himself. She’s back to help me. But confusion and disappointment returned when he realized this girl was not his spirit guide at all: this girl sat at a typewriter and wore cat’s-eye sunglasses.
8
The Acquisition
Gilda sat at her desk in a corner of the cluttered office space she now shared with Matthew Morrow, April, Janet, and Marla. The last employee to use the desk was now on maternity leave: she had left a photograph of herself wearing a purple wig, dark sunglasses, and displaying a cheesy grin along with a group of kids who appeared to be about ten or eleven years old. Gilda guessed it was a picture from one of the “spy camps” that took place at the museum during the summer.
After wiping a film of dust from the desk and arranging her belongings, Gilda leaned back in her chair and took a bite of the “disguise dog” she had purchased at the Spy City Café—a hot dog loaded with spicy chili. She loved the feeling of sitting in a real office and having her own desk—a desk far more inspiring than the desks at school with their tiny, insufficient writing tables attached. She had her own telephone, stapler, Spy Museum coffee cup, and hanging file folders filled with museum program brochures. She also liked sitting near Matthew Morrow because she got the feeling he was the kind of person who knew things about espionage—things he might be willing to teach her if she could convince him she wasn’t just an ordinary high school intern.
The Dead Drop Page 4