Willie (William Wallace) Lincoln—President’s son
who died in 1862; removed from Oak Hill after
President Lincoln was assassinated.
Gilda followed a rocky path that wound down the steep hillside among the tombstones. The air was still and hot, but here and there were sudden cool gusts rising up from the earth like little sighs of cold breath.
Gilda was suddenly very aware of being alone in this graveyard among people who had been dead for more than a hundred years. She had the strange feeling she was entering a new territory where she was outnumbered.
What if something more sinister than the ghost of Lincoln was beckoning to me in my dreams—luring me toward this cemetery? Gilda’s mind drifted to a memory of a zombie movie she and her brother Stephen had watched on late-night television after the last day of the school year.
Get a grip! Gilda warned herself. She reminded herself of a passage from The Master Psychic’s Handbook she had memorized:
The psychic must create a personal boundary. YOU control what spirits talk to you. YOU decide if they are welcome or not. If they are not welcome, tell them GO AWAY.
Gilda navigated cracked and broken stone steps down a very steep hillside descent without a railing. Clearly people don’t take leisurely walks around this part of the cemetery very often, she thought.
A cloud passed over the sun and Gilda heard the whir of cicadas in the trees and the sad cooing of mourning doves. As she neared the tomb where Lincoln’s son had been buried, she felt suddenly cold. She walked alongside tombstones that had been toppled over, as if someone had risen from the ground and knocked them down.
Finally Gilda reached a family mausoleum built into the hillside: it was a tomb enclosed behind a heavy stone façade and an iron gate—the place where Lincoln’s son had been laid to rest.
I’m standing exactly where president Lincoln stood when he came to visit his dead son, Gilda thought. She pictured Lincoln sitting next to the tomb while his guards looked on. He rested his head in his hands, tears streaming down his long, bony fingers.
“I had a dream about you, President Lincoln,” she whispered. “What did you want me to know?”
Gilda caught her breath at the sound of rustling behind her. She turned to gaze into a pair of wet, black eyes. For what seemed a long time, she looked directly into the hypnotizing eyes. This is what writers mean when they say, ‘time froze,’ Gilda thought. The face had a black nose and soft ears: it was a small fawn who stared at her without moving, almost as if it wanted to say something to her.
Gilda recalled a passage from her Master Psychic’s Handbook:
Sometimes an animal will appear with a message from a spirit: Animals are more receptive to spirits than many humans: the old horror movie scene where the dog perceives an unfriendly ghost before the rest of the family actually has some basis in reality. The spirits of children have a special affinity for animals. . . .
Without warning, the spell was broken: the young deer turned and bolted, bounding down the steep hillside, stumbling and knocking over loose stones lining the path.
Gilda was about to take out her notebook to record the encounter when something on the ground captured her attention. One of the large, brick-sized stones the fawn had knocked loose was not a stone at all! It had broken open to reveal a secret compartment and a folded piece of paper.
I have a feeling it’s the message I’m supposed to find, Gilda thought.
Gilda glanced around just to make sure nobody was watching, then picked up the stone container. Upon closer investigation, she saw that the stone was not natural at all, but made of some kind of painted plastic that had opened very neatly in half to reveal its contents.
Gilda unfolded the piece of paper and read:
dear dear friend speed when I it expect comes to to have his a I delivery should for prefer you emigrating soon to some look country for where my they usual make signal no blue pretense gum of marking loving Anna liberty to you Russia win for respond instance with where pink despotism gum can on be Anna taken to pure let and me without know the you base alloy of received hypocrisy package the poet
I can’t make heads or tails of it, Gilda thought. She sat down with her back resting against the side of the mausoleum to study the cryptic note more carefully.
If I found this anywhere else, I’d probably assume that it’s just the ramblings of some demented person. But this was concealed in a large fake rock—something a lot like some of the dead-drop concealment devices I saw in the Spy Museum.
Gilda remembered how almost any object ranging from a fake tree stump to fake dog poop could be used to conceal secret information intended for pickup by a spy. She recalled how, instead of face-to-face meetings that could lead to arrest if anyone witnessed a direct exchange of information, spies used dead drops to hide secret messages and classified government documents. Gilda felt a surge of adrenaline as she contemplated the potential implications of her chance discovery. She whipped out the reporter’s notebook she always carried to scribble a note:
What if this is an encoded message, and I’ve just intercepted a real dead drop? It might be a message from someone inside the CIA, the FBI, or the military who’s selling secret information to some foreign government or organization! (The words “Russia” and “signal,” for example, look a little suspicious, considering the fact that the note was in a fake rock!)
Gilda remembered reading about moles—traitors within the U.S. government like Aldrich Ames, who worked for the CIA and sold classified information to the Soviet Union for many years. Whenever Ames was ready to make a drop of secret documents to sell to his Russian spy contacts, he would make a simple chalk mark on a mailbox to alert his foreign handlers. He would print secret information from his office computer in the Central Intelligence Agency, then hide the documents somewhere in a suburban park. A remote place like this, Gilda thought. Ames’s Soviet contacts would pick up the information and replace it with a cash payment. Finally, the Russians would leave another signal mark to let Ames know they received the package. Ames’s activities led directly to the deaths of at least ten U.S. spies.
Gilda was about to stuff the piece of paper in her bag, thinking she would take it back to the Spy Museum to show Matthew or Jasper Clarke when she had another sobering thought. If this is a real dead drop, she thought, then I could be in the middle of something dangerous. What if the mole discovers that I removed it? At the very least, I’ll never get to the bottom of the case because the spy would just change the dead-drop location.
Then Gilda remembered one of the things she learned at the Spy Museum: a spy wouldn’t remove a secret document; she would instead take pictures of the information so that nobody would discover anything missing. Grateful that she hadn’t yet removed her old Polaroid camera from her shoulder bag following her arrival in D.C., Gilda took several images of the message at various angles, then put the prints in her bag and the original message back inside the fake-stone concealment device.
The evening was dusky and humid as Gilda trudged up the long incline of Wisconsin Avenue. She felt uneasy as the guards in front of the Russian Embassy seemed to watch her with more interest than usual. Was it her imagination, or did they move a little closer to the gate as she passed by?
Gilda walked faster, eager to get back to her apartment and to get started decoding the message.
14
The Secret Code
TO: Gilda Joyce
FROM: Gilda Joyce
RE: POSSIBLE DEAD-DROP MESSAGE--ANALYSIS AND DECODING
This is clearly not a numerical code. It’s also not the kind of code where each letter represents a different letter of the alphabet--the kind of code you can use a cipher wheel to solve. There are some potentially significant words here: “country,” “emigrating,” “signal,” “Russia,” “despotism,” and “liberty.” These words point to a foreign contact (maybe Russian?) and something having to do with governments.
Wearing her “Mot
or City” nightshirt, Gilda sat at her typewriter and studied the photos she had taken of the message.
She heard Caitlin enter the apartment, talking on her cell phone as she threw her keys on the table and tossed her backpack on the couch. Gilda knew that Caitlin was now sitting on the couch with her feet up on the coffee table as she continued her phone conversation. As far as Gilda could tell, Caitlin was virtually always on the phone—catching up with college friends who were establishing themselves in other cities, making plans to meet up with people for brunch or drinks in the city, planning dates with guys she met at work, at parties, and even through an online dating website. One of the things Gilda loved about the apartment she shared with Caitlin was that the walls were thin enough to allow for nearly effortless eavesdropping; she didn’t even need to lean against a door or a wall to overhear Caitlin’s conversations with remarkable clarity. On the other hand, Caitlin was proving to be one of the few people who could talk on the phone longer than Gilda could maintain interest in listening.
“So anyway,” Caitlin was saying, “my boss doesn’t like me. . . . I know, I said that before, but now he totally doesn’t like me. Remember that chick I told you about—the one I call ‘the princess’? She got actually got promoted today. I know! Here I’ve been copyediting about twice as many stories per week as her. . . . Yeah, she kind of flirts with him, but I think it’s more that she never ever disagrees with anything he says. Even when he’s totally wrong. He also loves her because she went to the same college as him. . . .”
Caitlin fell silent; it seemed that her friend had a story of her own to tell.
“Wow, so they promoted you to associate editor? That’s really great,” said Caitlin after a long silence. “And a huge raise too? Great.” This was clearly news that Caitlin would have preferred not to hear at that moment.
“Oh, but I forgot to tell the other part of the story,” Caitlin interjected, turning the conversation back to herself. “My boss’s boss really likes me. And I don’t think he likes Frank—that’s my boss. So I’m thinking I might complain to him.”
Gilda heard Caitlin turn on the television and flip to a news channel. “Yeah, I’m thinking of taking the LSATs, too—going to law school. But then I don’t know. Everyone goes to law school. . . .”
The combination of Caitlin’s anxious, competitive banter on the telephone, and the cryptic photographs sitting in front of her on her typewriter keyboard suddenly made Gilda feel weary and a little homesick. Spy Camp would begin the next morning—a week of day camp culminating in the Midnight Spy Slumber Party. Gilda realized she had better organize her wardrobe and supplies to get ready for her counseling job before going to bed.
SPY CAMP COUNSELOR (“SPY RECRUIT TRAINER”)
CHECKLIST
• Walkie-talkie to stay in touch with “Spy Headquarters” (and for April Shepherd to reach me when she wants to tell me to do something)
• CD player (to play spy instructions from Headquarters)
• Spy Camp counselor attire--something authoritative and sophisticated, yet mysterious
• Spy gadgets (“tradecraft” materials borrowed from the Spy Museum including sunglasses with hidden video camera)
• Flashlight
• Tissues and wet wipes (for messy spy recruits)
• Hand sanitizer (for germy recruits)
• Cell phone
• First aid kit
• Rope, tape, and handcuffs (emergency restraints for hyperactive young spies)
• Tranquilizer dart gun (kidding)
• Equipment for slumber party: spy pajamas and sleeping bag
Dear Dad:
Can you believe it? I’m going to be a Spy Camp counselor--a training officer for young spies!
I admit I’m a tiny bit scared. What if the kids don’t listen to me? What if some of them can tell I’m only a couple years older than they are?
What would you tell me if you were here, Dad?
“Listen, Gilda,” you’d say, “you aren’t just a kid. You’ve already solved three mysteries even though you haven’t gotten the public recognition you deserve. Do you think those CIA agents really know what they’re doing when they go into a foreign country and start attending cocktail parties and getting people in trouble? Of course not! They learn as they go. Your instincts are as good as anyone else‘s, so just suck it up and act like you know what you’re doing. That’s what most of those clowns in Washington do.”
Thanks, Dad--that makes me feel better!
Love,
Gilda
Before going to bed, Gilda placed the dead-drop photographs under her pillow, hoping some clues might seep into her brain during the night.
Just as she fell into a deep sleep, the light from the apartment across the courtyard flashed—on, off, on, off , on, off—and the pattern continued for what seemed a very long time.
15
Team Crypt
Hi, Wendy!
First, a lot has happened since I woke you up in the middle of the night. Let’s just say that the dream I had about Abraham Lincoln and a lipstick gun pointing at me was about more than Lincoln’s assassination or being in a new city. I can’t say more due to national security concerns, but I’m investigating something that may have far-reaching implications.
I also got promoted to the job of Spy Camp counselor!
I’m sure you’re just dying to know how my first day of work as a Spy Camp counselor went, so I’m sending you a highly detailed report.
MY SPY CAMP WARDROBE:
I got lucky; a heat wave broke with a heavy summer rainstorm in the morning, so I took the opportunity to wear my light blue spy trench coat over a sleeveless black dress and vinyl stretch boots. I styled my hair with hot rollers, teased the crown for extra “spy body,” stuck a partial ponytail on top of my head, and froze the whole thing with hairspray. I call it “1960s spy hair.”
MY COLLEAGUES:
Before the campers showed up, the camp counselors all met early in the morning in the Ultra Room--which is this large space in the Spy Museum with high ceilings, tables and chairs, and a big movie screen that comes down from the ceiling when the museum hosts lectures and movie nights.
I felt a little awkward when I walked in and realized that the other counselors were dressed in casual black jeans and T-shirts, and that they all seemed to be college students who knew each other from classes or other jobs or just meeting up at the bar. “Live your cover,” I reminded myself. “Act as if you aren’t afraid.”
COVERS & LEGENDS ROOM--SPY CAMP ORIENTATION:
When we went to meet our young spy recruits, we were greeted with a motley assortment of kids in all sizes, shapes, and colors who stood in little groups, giggling and whispering. A few wore quirky T-shirts with phrases like “Beware of female spies” and “Think! It’s not illegal yet!” A few of them had even turned up in attempts at disguises: I saw a handful of wigs and dark glasses.
It’s funny when you see a bunch of younger kids who remind you of yourself. They think everything they’re doing is so serious, but you can see how it’s really silly and cute, and of course, you also see how much you’ve grown up since those days. (No snide comments, please.)
AN OMINOUS EXCHANGE:
As I surveyed the group and tried to guess which kids had been assigned to my spy team, I noticed a weird exchange between a boy and his mom as they said good-bye. The boy had a narrow, pale face and long, greasy bangs that hung in his eyes. His mother was freckle-faced with a broad, cheesy smile.
“Have a good time!” said the mom.
The boy looked annoyed.
“Come on--SMILE!!” The mom pointed at her own smile with an index finger.
The boy glared.
Believe me, I know how embarrassing and annoying parents can be when you’re surrounded by kids who are sizing you up and possibly judging you, but something about what this boy did next gave me chills. He suddenly held up his finger like a handgun and pointed it at his mother, str
iking the air several times as if to say, GET OUT NOW IF YOU KNOW WHAT’S GOOD FOR YOU. His mom just giggled nervously and left.
A SPOOKY MOMENT:
We led the kids into the Briefing Room, a small auditorium with a huge map of the world that glows on the walls, surrounding the audience in eerie black light. A few of the kids looked uneasy by the end of the film we watched: “The cost of spying could be torture, imprisonment, deportation, or DEATH,” the movie warned.
Then, without explanation, the movie screen went black for a minute and then started again, repeating the word “DEATH.” The kids giggled, but I saw Roger Selak (our manager of exhibit production) and Jasper Clarke (the executive director of the Spy Museum) whispering in the corner. Jasper looked concerned and Roger just looked ill. (I’ve heard through the museum grapevine that there have been a few unexplained glitches in the audio and video exhibits during the past couple days and that Roger is baffled about the cause.)
Next, April Shepherd (my boss) got up to speak.
APRIL: So do you all think you have what it takes to be spies?
KIDS (screaming, and totally forgetting their fear during the orientation movie): YES!
APRIL: Good! Now I’m going to introduce you to a real spy.
Jasper Clarke stood at the front of the room. “First, I have to apologize to the young man I was sitting next to who assumed I was someone’s dad. He told me that he thinks the CIA is--and I quote--‘retarded’. He must now be rather surprised to discover that I’m actually the executive director of the Spy Museum and a former CIA intelligence officer.”
The Dead Drop Page 8