Svetlana gasps. For a split second, another image flashes in the mirror—a black-and-white photograph of a dead woman with a gunshot wound on her head and a star brooch around her neck.
“My KGB boyfriend says he knows a man who’s posing as a translator of Russian poetry—a man he suspects of being American spy. My boyfriend thinks I can do the job of entrapping this American spy much more easily than he can, so he gives me this job.”
“‘You go and meet him,’ my boyfriend tells me. ‘Say you are Moscow University student studying poetry. You go to café, flirt, make him like you. Make him tell you secrets—especially names of others who talk to him. See? A present for you. Spy jewelry.’ My boyfriend pins the star brooch to my scarf.
“I don’t mind spying for my boyfriend. I’m excited to do something different from waiting in line for cabbage or hanging wet laundry to dry in my apartment. I am lucky, I tell myself. With my boyfriend’s help, I have my own apartment—my own television and refrigerator.
“But deep down, I don’t believe the things I tell myself. I am not happy.
“I go and meet the American spy at a café, and we talk about poetry, especially poems of Anna Akhmatova, whose work he has translated. ‘You look a little like Akhmatova,’ the American tells me. I cannot help it; I truly like this man—the American spy I am supposed to trap. For the first time in ages, I show my crooked tooth when I smile.
“In fact, I like this man so much, I tell him who I really am—girlfriend of a KGB officer. I even remove my brooch and show him the hidden camera.
“The American spy is very pleased. ‘You can help me,’ he says. ‘You can work for CIA.’ He gives me fake CIA documents to photograph. These I take back to my boyfriend to throw him off-track—to make him think I am spying on the American. Meanwhile, the American tells me to visit my boyfriend’s office and photograph documents from KGB files—lists of people, sketches of plans. Now I spy on my boyfriend and the KGB instead of the American.
“Some days I bring bread and sausage for my boyfriend’s lunch, and while he eats, I take secret photographs of everything I see. I give these to the American man, who is very happy with me.
“My biggest secret: I fall in love with the American. I also have something more dangerous—hope that my life will finally change. ‘I will help you leave soon,’ the American tells me, ‘but not yet.’ He gives me an emergency signal to use, just in case we are discovered. ‘If something goes wrong, leave this book of poetry in the window of the café—our usual meeting place,’ he says. ‘When I see the book I will know not to meet you, and then you will escape with me that night.’
“One evening, my boyfriend suspects my betrayal. He says nothing, but I see him watch me. Instead of going home to his wife, he stays at my apartment. He is a man trained to find secrets, and I believe that he can see through me.
“At the end, I will learn that he only knew my secret because of a man very far away—a man in Washington, D.C., who is a traitor against his own country.
“‘I have a gift for you,’ my boyfriend tells me. It looks like a gold tube of lipstick. ‘See? It’s a gun. Single shot.’ He points this lipstick pistol at my head. ‘Made special for you,’ he says.
“‘I don’t understand,’ I tell him.
“‘Time for your first wet job.’
“‘You want me to kill the American?’
“‘He is dangerous and useless.’ I sense my boyfriend is testing me. Will I kill the American to save myself? Will I be killed no matter what I do?
“‘I can’t,’ I say. ‘I’m not a murderer.’
“‘Then find the best use for this.’ And in his eyes I see a wolf who watches me with amusement before he kills. He wants me to suffer. He places this gun in my hand, and all I can think is how cold and heavy it feels.
“I remember the emergency signal: I have to leave the book of Anna Akhmatova’s poems in the café window. If I can give the signal in time, I might escape. There might be time before my boyfriend’s KGB colleagues get to the American—before they get to both of us.
“I walk quickly, but behind me, a black sedan approaches like a crocodile drifting through murky water. ‘Get inside,’ a KGB officer says, rolling down his window.
“I try to point the lipstick pistol at him, but he knocks it from my grip before I can shoot. He pushes me into the car.
“In the upstairs window of our apartment, I see my boyfriend closing the curtains. I know he will go home to his wife now—or maybe to a restaurant to drink vodka with another girlfriend. For him the show is over.
“They drive me to a secluded spot near the Moscow River, but before I take my last breath, I want to know something.
“‘How did he know?’ I ask these men. ‘Did he have me followed? ’ I didn’t want to learn that the American was someone my boyfriend hired to set me up. I want to know that the happiness I had in those last meetings was real.
“‘The name of the man who betrayed you will mean nothing to you,’ says the first man.
“‘And what does it matter now?’ says the second.
“Then they laugh as if this is the best joke they ever heard.
“‘There is no harm in telling me who did this,’ I say. But I also think how strange it is that I want to know the truth before I die—even when I will not be able to tell a single person. Where will this truth go after I am dead? I wonder. What happens to a truth only a dead woman knows?
“The first man tells me to get out of the car. He points the lipstick gun at me and I think how silly the gun looks with its tip painted red to resemble lipstick. Foolish, I think. All of this is foolish.
“‘You want to know who betrayed you? It was a CIA mole—a man you have never seen in your life. His name is Loomis Trench. They call him ‘the poet.’
“And in my very last moment, I see something clearly—that this truth matters, and that I will somehow tell this truth after my life has ended.”
Gilda awoke to find herself staring at the movie screen. As if emerging from a trance, she felt completely disoriented and couldn’t account for the past few minutes.
That was so weird, she thought. Was I awake or asleep just now? Was there really a movie playing in this theater, or was that all in my head?
Gilda rummaged through her bag and pulled out her notebook to write an investigation note:
IDENTITY OF GHOST DISCOVERED THROUGH STRANGE PSYCHIC “MOVIE”!
NAME: Svetlana.
Her boyfriend was a KGB officer, and she was killed by the KGB. The CIA mole Loomis Trench revealed her identity to the Soviets back in the 1980s.
WHAT SHE WANTS: Justice. I think she wants everyone to know what really happened to her.
At the discovery of groundbreaking evidence of a new psychic contact, Gilda usually felt elated, but Svetlana’s story left her feeling sad. The brightly colored posters of spy movies surrounding her in the theater now looked somber and lonely, darkened by shadows.
So many aspects of the spying life seem fun from a distance: pretending to be someone else, sneaking around, play ing with gadgets and even secret weapons. But a story like Svetlana’s makes me see a dark side: innocent people can get caught in the middle of “spy games.”
Is it possible to be a spy who stays focused on exposing the truth rather than just telling lies and betraying people?
I guess that’s something I’ll have to think about if I decide to pursue the spying life. The CIA should be offering me a job when this is all over, but my guess is that they won’t like the idea of a teenage girl discovering the mole they’ve failed to catch on their own. They’ll want to keep that little detail quiet!
Still, if Balthazar and I can expose Loomis Trench and get him out of the CIA, that will at least be one dishonest spy out of the picture!
Gilda nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound of her cell phone ringing. She read a text message from Balthazar:
IT HAPPENS TOMORROW
Gilda immediately knew what he meant
: he expected Loomis to make a last dead drop the next day.
38
Breakfast of Spies
On the morning after the Midnight Spy Slumber Party, the counselors looked bleary-eyed as they sipped their coffee. In contrast, their young recruits seemed energized by a night of spy games, pranks, and very little sleep. A few kids still wore the remnants of spy disguises from the previous evening’s activities—games including leaving practice “dead drops” around the Spy Museum. Despite their silly and unkempt appearance (The Comedian, for example, seemed oblivious to the fake mustache stuck to his cheek, and Baby Boy wore Spider-Man pajamas with feet), Gilda noticed that the kids in her group seemed ever so slightly older and more experienced after their week at Spy Camp.
Feeling suddenly sentimental about saying good-bye to her team, Gilda stuck her arm up in the air like a playground supervisor to get the attention of her recruits. “Team Crypt! Last meeting over here!” She smiled as her recruits dutifully gathered around her.
“As you know, this is our last meeting together,” she said. “When you first came here, you knew nothing; you were like mere toddlers who didn’t know the difference between a Hal loween costume and a real disguise.”
“That’s going a little far,” said Stargirl.
“You didn’t know the most basic life skills of a spy—how to take secret pictures or make your own lie detector or how to conduct surveillance on a building.”
“I actually knew a lot of stuff about spying,” countered The Misanthrope.
“You didn’t know the difference between the CIA and the FBI, the KGB and the NBA. You thought the proper use of a wig was for playing indoor baseball.”
“Wigball rules,” said The Comedian.
“But now you leave here as true spies. And you also leave with the knowledge that you contributed to something important.”
“What’s that, Case Officer Zelda?”
Gilda gathered her recruits into a huddle. “This is top secret,” she whispered, “but there’s something important I want you all to know: you are the only team here who helped investigate not only a haunting in the museum, but also a current investigation of a real CIA mole.”
“Really? Who is it?”
“Shh! Just know that when you finally hear about this story on the news, you’ll know that you were right here in the middle of the action. And a special congratulations goes to Agent Moscow: if it hadn’t been for her knowledge of a foreign language, we might not have been able to crack this case at all.”
Team Crypt clapped for Agent Moscow, whose face turned pink.
“Now—let’s do our Team Crypt chant one last time.”
“We don’t have a Team Crypt chant,” said Stargirl.
“Then it’s high time we made one up:
Who spies the best?
Teeeeeeam Crypt!
Who hides the best?
Teeeeeam Crypt!
The best decoders and dead-drop unloaders!
TEEEEEEEEEEEAM CRYPT!
“Wait! I almost forgot something important, Team Crypt,” said Gilda, regrouping her team as they began to walk away. “You won’t have me around as your case officer to guide you anymore.”
Gilda’s recruits glanced around the room, showing signs of impatience with the good-bye speech.
“Anyway, I want you to promise me that you’ll continue to use your spying skills for fun and for the cause of justice—never for evil.”
The kids rolled their eyes but Baby Boy nodded very solemnly. “We promise, Case Officer Zelda!”
“To help you keep that promise, I’m sending you home with a letter to each of your parents, commending you for your performance here at Spy Camp and alerting them to some of the new skills you now have.”
“You’re tipping off our parents?! No fair!”
“I’m just trying to keep a level playing field,” said Gilda. “If your parents don’t have some awareness of your new skills, they might not know what hit them when you start conducting surveillance in your own home.”
Gilda handed her recruits copies of the memo she had typed for their parents.
Dear Parents:
The child you are accepting back into your home may be a little different from the child you dropped off the first day at Spy Camp. “Different how,” you ask?
On the positive side, your child may seem brighter--more intelligent, happy, and self-confident. While this is cause for celebration, you may also notice your child acting sneaky, elusive, and displaying a penchant for assembling odd gadgets with obscure purposes. In short, you may feel that your innocent little one is now “up to something.”
In the interest of full disclosure, I am providing you with a checklist.
YOUR CHILD HAS THE FOLLOWING SPY SKILLS:
* Lie detection
* Homemade alarm construction skills
* Surveillance skills and surveillance evasion skills
* Disguise creation
* Decoding skills
* Knowledge of spy gadgets
* Ability to live undercover
The recruits fell silent for a moment as they read the list. Gilda noticed that Agent Moscow simply folded up the letter and stuck it in her pocket. I guess her parents aren’t going to see this note since she’s in boarding school here all alone, even in the summer, Gilda thought. She made a mental note to write a letter of recommendation for Agent Moscow to give to Jasper Clarke.
Gilda watched as her recruits walked away. Baby Boy practically jumped into his mother’s arms as if he hadn’t seen her in a month. The Misanthrope managed a tiny smile but cringed slightly as his mother flashed him an anxiety-laden megawatt smile.
At least he didn’t act like he was about to pull out a weapon this time, Gilda thought, watching him leave.
“Bye, Hansen!” James Bond and The Comedian waved good-bye to The Misanthrope, who smiled and waved back.
“Are those your friends?” The Misanthrope’s mom asked.
“Yeah,” he replied, handing his mom Gilda’s memo nonchalantly. “We had the best team.”
Gilda saw The Misanthrope’s mother blanch as she read the memo about her son’s new spy skills.
Gilda glanced at her watch, wondering what might be happening in Oak Hill Cemetery. Would Loomis Trench make his move? Would he be arrested, now that Balthazar had alerted his contacts within the CIA and FBI?
39
The Last Dead Drop
Wearing his dark suit and bow tie in the hot sun, Loomis Trench carried a bouquet of daisies in one hand and a briefcase in the other. He walked quickly toward his familiar dead-drop location in Oak Hill Cemetery. His briefcase contained a classified report from a remote viewing session with Balthazar Frobenius completed just the day before.
Encoded within text from the poem “Song of the Last Meeting” by Anna Akhmatova, Loomis concealed his message:
Dear Friends,
I think you will find tht the enclosed information is worth double our usual price.
I will be, out of contact now because I have a gut feeling that someone in the agency may be investigating me.
As soon as I rec&ve your payment, I will be, taking a long vacation during the next few weeks.
As always, The Poet
Loomis carefully placed the classified documents and his note inside the large, fake stone, replaced the concealment device in its usual spot along the path, and brushed the dust from his hands. He pulled a white handkerchief from his jacket pocket and wiped the sweat from his brow.
He glanced around, thinking for a moment that he heard a faint rustling sound in the surrounding trees. Probably a rabbit or a deer, he thought.
As he turned toward the tomb where Lincoln’s son had once been buried, he caught his breath. In the partial shade of the mausoleum, a tall man sat in a chair. The man held his head in his hands, as if immobilized by some overwhelming grief. Then Loomis saw that the man wore unusual, old-fashioned clothes: high-waisted trousers with suspenders and boots. As
Loomis moved closer, mesmerized, he saw that sunlight streamed through the man’s translucent body.
Loomis froze. He had an urge to explain how he had gotten to this point, but he found he could not speak. As the bouquet he held in his hand fell to the ground, FBI agents popped out from the cover of surrounding trees and bushes to arrest him.
As they led Loomis from the cemetery in handcuffs, he glanced back at the tomb, but Lincoln’s ghost had disappeared.
40
The Spy Party
Hey, Wendeeeeeeeee!
It’s about 1:00 A.M., but I just had to write to tell you about this amazing spy party that Caitlin and I threw at our apartment!
Aren’t you proud of me? I’m dying to call you, but I’m restraining myself for once! I had the phone in my hand, but instead of pushing the buttons and waking you up, I sat down to write a detailed letter. (There’s no need to thank me.)
Just WRITE BACK IMMEDIATELY!!
For all I know, maybe you’re still awake. Maybe you and my brother are out on a date, gazing into each other’s eyes and whispering sweet nothings about obscure math equations and space robots. Pardon me while I quietly say:
“Eeew.”
Anyway, about the spy party we threw to celebrate the fact that I helped solve a mystery of national significance. You heard me right--NATIONAL significance. The CIA and FBI are doing their best to keep their own investigation under wraps, but it’s only a matter of time before you hear about this on the news. When the story breaks, you’ll know that I had something to do with it!
When I’m back home I promise I’ll give you all the details. (WARNING: If you disclose classified information to Stephen, I can’t be held responsible for the consequences.)
Remember my roommate Caitlin? Did I tell you how she wears nothing but black pantsuits or workout clothes every day? Well, this morning we went to a vintage clothing store in the city, and we both found the most amazing spy minidresses! You would love them. In fact, Caitlin liked the concept so much, she also bought a clip-on hairpiece and false eyelashes at the drugstore to go with her dress. When we got home, I created 1960s spy-chic hairstyles for the two of us-- buns on top of our heads and the rest of our hair curled with hot rollers. Then I showed Caitlin how to wear eyeliner and false eyelashes to create these mysterious-looking cat eyes. (Full disclosure: Caitlin was a total baby about the eye makeup. She said, “It looks like a couple little tarantulas are trying to crawl out of my eyes.”) She doesn’t yet have our experience with makeup and disguises: we know that wearing little eyelash spiders feels normal if you just give it time, right?
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