Spy Mom

by Beth McMullen

So I deflect the invitations to lunch or coffee with as little fanfare as I can manage and focus on Theo. He is, after all, the reason I am here in San Francisco and not dead in the desert in Yemen or crawling around in the jungles of Myanmar. And the truth is I like it here, the clean smell of the air, the soft pink of the evening sky. It is all so peaceful and orderly. After nine years with the USAWMD, I appreciate peaceful and orderly in a way I never did before.

  Part of being Agent 26 meant no one from my life—past, present, or future—could know I was Agent 26. My official story is that after I graduated from college I went to work for the government as an analyst for the USAWMD. I sat at a desk, in a row of other people sitting at similar desks, and I read documents. When I was done, I summarized what I read in five hundred words or less and passed it on down the line. I can fill in the agonizing details if pressed, but if you present it correctly no one ever asks a follow-up question. It’s really too boring for the average citizen to consider. So we talk about something exciting, like the weather.

  The unofficial story is more interesting. In college I was always broke. To collect enough money for the necessary survival items—beer, cigarettes, pot, what have you—I would volunteer at the graduate psychology school to take various screenings and tests, earn a few bucks, and help the struggling grads gather up enough data to come up with yet another expert conclusion, such as: If you eat too much, you may become fat. Clever.

  It was my senior year, well into the deep freeze of a northeast winter, when I found myself in an overheated classroom filling out a psychological survey about fear. What made me afraid? What did I do when I was afraid? Did I feel like fear was something I could control? The second instrument, as the grads called the questionnaires, wanted to know how I felt about moral ambiguity. Was having an affair always wrong? If you kill someone for a good reason, is it still wrong? If you back over the neighbor’s cat, do you confess? The third one was a series of mathematical questions where you had three seconds in which to give your answer. Even at the time, I knew it was about pressure and not math. Will the test-taker crack and run screaming out of the room? But that sort of thing never bothered me and my blood pressure stayed as level as a football field.

  The final part of the study involved playing a computer game. We had to give ourselves a code name and run through a scenario, which required that the player make a lot of choices based on dubious information. I chose Sally Sin as my code name, thinking it was funny. I regret that now, but how was I to know it would actually matter?

  So I got my twenty dollars and left the building, bracing myself for the freezing winds and slippery sidewalks. I made it as far as the convenience store before the man in the dark coat and sunglasses caught up to me. Even then he seemed strangely out of place. Jeez, I thought, who is this guy? An engineering professor? A tragically unhip visitor from another planet, like the South or something?

  “You shouldn’t smoke,” he said, suddenly standing next to me at the checkout window. I barely looked up as I dug around in my knapsack for enough loose change to cover the pack of cigarettes on the counter. Growing impatient, my new friend in the cashmere overcoat and shiny black shoes slapped a five down next to the box.

  “Didn’t you earn twenty bucks not ten minutes ago?” he asked.

  “Yes, but I don’t want to break it yet.”

  The man shook his head in apparent disgust.

  “Thanks,” I said, gesturing toward the five on the counter. “I’ll pay you back. After I break the twenty.”

  “Please, keep your pennies.”

  “Nice glasses,” I said, starting to walk out of the store. The man followed closely behind. “Do you work for the FBI?” Thinking back, I’m lucky he didn’t flatten me for being snotty.

  Instead, the man gave a quick laugh, more like a snort really. “NSA, actually, but I’m doing a favor for USAWMD.”

  “A lot of letters there,” I said. My attention was already turned to peeling the cellophane wrapper from the pack of cigarettes.

  “Listen,” he said, taking my arm, “like I mentioned, I’m doing a favor so let me make it quick. We’d like to speak with you about your career plans. We think we might be able to offer you a chance to have some adventures and earn a pretty good living at the same time. If that sounds appealing, let us know. Enjoy your smokes.” He slipped a card into my pocket and disappeared out the door.

  The card read “John D. Smith, Recruitment, USAWMD.” It had a phone number and a note that said to call anytime. I put the card back into the pocket of my down jacket and headed home.

  I was a good student, exceptional only in the area of foreign language. After learning high school Spanish from the textbook before the teacher even figured out all of our names, I had yet to encounter a language I couldn’t master with a minimum of focus and a couple of weeks. When I joined the Agency, I spoke normal languages like French, Spanish, and German. When I left, I spoke things like Mandarin, Arabic, Kurdish, Hungarian, Azerbaijani, Portuguese, Hindi, Vietnamese, Urdu, Persian, Korean, Nepali, and the list goes on.

  I liked the fact that I could speak French like a Parisian and German like a Berliner, but it never occurred to me that it could be useful for anything but vacations. Four years into college and I still had no idea what I wanted to do when I grew up other than get as far from the cold northeast wind as possible. I thought about being a writer but had nothing all that interesting to say. I thought about being a lawyer but didn’t know any lawyers who would admit to liking it. So I resigned myself to trudging along, waiting for that Eureka, I’ve found it! moment, which showed no signs of surfacing.

  Five days after graduation, packing up my tiny college apartment with no clue as to where I was going and what I was going to do when I got there, I came across the business card of John D. Smith. And so, having nothing to lose and a possible job in a troubled economy to gain, I called him. That a total stranger claiming to work for the NSA followed me into a convenience store and offered me a job didn’t alarm me in the least. Not a single lightbulb went on in my fuzzy twenty-something head. It never occurred to me that this was anything but completely normal.

  I met with John D. Smith in a coffee shop. He had on a navy blazer and a white shirt even though it was 90 degrees and humid outside. He seemed pleased to see me. He called me Smokey the Bear and I had to deliver a long explanation about how I only smoked during finals, because of the stress and all. He laughed, saying something about how he already knew that and continued to call me Smokey the Bear. Later, after several years with the Agency, I would develop a perverse hatred of nicknames, code names, pet names, and any name not written expressly on one’s birth certificate, not that I was able to use that one either.

  “So what would the job be?” I asked.

  “Well, you’d have to come to Washington for a while, after which you might visit … other places. And there would be a lot of reading and studying and giving your opinion.”

  Giving my opinion was something I was good at. I accepted his offer without even asking about the pay, and headed to D.C. six days later.

  For a month, I read files on Cambodia, a place I could barely find on the map. There were sketchy pictures of what looked like a massacre, newspaper clips I couldn’t decipher, and personal reports from people who were still there or had been there. After completing my required reading, I was asked what I thought about Cambodia.

  “It seems like a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there,” I said.

  “In other words,” John Smith prompted.

  “They’re fucked,” I said. He snorted. His snorting was starting to get under my skin.

  “But why are they fucked?” he asked.

  “Because no one will take responsibility for the slaughter of millions of people. There has been no reckoning. And there always has to be a reckoning. Someone has to pay for the blood. The situation will never be stable otherwise. You know, that whole justice thing.”

  I found out later that they
had been watching me for that month, not so much interested in my silly opinion of the Cambodian holocaust, but rather in what I ate for dinner, if I crossed against the light, if I flossed every day or every other. They followed me to and from the office, to the movies, to the dry cleaners, on one lame date with an accountant, to the grocery store. They even followed me into the locker room at the gym. Wherever I went, my shadow followed. Of course, I had no idea. All of that following and being followed and following someone following someone else contributed to the development of my acute sense of paranoia, which is why I was crawling around under the shrubs this morning while my sweet little boy was inside coating himself in applesauce and trying to bite the cat’s tail. Some things never go away.

  After those first few months, I was invited to spend some time with Simon Still, a mysterious figure who floated in and out of the USAWMD offices from time to time. He was of average height, thin, pale, with hair that might have been blond at some point. He always wore a white Panama hat and dark glasses and bore an odd resemblance to David Bowie, circa 1985.

  It was not that I didn’t like Simon exactly. But he made me uncomfortable, like a pair of jeans that are a little too tight and pinch your thighs when you try to sit down. He took me for a walk on the Mall and explained in a very Simon-like way what was going on.

  “Okay, Sally Sin, here’s the deal. Did you watch all those spy movies when you were a kid? With agents and double agents and James Bond and all of that horseshit? Yes? Good. Well, it’s all true. Actually, Hollywood dumbs it down a bit for mass consumption. Being a real spy is much sexier in real life than it is on TV.”

  I had no idea what he was talking about, but I remembered Sally Sin.

  “How did you know about Sally Sin?” I began. But before the words got all the way out of my mouth, I suddenly understood something.

  “Those tests were not for grad work?” I asked.

  “You are as brilliant as they say you are, Ms. Sin. No. Of course they weren’t for grad work. They were an agency screening. You’ll be pleased to know that out of several thousand tests administered, only three people passed. Plus your language thing, that put you over the top.”

  I’ll admit I was impressed, but at the same time a little freaked out. “Who else made the cut?” I asked, thinking immediately of the guy in the cubicle next to mine with the terrible mustache, and the woman from upstairs with the paisley scarves.

  “Tsk, tsk,” Simon said, “that is for me to know and for you never to know, if you get my meaning.”

  He continued, “So here you are. Do you want to be a spy for USAWMD or not? Do you want to track down bad guys, call in the cavalry, walk away a hero time and time again? Only you can decide. Of course, if you decide not to, we’ll have to kill you.” He paused for a second too long. “Just kidding. Naturally. So what do you think?”

  Me? A spy? This was ridiculous.

  When I was little I would play spy in the old barn out back. I’d tip a few dusty hay bales up on end, creating a series of obstacles that I’d navigate around, pulling my imaginary gun like in the Charlie’s Angels reruns I was addicted to, as I went around each hay bale corner. Somewhere out there in the maze of hay was a nameless, faceless bad guy. While I created elaborate scenarios about whom I was rescuing, the villain was always vague. I could never summon up an image of his face.

  I could play this game for hours, until the hay started to itch my nose and make my skin red.

  But to be a real spy? I looked up at the Lincoln Memorial. Simon did this on purpose, posed his question right here in front of this great and courageous man. Do it for your country, Lincoln seemed to be saying, looking down on small, inconsequential me. Do it because your country needs you now. Step up. Be a hero.

  But in the end, I said yes because it was easier than looking for a new job. Perhaps being a spy was what I was meant to do. There was certainly nothing else of interest happening in my life.

  And for nine years I faithfully executed the duties of my job. These duties included dropping into foreign countries in the middle of the night, and I do mean dropping. Speaking languages that still cramp my tongue. Being places that I shouldn’t have been, taking pictures of things I shouldn’t have been taking pictures of. Pretending to be any number of individuals. Possessing an ability to sleuth under duress. Staying alive. Delivering the goods, mechanical, chemical, human, or otherwise, again and again and again. And I was good at my job. Not the best there ever was, but good enough.

  3

  Reentering the house, I realize the applesauce is not only in Theo’s hair and on the cat, but there is also a thin veneer coating the walls and the table. Theo sits with the jar between his legs, a blue plastic spoon deep in the applesauce, making “mmmm” sounds as he licks his hands and arms. I feel a slight involuntary twitch in my left eyelid. He’s only three, I remind myself. It’s only applesauce.

  “Mommy, what’s outside? Do I have pea school today? Do we have more applesauce?” Sometimes I feel like my brain is no longer elastic enough to follow a preschooler’s train of thought.

  “No school today. No more applesauce. And nothing was outside, sweetie. Mommy thought she heard something, that’s all. But it was nothing, probably just a cat.”

  “Probably just a cat,” Theo repeats. “Just a cat. Cat.” He rolls the word around in his mouth, tasting it like only a child can. Then he digs into the remaining applesauce with his still chubby fingers to retrieve the spoon. “You eat some?” he offers. He holds the spoon out to me.

  “Of course,” I say, sitting down on the floor next to him, ignoring the mess. “I’d love some.” He spoons the sauce directly into my mouth very carefully. Theo has Will’s power of concentration, of being able to block out the whole world and see only the task at hand. I, on the other hand, can have ten things running simultaneously through my head, which is not always a good thing. For example, I can’t let go of the possibility that someone was in my backyard. And if that is true, what do they want? And whenever my mind goes in this general direction, I always end up thinking, does this have anything to do with Simon Still?

  That I met William Wilton Hamilton III at all is Simon’s doing. He’s the one who sent me to Hawaii in the first place. It was supposed to be Stanley, but he turned up on the banks of the Zambezi and that was that.

  With an afternoon to kill in the lovely tropics, I went scuba diving. The last time I’d been diving was in the Caribbean, there specifically to blow up a smuggler’s yacht and his cache of FN Five-seven pistols pilfered from Dublin. Normally at the Agency we stuck to big weapons, the kind known to level entire cities, but sometimes we dabbled in the small stuff. In this case, the guns in question were purchased illegally with U.S. funds, given to Peruvian rebels, sold to the IRA, and, shortly thereafter, stolen by the smuggler with the boat. The intent was to bring them back into the States and sell them for a tidy profit on the black market. Ah, the circle of life. There was a reporter sniffing around, which might have led to some embarrassing moments for the sitting government. Call Simon. He can take care of it.

  I was willing to bet that the last time most of my fellow divers were under water they were admiring the clown fish and giant brain corals and things. But no matter.

  Anyway, I climbed aboard thinking nothing more than how nice it would be to pretend to be a normal person for a few hours, and there he was.

  The first thing I noticed was how the skin around his eyes crinkled when he smiled and the easy way he lounged, with his wetsuit unzipped to the waist, on the stained boat cushions. He seemed so comfortable in his skin, so relaxed. His laughter greeted me as I climbed aboard and it was real laughter, without even a hint of bitterness. It had been a long time since I’d heard that sound. Suddenly my own skin felt old and worn. And for a second I was just unbelievably tired.

  The dive master, studying his clipboard like the Rosetta Stone, announced that this guy and I were the only solo divers on the trip and therefore would have to “buddy up.�
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  I should probably take a minute and explain something here. My dive instructor at the Agency was a retired Navy SEAL. Somewhere off of the Washington coast, he sat me down, explained the basics, and dropped me, fully geared up, over the side of the boat into the 50-degree Pacific Ocean. All in about forty-five minutes. There was no buddy system, no classroom training, no checkout dives. There was nothing more than me, the freezing water, and whatever strange Agency task had brought me there. So this whole buddy thing was news to me. But I’d happily play along if it meant I could spend the afternoon swimming with this man.

  “Will Hamilton,” he said, extending his hand across the rocking boat.

  “Sounds like you intend to be president,” I said. I gripped his hand a little too tightly, desperate not to fall over and make an utter fool of myself.

  “No. I definitely inhaled.” His voice was rich and creamy, like homemade chocolate pudding. “But don’t tell anyone. So, buddy, done much diving?”

  I shrugged. “Some.”

  “Favorite places?”

  I noticed his dive gear was well worn, familiar. Mine was well worn, rental. He appeared only moderately concerned that his assigned dive buddy didn’t have any experience. How to explain?

  “Oh, um, warm water mostly, I guess.” I sounded like an idiot. I thought about taking a moment to drown myself.

  “Great. Well, we’ll take good care of each other,” he said, a questioning smile lingering on his lips. And I’m mortified to report I actually blushed. I studied my pruned feet until the flush left my cheeks.

  “Yes, we will,” I said. Even then it felt like more. Now if you had asked me under normal circumstances if I believed in love at first sight, I would have accused you of being a sentimental fool with, at best, a tenuous grip on reality. Yet there I was, feeling a little queasy. And I was pretty sure it wasn’t the rocking boat.

  Under the water we moved well together. He pointed out an eel and a stingray, and I managed the disappearing backside of a turtle. Back on board, I marveled at how good he looked wet and was actually approaching giddy when he sat next to me for the return journey. As the ride ended and the boat pulled into the pier, he asked me if I’d like to meet him for a cocktail. He was here for a convention. Or something like that. I nodded dumbly. Of course I would.