The Dead Drop (3 page)

Apparently deciding that it was safe to make herself comfortable in her new roommate’s living quarters, Caitlin walked over to the bed, dropped her shoulder bag on the floor, and flopped down. Supporting her weight on her elbows, she regarded Gilda through narrowed eyes. “How old are you, anyway?”

“Fifteen.” Gilda reasoned that it would be best to keep the details of her cover identity consistent just in case Caitlin talked to any of her new colleagues at the Spy Museum.

“Fifteen?! When that lady at the Spy Museum said an intern needed an apartment, I didn’t realize they meant a mere child. I guess it’s my job to be your substitute mom this summer.”

“I’m actually totally independent.” Gilda felt glad she hadn’t told Caitlin she was actually fourteen. “I traveled all over England by myself this year.” Gilda didn’t mention that the trip had actually been chaperoned by Wendy’s piano teacher.

“Still,” said Caitlin, “I’ll feel responsible. I’m twenty-two years old, Gilda.”

“Practically old enough to be my grandmother,” Gilda joked.

“In some circles,” Caitlin added, playing along.

“Anyway, a lot of people tell me I’m old for my age, so you don’t have to worry about me.” Gilda had also once been told that she acted “young for her age,” but there was no way she was going to tell Caitlin about that.

Caitlin stood up and peered over Gilda’s shoulder at the journal entry Gilda had been typing. She frowned. “You’re writing a letter to your dad?”

“Oh, it’s just a story I’m making up.” In truth, Gilda often kept a diary in the form of letters to her dad, but she realized that her new roommate might not understand her penchant for writing to a dead person. Gilda quickly rolled the paper out of the typewriter. She also didn’t want Caitlin to see what she had written about hoping to be included in escapades with Caitlin’s college buddies and the list of famous D.C. ghosts she hoped to investigate, including the ghost of Abraham Lincoln.

“I’d like to write a book someday.” Caitlin flopped back down on Gilda’s bed. “Maybe I’ll write a comedy about my dating experiences in this city since I graduated from college.”

“Like what?”

“Let’s see.” Caitlin counted off examples on her fingers. “Like people who post pictures of themselves on Internet dating sites that don’t reveal the fact that they’re actually about three hundred pounds heavier and thirty years older in real life. Like guys who tell you they only have ten minutes to meet you for lunch because they have ‘another lunch date’ lined up before they have to get back to work at the Senate office building. Like a guy who actually
hired s
omeone to pretend to be his friend and tell the girls standing around the bar how great he is. It’s just crazy around here, Gilda.” Caitlin clearly enjoyed talking about the “crazy” frustrations of her dating life, and Gilda suspected that she was secretly pleased with the experiences.

I wonder if hanging out with Caitlin is going to require going on dates with three-hundred-pound men who work as staffers in the House and Senate buildings,
Gilda wondered.
On the positive side, I read in my
Spy Savvy
handbook that spying is primarily a social skill. I bet Caitlin is in the perfect position to get lots of information when she’s out meeting all those people.

Caitlin peered into Gilda’s mirror and attempted to reshape her limp, dirty-blond hair with her fingers. “Hey, since I’m home from work so early, what do you say we go grab something to eat and do some sightseeing? You can see the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial and all that touristy stuff on the mall.”

“Sounds great.”

Caitlin stared at Gilda’s high-heeled pumps. “Those shoes are cute, but they’re going to hurt your feet.”

“I’m used to it,” said Gilda.

“I wish I could dress fancy like you, but I wear sneakers with my suits any chance I get.” Caitlin took off her suit jacket. “I’m just going to throw on a pair of jeans and then we’ll go.”

Gilda stood up in her high heels and decided that on second thought, it made more sense to change into one of her less interesting “blend-into-the-crowd” tourist disguises.
I have a better chance of picking up some secret information on the National Mall if people assume I’m just an ordinary kid from the backwoods of Michigan,
she thought.
After all, I’m in D.C. now, so you never know what I might overhear.

3

The Psychic Spy

In a secret room inside a Washington, D.C., apartment complex, a man readied himself to steal secrets from a foreign government. He was about to spy on people thousands of miles away from his own location, but to do this, he would use no satellites, telescopes, or secret cameras. He would use only one tool—his mind.

Barefoot, he reclined on a soft chair. Wires connected several machines to his body to monitor his pulse, brainwaves, and other vital signs. He closed his eyes, preparing himself to receive instructions about his target from his supervisor, who observed and monitored him from a few feet away. His instructions might be coordinates for a specific geographical location or nothing more than a name used to track down a person of interest. On other occasions, he was simply tested to see if he could perceive details of random distant objects without ever seeing or touching them.

Most often, he was disturbingly accurate.

His body relaxed and he felt himself become weightless. After floating for a few moments, he felt himself plunging down very quickly into a fine mist, as if he were skydiving through endless clouds. In fact, his body was completely motionless; only his mind moved through space and time in search of his target—in search of secret information.

Finally, he reached a clear place where he expected to find her—the girl who would help him. The girl always led him to the information he was seeking; she was his most secret source of intelligence—his “trick of the trade.”

The girl was dead.

But this time, something was wrong, almost as if some interference from another person’s mind was blocking his own perception. The girl was nowhere to be found.

Someone else turned up instead.

The psychic spy was used to seeing frightening visions, but the face that appeared was upsetting in a way he couldn’t understand. It was a woman’s face with dark eyes and bloodstained crimson lips: strangely, the blood had dried in the shape of an asymmetrical red-black star. The face that didn’t belong there; it had no connection to anything he expected to see.

“I need to stop,” the psychic spy called out to his supervisor—a man sitting across the room who wore a yellow bow tie and took notes steadily. “Something’s wrong.”

“Keep looking for your target,” his supervisor replied. “You can’t stop now.”

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