The Dead Drop (17 page)

“Was that the
first
time you experienced this kind of strange event in the museum?”

“I think so.”

Gilda nodded. “That backs up my theory.”

“What theory?”

“I think this is all connected with the new artifacts we acquired from Boris Volkov; I just have to figure out exactly how.”

21

Two Truths and a Lie

“Come over here, guys!” Gilda did her best to entice her recruits away from their rowdy game of wigball. “I have a really cool spy game to teach you!”

“What is it?” asked James Bond as he tossed a blond wig in the air and used a soda bottle to whack it across the room.

“It can’t be more fun than this game of wigball,” said Stargirl, deftly catching the wig.

Gilda did her best to think fast. “You’re going to practice telling lies.”

This got her recruits’ attention: for a moment they looked both intrigued and stunned.

“But lying is wrong,” said Baby Boy.

“That’s right, Baby Boy,” said Gilda. “Lying is wrong.”

“My code name isn’t Baby Boy; it’s Spider-Man.”

“Lying is wrong,” Gilda continued, “but spies have to do it all the time. What do you think you’re doing when you put on a disguise and use a fake passport and let someone believe that your cover story is your authentic identity? You’re essentially telling a lie in order to do your job as a spy. If you’re a good spy, you’re lying as a means to an end: in order to get important information that will help protect others from danger. But of course, you will be trying to get information from people who might be lying to you as well. For example, you have to watch out for double agents. If you want to be a spy, you have to get good at sensing when other people are lying to you.”

“I can tell when people are lying,” said Stargirl. “They get really twitchy and ner vous.”

“Lots of people do,” said Gilda. “But some people don’t. In fact, I once knew a girl who kept herself incredibly still while she was lying. She was pretty, popular, liked by everyone. And she made perfect eye contact and practically stopped blinking while she was lying through her teeth to the teachers and the school principal denying her involvement in a criminal activity. The only way you can catch people like her lying is when they slip up at some point in telling their story. That’s why, if you’re interrogating someone, you have to keep asking the same question lots of different ways.”

“And if you’re the one making up a cover story and a legend, you’d better know your own story really well,” said James Bond.

“Exactly. Which leads us to a little game we’re going to play: it’s called Two Truths and a Lie.”

“Oh, I think I’ve played that before at a slumber party,” said Stargirl. “It’s like we all say three things about ourselves: two things that are true and one thing that’s a lie. Then we all see if we can guess which is which.”

“That actually sums it up pretty well, Stargirl.”

“Oh! Can I go first?” The Comedian asked.

“Go ahead.”

“Okay—here goes. Number one: I’ve won seventeen karate tournaments.”

The Comedian ignored the giggles and broad grins that followed this statement. He was well aware his plump physique made it hard to imagine him pursuing any sport quite so seriously.

“Number two: once I was standing in a bakery, and a car crashed through a wall. I was saved by a display of chocolate croissants that stopped the car before it could crash into me.”

“What are croissants?” Baby Boy asked.

“Pastries,” said The Misanthrope. “Kind of like flaky bread. And not something you usually see blocking a car crash.”

“A car crashed into bread?”

“In other words, that was a lie,” said James Bond.

“Are you
sure
?” said The Comedian. “Number three: I’m twelve years old.”

“If you subtract six years of mental age,” said James Bond.

“Hey, I think he told two lies instead of two truths,” said The Misanthrope. “No offense, but I don’t believe he’s a karate champion, and I definitely don’t believe he was saved from a car crash by croissants.”

“Doughnuts, maybe,” quipped James Bond, “but not croissants. Too fancy.”

“Yeah, eet sounded like a movie,” said Agent Moscow. “Kind of hard to believe.”

Gilda smiled, feeling certain she knew which statement was the lie. “Do you want to tell everyone the lie?”

“I’m actually eleven years old,” said the Comedian, clearly pleased with himself. “
That
was the lie.”

“I knew it!” Gilda blurted.

“You knew his age because you’ve seen our records,” said The Misanthrope.

“No, I suspected he was lying because ‘I’m twelve years old’ was the most boring thing he’s said since he got here. It wasn’t in character.”

“It’s like that saying,” said Stargirl, “truth is stranger than fiction.”

“Exactly. Have any of you ever told the truth to someone who assumed you were lying simply because your story sounded too odd or unexpected?”

Gilda’s recruits all nodded.

“A lot of people
prefer
hearing lies,” said The Misanthrope.

“What are you talking about?” Stargirl frowned. “I don’t know anyone who prefers lies.”

“I sure do,” said The Misanthrope.

“Like who?” James Bond asked.

“A lot of people.” The Misanthrope shrugged. “People at my school who shoplift even though they’re rich but would never admit it. People who are considered smart and popular but who cheat on every test. Their parents know they do it but they pretend not to know because they want them to get into college someday. My mom, who tells everyone she has ‘the perfect family’ and does her best to fit in with that whole group of phonies.” His voice rose at the end, and Gilda got the feeling he might have burst into tears if he had been alone.

The group fell silent, momentarily unnerved by the harsh honesty of his words. Sitting on the floor, The Misanthrope played with one of the shoelaces on his sneakers. “I guess, with a lot of people I know, when you tell them something they don’t want to hear, it’s like they become deaf.”

Okay—now’s the time I need some mature words of wisdom to put this all in perspective as their camp counselor,
Gilda thought, wondering how they had veered from the topic of spy tradecraft into something that suddenly felt more like a group-therapy session.
Maybe this is what happens in the intelligence community when spies have to work under pressure and nobody in the “outside world” can know what’s really going on with them. Do they confide in one another, or do they just become distrustful of everyone?

“Eet can feel lonely when you can tell nobody what ees really going on,” said Agent Moscow quietly.

The Misanthrope glanced up at Agent Moscow with appreciation but quickly went back to staring at his shoelaces as if hoping they would come to his protection in some way.

“What do you mean, Agent Moscow?” Gilda asked, feeling very curious about Agent Moscow and also relieved that one of the kids had at least attempted to offer a helpful response to The Misanthrope’s confession.

“My parents—I don’t tiell dem much because dey are so far away in Russia. Dey can do nothing to hielp when something goes wrong, and I don’t want to worry dem. Sometimes I lie. Or I just don’t tiell everyting—and dat is lonely sometimes.”

Gilda had to admit she could relate to some of the feelings her team members described: she had felt vaguely lonely ever since she arrived in the nation’s capital. While she was too busy with work and her investigation to dwell on the feeling, the truth was that trying to solve a complicated mystery while living far from anyone who knew her well was harder than she had expected.

“Feeling lonely or even kind of alienated is common for spies,” said Gilda, thinking that she should try to direct the discussion back to the subject of espionage. “Think about it: imagine you’re an intelligence officer based in a foreign country, and you’ve assumed a false identity. If you’re able to make some friends in the local community, they won’t know who you
really
are: they’ll only know invented facts about you—your made-up ‘legend.’ When you’re having a hard time getting secret information, you won’t be able to call your best friend from high school and complain because your work will be secret from everyone except a very small circle of spies—maybe one or two family members. Hopefully, you’ll know that you’re doing important work, but most of the time, you’ll be the only person who will know what’s going on in your life.”
Now that I think of it,
Gilda thought,
simply being lonely is one of the risks of being a spy that the Spy Museum movie didn’t mention.

“That’s partly
why
I want to be a spy,” said The Misanthrope. “I usually don’t like being around people anyway.”

“How are you going to get secret information from anyone if you hate being around people?” Stargirl demanded.

The Misanthrope shrugged. “I didn’t mean that I can’t be around people
at all.
I just don’t think I would mind too much if I was just living undercover, wearing disguises, with nobody in the neighborhood who knew much about me.”

“I think that would be hard,” said Stargirl.

“That’s why we spies have to stick together,” said James Bond. “Right, Case Officer Zelda?”

“Absolutely. Spies working on the same team have to trust and rely on one another.”

“But if spies are always lying to other people,” said Stargirl, “how do they know that they aren’t also lying to each other?”

“Lie detector machine,” commented The Misanthrope.

“He’s partly right,” said Gilda. “Ever since they found moles in the CIA and FBI, they’ve had to double-check everyone from time to time.”

“So what about you, Case Officer Zelda?” James Bond grinned at Gilda.

“What about me?”

“Aren’t you going to take a turn playing Two Truths and a Lie?”

“Yeah!” the other kids chimed in. “It’s Zelda’s turn!”

Gilda felt flattered by their curiosity—their sudden desire to make her a closer part of the group. And while she usually delighted in her own independence and complete autonomy, she suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to forge a stronger connection with her campers—to let them in on one of the secrets she had been keeping.