Spy Mom Read Free Page A

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.
    â€œDidn’t you earn twenty bucks not ten minutes ago?” he asked.
    â€œYes, but I don’t want to break it yet.”
    The man shook his head in apparent disgust.
    â€œThanks,” I said, gesturing toward the five on the counter. “I’ll pay you back. After I break the twenty.”
    â€œPlease, keep your pennies.”
    â€œNice 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.”
    â€œA lot of letters there,” I said. My attention was already turned to peeling the cellophane wrapper from the pack of cigarettes.
    â€œListen,” 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.
    â€œSo what would the