Spy Mom Read Free Page B

job be?” I asked.
    â€œWell, 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.
    â€œIt seems like a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there,” I said.
    â€œIn other words,” John Smith prompted.
    â€œThey’re fucked,” I said. He snorted. His snorting was starting to get under my skin.
    â€œBut why are they fucked?” he asked.
    â€œBecause 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.
    â€œOkay, 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.
    â€œHow did you know about Sally Sin?” I began. But before the words got all the way out of my mouth, I suddenly understood something.
    â€œThose tests were not for grad work?” I asked.
    â€œYou 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.
    â€œTsk, tsk,” Simon said, “that is for me to know and for you