18 The Spy Guy

Chapter 18 THE SPY GUY Cherry Hill Park is the closest—and the coolest—campground to Washington, D.C. It has two swimming pools, a hot tub, sauna, game room, miniature golf, and a playground. But after they checked in, none of the McDonalds wanted to hang around Cherry Hill Park. Everyone—and especially Pep—wanted to go into the city and spend the afternoon at the Spy Museum. The Washington subway system is called the Metro, and the Greenbelt stop at the end of the Green line is right near Cherry Hill Park. Dr. McDonald had been to Washington many times to do research, so he knew his way around. The family took the Metro ten stops and got out when the train reached Gallery Place–Chinatown. "This is the heart of Washington," Dr.

McDonald said as they emerged from the station. They walked a short way down Seventh Street and made a right on F Street. "The White House is about seven blocks that way. The Capitol is about seven blocks the other way. And Ford's Theatre is right around the corner from here. That's where Abraham Lincoln was shot, you know." "We know," said Coke, who knew just about everything, and didn't particularly enjoy hearing things he already knew. The Spy Museum is directly across the street from the Smithsonian American Art Museum. After they paid their admission, the McDonalds were taken by elevator—along with a bunch of other people—to a little room. There, they were instructed to choose a cover identity from a bunch of choices displayed on the walls. Just like real spies, the McDonalds had to memorize important details of their fake lives—like their names, where they were born, what they did for a living, and where they were going. After that, visitors were free to roam around the exhibits.

If you ever go to Washington, you have to go to the Spy Museum. It's the only public museum in the United States that is solely dedicated to espionage, and it covers the history of spying from biblical times to the present day. There are exhibits devoted to concealment devices, sabotage weapons, intelligence gathering, audio surveillance, threat analysis, maintaining one's cover, and dead drops. A dead drop is a place—like a hole in a tree—where a spy will leave something for another spy to pick up. That's as opposed to a live drop, in which two spies will pass something—like a briefcase—from one to the other in person. In the display cases, they have lots of cool stuff

like lipstick pistols, microdots, and cameras hidden in everything from pens to buttonholes. One room is devoted to hero pigeons, which were once used to carry secret messages. Before the days of satellite surveillance, pigeons even wore tiny cameras to take photos from the sky. There is also a section devoted to famous spies who led double lives. Some of them were caught, and sometimes executed. "Did you know that Julia Child, the French chef on TV, was a spy?" Pep asked her brother. "Sure I did," Coke replied. In fact, he had no idea that Julia Child was a spy. He didn't even know who Julia Child was. But he didn't like the idea of his sister—or anybody—knowing something he didn't. Pep, of course, knew a lot of this already, because espionage was one of her obsessions. (The other was the Donner Party, which you would know if you read The Genius Files: Mission Unstoppable.) But she enjoyed seeing all this stuff with her own eyes. It was like the museum had been built just for her.

Coke and Pep were fascinated by spy paraphernalia, while their parents were more interested in cyberspying—how countries are using the internet to spy on one another and disrupt communications systems. The kids and grown-ups agreed to split up and meet in front of the museum when everybody was finished. "Hey, check this out," Coke told his sister after his parents left, "a dog doo transmitter!" In fact, it was for real. Inside a glass display case was a long lump of what looked to be either a Snickers bar or a dog poop. The plaque on the wall said that hidden inside it was an actual radio transmitter that the CIA used in 1970. Toward the end of the exhibits, off in a dark corner and leaning against a fake brick wall, was a statue of a man. He was tall, dressed up in a trench coat, dark glasses, black gloves, and a hat. He was carrying a briefcase. The statue looked just like a typical spy from an old movie. The twins walked up to it. "It looks so lifelike," Pep said. "But it's just a

dummy." Suddenly, the statue moved its hand and put it over Pep's mouth. She tried to scream, but the sound was muffled. "Who ya calling a dummy?" the "statue" asked. For a moment, Coke almost lost control of his bladder. "What the—," he said instead. "Shhhhhhhhhhh!" the guy in the trench coat said, removing his hand from Pep's mouth. "You'll blow my cover." "Are you a spy?" Pep asked, trembling. "Do I look like a spy?" the guy asked. "Yes." "Then I'm not a spy. Because if I was a spy and I looked like a spy, then I wouldn't be a very good spy, now would I?" "No, I guess not," Pep said. "A good spy wouldn't look at all like a spy." "Right, and because I look just like a spy, I couldn't possibly be one, could I?" "No."