The loud beep beep of my alarm clock sounded at 5 in the morning. I slammed it until the small clock shut up and I slowly climbed out of bed. I opened my door and made the long trek down to the kitchen where the light was on. It blinded my eyes as I entered the large kitchen and saw the tall man with his back to me sipping his morning coffee.
“Hey.” He didn't seem the least bit startled when he heard my voice for the first time in almost a year.
“How was the trip to China?” I asked him. Why did I even bother asking? I thought, of course it's classified.
He turned to face me. I saw his clean shaved face with his short brown hair like mine. His green eyes looked at me as he said “Fine. You've sure grown haven't you, Emily?” He put his large empty coffee mug down and began to fill a Styrofoam cup with more of the black liquid. I smiled at him. He'd remembered my name.
“Yes, I have.” I paused to see if he would say something more. He didn't.
“Listen, Dad.” the name seemed foreign to me and it must have been to him because he turned to give me his full attention. “My birthday was a couple months ago and I don't recall you giving me a present. Well, I'll just cut to the chase, can Christina and I come to work with you today? I haven't been to The Pentagon in ages.”
“I have to leave soon.” he was making excuses.
“I can be ready in five and so can Christina.”
“Which girl is that?”
“Our neighbor.” I said sharply.
“I don't know if you are allowed to come.”
“We both know we are, dad.” I crossed my arms in a defiant manor.
“Why do you want to go so badly?” he challenged me.
“You stay out of my business and I'll stay out of yours.”
He seemed shocked at the bitterness of my statement.
“I'm your father, your business is my business.”
“I haven't even seen you in eleven months, daddy. You don't know my business and we both know that so stop pretending you give a crap about what a kid like me is up to and just say you'll take us. “
His face showed no shock of the internal blow I'd just landed. His features showed the same foreign look that was associated with his family. I was right and he knew it. I stood firm in my position in the kitchen with my arms folded and hip slightly cocked. I raised my eyebrows as if to say “Well?”
“Be ready in fifteen minutes.” and then he turned around to pour the rest of his morning coffee and eat his blueberry bagel that popped out of the toaster.
I quietly retreated to my room and texted Christina who was waiting in her house, ready to go. I slipped on jeans and an Aeropostale shirt and twisted my messy hair into a bun. I was five minutes early when I came downstairs and grabbed a Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal bar and bottle of apple juice. Christina walked into the kitchen through the garage door as we waited for my father to show himself. He walked down from upstairs and said nothing to us on his way to the garage. We followed him to his Silver Dodge Charger and both got in the backseat.
Christina leaned over and whispered in my ear “This is going to be one awkward car ride.”
I leaned back into the chair. “Ditto.”
The ride seemed ages long and I almost leaped out of the Charger when we pulled into my dad's designated parking spot. He wordlessly gestured for us to follow him into where he checked in and was scanned for security reasons. Apparently, the guys at the check in aren't used to visitors. I felt like I was going through airport security times by 100.Christina and I received visitors passes for the day and they confiscated our cell phones. Dad left the check in once we were done and walked quickly to his office on the north side of the building. His office area was very well kept up and looked as if it was build no more than a year ago. He unlocked the door to his office and stepped inside. His desk was almost empty except for the thick layer of dust on it. He had no chairs inside so Christina and I sat on the ground near the door. He dusted off is desk and started his computer. I waited for him to log on before I would get rid of him.
“Dad?” He stopped typing and looked to me on the ground.
I gave him an innocent look as I said “I'm hungry.”
“You grabbed food from home.” he continued typing again on his computer.
“I'm a teenager, dad. I burn through food like an incinerator.” he didn't look at me again. “There was a McDonalds somewhere back when we came in. I would love a caramel frappe and maybe a cinnamon melt?”
“Me too Mr. Smith? I didn't have time to grab any breakfast at home.” Christina pleaded with me.
“Please, daddy.” He rose from his spinny chair and checked to see if he had his wallet.
“Fine, but don't touch anything. I'll be right back.” He took three quick strides and was out the door before we could say “Oh, we won't.”
Five seconds after the door shut we rose quickly from the ground. Christina ran to sit in his chair and started searching through his files. I rushed to the giant file cabinet in the corner. I opened drawers as silently and quickly as possible. It seemed that millions of files were stuck inside and I thumbed through them trying to find something useful. I heard Christina beginning to type quickly on the computer.
“No way. Em, I found the Pentagon Search Engine.” she said in awe. There had always been a rumor among spy/thief families of a Pentagon Search Engine that could only be accessed in the Pentagon. It was like a compilation of all major files the Pentagon housed that were open to all workers. The more secret files were not kept on here but it still held more information about the U.S. Government than most wanted to know. Almost all foreign affairs, terrorist attacks, and all info on past, present, and future persons of interest was rumored to be on there. (that wasn't top secret of course) It was like the information you wanted to find on Google was separated from all the junk and the ads. I could hardly believe what I'd just heard. Christina had hit the jack pot.
I abandoned the file cabinet. All it had in it was terrorist information and I doubted we were dealing with any of that stuff. The screen before my eyes looked very much like Google but the background was tinted gray and in large black letters it read “The Pentagon Official Search Engine.”
“Shut the front door!” I whisper yelled at her as if I didn't see it for myself.
Her shock and awe moment wore off quickly and she began typing the name Marcus.
“No we need to be way more specific. Type in his number.”
She quickly typed in the number 911-319-1625 and pressed enter. About fifteen windows popped up on the screen with different translations of the code number. None of them made sense. Phrases like “The duck ran over the Australia” and “Jonas Brothers K” and just random letters like “id nelguidsmj” came up and we dismissed them. Pop up after pop up didn't make sense. The only information we gathered is that it was a registered international number until yesterday when it was suddenly terminated. When all of them were gone we had nothing left to go on. Christina exited out of the search engine and moved to sit in a slump on the floor again.
“That was our only lead.” she said sadly.
“I know. But we did learn one thing today.”
“We knew it was a usable number, Em.”
“No not that. The fact that we couldn't find a translation for the number means one of three things. 1. It is so complicated even the Pentagon can't solve it. 2. It's so simple the Pentagon doesn't even bother with it. Or 3. It means absolutely nothing.”
“Yeah, that really helps.”
“Your vote of confidence is overwhelming.” I said.
“Well, we still don't know what it means!”
“Yeah, I know.”
Our faces stayed in permanent frowns as footsteps neared the door and my father stepped in with our food. He saw the look on our faces and even he could tell something was up.
“What's wrong?”
“I'm bored. I'm gonna get mom to pick us up.” Christina and I stood off the ground and grabbed the McDonalds bags from his hands along with our two drinks.
“See you at Christmas.” I said and then we were out the door and we left my father frozen in the middle of his office.
In a weird way it was good to be home again with nothing to do. The last few days had been so jammed packed. I was home at about 7 so I went back to sleep for two hours before getting up and lounging around the house and watching TV. It was looking to be a very normal day until Sammy came to find me downstairs.
“Hey, couch potato!”
“What?”
“Mom says we all got to go in for training before the mission next week.”
“Now?”
“Yes, now stupid. Come on.” She pushed me off the couch. I landed on the floor on my back and I quickly jumped up and began chasing Sammy upstairs. She got to the garage door and shut it in my face. Through the door she yelled to me “Wear something warmer, it's cool in the shed.”
I smacked the door near were her head would be and then ran upstairs to my room and thew on sweats and grabbed a jacket.
It was raining outside as I made my way to our shed. We live on the outskirts of D.C. were we have plenty of room to expand. Christina lives almost a quarter mile away from us and she's out nearest neighbor. By our house we built a shed where there would open space to practice our spy skills. It's just a small building, square with a few windows. On the inside is a bathroom and mats pushed to the sides for falling and jumping purposes. Every once in a while my mom will have us all come over for teach us things, like today.
I opened the door up and stepped inside the shed. In the middle of the only room were four school desks and a white board with markers and erasers. On each desk lay a pencil and a piece of paper. I made my way to the only empty desk slowly and sat down. Christina must have been invited to the lesson because she sat there with my sisters.
“Is this some kind of weird dream where I forget I have a test?” I said sarcastically to my mother who was standing at the white board.
“No!” Brit said.
“Shh!” mother quieted her. “Today I am going to teach you girls how to properly pick pocket an unsuspecting bystander. It's an important skill for a thief and or spy who is in desperate need of money or something another person has that they want. There are different techniques on pickpocketing one being the sandwich where a partner stops suddenly in front of the person you wish to pickpocket. You in turn bump into the person who had to stop suddenly and pick their pocket. That method requires that you have a partner, a good one for Christina and you, Emily. Another method is to have very quick fingers and be a place where people bump into each other all the time such as a subway or crowded street” I thought back to Monte Carlo when people were bumping into me and I didn't even notice someone take my scuba diving card. Brit and Sammy were both scribbling down notes of mother's lecture and I promptly did so too.
“An element that must be present while pickpocketing someone is a distraction. Most human beings can only focus on one thing at a time which is why when you distract them they pay less attention to their valuables. Good pickpockets will play on compassion in their distraction. One team member will drop items they're carrying and someone will stoop down to help them. The other member in the mean time will take the wallet from their purse. But the number one thing to know as a pick pocketer is where the mark has stored their wallet. You must know that before attempting to take it. Any question on how to be a good pickpocket?”
None of us raised our hands.
“No? Good. Now the second lesson today is how to prevent yourself from being pick pocketed. One method is to carry around a fake wallet with you. Others include storing your wallet in your front pocket and not in a purse or definitely not a fanny pack. The best defense is to make their job hard and whatever you do, don't look vulnerable or confused. They prey on people like that. Well, are you girls ready for a practice run?”
“Yes!” Sammy said enthusiastically.
“I will pair you into teams and you will try to pickpocket me. I will only stop you if I feel myself being pocketed and you will know because I will start attacking you like any other spy would.” The idea of my mother attacking me made me shudder. “Groups are Christina and Emily, Brittany and Samantha. Brittany and Samantha will go first.”
I watched Brit and Sammy come together and start whispering in each others ears and formulate a plan. I turned to Christina and began to whisper my plan to her too.
“How are we going to distract her?” she asked me.
“Well, we both know you are the better distractor.” Christina took a low bow before me.
“Thank you.”
“Who has quicker hands?”
“You do.”
“Okay so here's how we're going to do it-” I told Christina my plan and she agreed to do it. While she ran to the bathroom to get the water and paper towels I watched Brit and Sammy's technique.
Sammy told my mom to act like she was walking on the street. Sammy came up to her and yelled in her face “How dare you steal my boyfriend!”
“What are you talking about?” mother played along.
“Oh, you're just going to pretend you don't know anything about Timothy are you?” Sammy shoved moms shoulders and stumbled slightly backwards. Brit came form behind and I saw her slip the wallet out of her back pocket.
“I don't know what you are talking about!”
“Wait, wait. The girl who stole my boyfriend had blue eyes. Yours are brown. Oh my lanta I am so sorry Miss!” Sammy continued apologizing and then walked away. After the dramatization my mother turned to Brit and Sammy and said “Good job girls. Didn't feel a thing. Emily and Christina it's your turn.”
Christina appeared beside me with a cup of water and a towel stuffed in her pocket. I positioned myself behind my mother and waited for Tina to walk towards her and spill the water.
“Oh dear! Oh dear oh dear oh dear!” she said as nearly the entire cup was spilled on my mom's arm.
“I'll just clean that up for you!” She whipped out the towel and began to dry off my mom.
“That won't be necessary!” she said.
At that time I carefully slipped the wallet out of her back left pocket and quickly fit it into my jacket pocket and winked to Christina signaling the job was done. She began to stop trying to dry her off and just handed her the towel and said “Here, I'll go get some paper towels for the floor.” and she walked away. It was all over and my mom turned around and smiled at me “Good job ladies. You all need to practice more on each other with brush by's though. Just set up a person to walk towards and try to get the wallet when you brush past them, okay? I'll be back in an hour.”
She exited the shed and left us to practice on each other. I felt Sammy grab the wallet the first time she tried to brush by me and a small fight ensued. I gave her a few bruises before she quit and let me keep the wallet. By the end of the hour I was getting better and pick pocketing and was confident I'd be able to do it on the mission in four days. We all went inside and ate some pizza for lunch then went back into the shed to practice some more. I couldn't wait to try it in real life.
At around two mother went outside to see how we were doing and Sammy asked her “Mom, were is the next mission?”
She hesitated before answering. “Barcelona, Spain. The worst city in the world for pick pockets.”
I smiled to myself. “Bring it.”