The Dead Drop (26 page)

“I doubt you would have recognized me even if there had been a picture in that book. It was published many years ago and most of my old friends would say that my looks have declined terribly.” He patted his belly. “This is all muscle, though,” he joked. “Anyway, these days I prefer to stay incognito.”

“So what are you doing here?” Gilda whispered. “Are we both working on the same case?”

“I was hoping you could help me answer that question. During the past few weeks I’ve been completely unable to work because the most intense visions keep interrupting me. Some of them are people . . .” Balthazar thought of the pale woman and the images of Gilda herself that had interrupted his remote viewing sessions. “Some are very specific places in the city. What’s unusual for me is that I have no idea what I’m really looking for.”

Gilda nodded. “I know the feeling.” She walked along the stones lining the path, searching for the one special stone that was actually a secret container. All the stones looked very similar, and for a moment she panicked, worried that she would never find it again. After all, she had first made the discovery accidentally.

Finally, Gilda spotted the large, fake stone positioned in the crumbling edging of the pathway: it was slightly smoother than the others around it and it also weighed much less than its appearance suggested.

“We’re supposed to find this.” Gilda lifted the stone and pulled it apart to reveal the interior secret compartment. She stared in awe at the contents of the concealment device. “It really happened!” she whispered.

Balthazar stared in awe as Gilda unfolded a pile of classified documents.

Gilda flipped through the pages, reading a series of memos and notes that clearly documented recent, active attempts to spy on international targets by means of psychic readings.
Balthazar has been working for the CIA!
Gilda realized.
But someone’s been passing along the information he discovers.

“Mr. Frobenius—”

“Call me Balthazar.”

“Balthazar, do you realize your name is on each of these documents?”
If he’s able to use psychic skills to perceive targets all over the world,
Gilda thought,
why didn’t he know about the documents in this dead drop?

Balthazar stared at the documents. His sunburned face now looked ashen. “May I?”

Gilda handed him the papers and he read them silently, his hand shaking with combined anger and excitement. “So that’s why I’ve been so confused and blocked! I thought this whole Project MINDSCAPE was a failure, but the truth is, the Russians have been following every reading I do!” For a moment, Balthazar felt almost happy at the notion that his psychic abilities were being tracked by other spies—that the readings had in fact been significant enough to be a source of international intrigue.

Then he sighed wearily, realizing how blind he had been to the significance of the clues and warnings he had received.
All because I wanted to feel that my work was really important to the government,
he thought. He sat down on a small stone bench for mourners, rubbing his large, shiny forehead with his palms. “Now I understand. Now it all makes sense.”

Realizing they didn’t have much time, Gilda took the documents from Balthazar and did her best to take as many pictures as she could for evidence. She was eager to ask Balthazar about a million questions, but she was also worried that the foreign spy picking up the information drop would turn up while they were still loitering near the mausoleums.

“Gilda,” said Balthazar, “I’ll tell you something that isn’t in that
Master Psychic’s Handbook
I wrote. Maybe you can learn from my mistake.”

“What’s that?

“Even psychics can be totally blind to difficult truths that are very close to us personally. Here I was gathering intelligence information for the CIA—my mind soaring over the globe to remote locations where I could see everything quite clearly. I thought I was doing something to protect my country and others around the world. Meanwhile, right next to me was a source of destruction—that blasted Loomis Trench!”

“Loomis Trench?!” Gilda remembered the man with square glasses who had challenged Boris Volkov during the Spy Museum lecture. “Omigod—I think I met that guy at the Spy Museum! He was so weird. He was really uptight, and then he made a big scene.”

Balthazar chuckled ruefully. “Yes, that sounds like him. Loomis is the man I’ve been reporting to at the CIA. He’s heading up a secret arm of something the CIA used to call the remote viewing program. They used to train military servicemen to develop psychic skills, but Loomis—in his great wisdom—decided to hire me. But I guess I wasn’t psychic enough to perceive the mole working right next to me—Loomis himself!”

“So Loomis Trench is definitely the CIA mole—the guy who’s passing along this information?”

“I’m sure of it.”

“But—how do you know he’s the one who’s doing it?”

“I just
know
. I’ve had too many visions that point in that direction. . . . Yes—on this one, I have to trust my gut. Not that my gut has been particularly trustworthy lately.” He shook his head and looked dejected.

“Balthazar, don’t be too hard on yourself for not knowing that guy Loomis was a mole. I mean, I’ve had the same best friend for years, and I never realized until a few days ago that she has a crush on my brother!”

“A very similar situation,” said Balthazar, sarcastically.

“Oh, and I also never knew my mom likes dancing and ‘the nightlife’ until I read her online dating profile. You’d think I’d know my own mother better than that.”

Balthazar suddenly tensed as if he were a rabbit sensing the approach of a predator. “We need to go,” he whispered. “Someone is coming.”

Gilda turned to head back up the steps, but Balthazar took her arm. “No,” he whispered. “We have to go this way.”

They walked down the path, taking a circuitous route through rows of tombs, then back up the hill.

When they approached the entrance to the cemetery, Balthazar quickly pulled Gilda aside just as a dark-haired woman pushing a stroller entered the cemetery and headed in the direction of the dead-drop location.

Gilda was sure she had seen this same woman leaving the Russian Embassy before.
The perfect cover,
Gilda thought.
You think you’re seeing a mother taking her child for an evening stroll when in reality you’re witnessing a Russian spy collecting U.S. intelligence. It’s all happening right before our eyes, and if you only glance at the surface, you never know what’s really going on.

“What do we do now?” Gilda whispered.

“I don’t know about you,” said Balthazar, “but I’m hungry. How about discussing a plan over a plate of macaroni and cheese?”

“I guess I’m kind of hungry, too,” said Gilda.

“Good. Come on; let’s find a taxi. You’ll be amazed when you see the place I have in mind.”

35

The Mansion on O Street

You’ll find this place interesting,” said Balthazar, punching in a secret code that gave him access to the Mansion on O Street—a group of interlinked Victorian houses near Dupont Circle. “It’s a very unique hotel because it’s also an art gallery, a restaurant, and an antiques emporium all mixed up together. It’s the perfect place to stay when you’re working on something covert because the owner never reveals the names of her guests.” Balthazar explained that lots of celebrities stayed at the Mansion when they visited D.C. “I’m no celebrity, but I like to pretend I’m one now and then.” He winked at Gilda.

We have so much in common,
Gilda thought.
I’m actually standing next to Balthazar Frobenius, the famous psychic. We’re working together on a case involving national security!

They entered a banquet room in which chandeliers dripping with crystal hung from gilded ceilings. Elegant little tables with white linen cloths and roses were set for dinner, but the room was virtually empty except for a couple seated in a corner who spoke in hushed tones. As Gilda took in the details of the large, dim room, she realized the atmosphere was overwhelming because it was at once elegant and so totally zany and cluttered, it was hard to know where to focus her attention.

Everywhere she looked, Gilda’s eye rested on something unexpected: amid Victorian lamps and enormous bouquets of silk roses were sculptures and paintings of angels, ridiculous marionettes that hung from the ceiling and walls, and knick knacks and figurines featuring everything from fat ladies to elves and fairies. Hundreds of paintings and books on every topic imaginable were stacked in precarious towers and stuffed into nooks and crannies.

“Good evening, Mr. Frobenius,” said a hostess. “Will you be having dinner with us tonight?”

“Yes, and my colleague Ms. Gilda Joyce will be joining me.”

I’m Balthazar’s colleague,
Gilda thought.

“Sit anywhere you like. As you know, dinner is buffet-style; you just help yourself.”

“I have a feeling Gilda might like to take a look around first.”

Gilda realized she must have been staring at the room with her mouth open.

“You can go anywhere except the rooms marked private. There are about one hundred rooms, thirty-two secret doorways, and twenty thousand books. Enjoy your evening.”

“Did she say ‘thirty-two secret door ways’?” Gilda whispered.

“I thought this would be your kind of place,” said Balthazar. “For some reason, I find that the whimsical noise from all the clutter in here keeps out some of the negativity and stress from the outside world—at least temporarily. I’m going to sit down and think about things for a minute; why don’t you take a look around? Just don’t get lost.”

Feeling as if she had stepped into one of the magical worlds in a children’s book where a secret doorway or magic mirror might lead into another universe, Gilda wandered from room to room, sometimes touching paintings or bookshelves that turned out to be secret doorways leading into yet another room.

“This hotel is disorienting,” she scribbled in her reporter’s notebook.

There were bathrooms with games of chess set up on crystal tables, secret reading nooks, bedrooms with colorful skies painted on ceilings, a billiards table perched upon gilded dragons, and numerous stairways decorated with stacks of precariously teetering china dishes.

By the time Gilda found her way back down to the first floor, Balthazar was in the banquet room piling a plate with macaroni and cheese, meatballs, and biscuits.

“My appetite got the best of me,” he said.

Gilda surveyed the sprawling buffet and was delighted that whimsical, silly foods like licorice sticks, lollipops, and even marshmallow cream were available next to more serious meals like pasta, meatballs, grilled chicken, mashed potatoes, and bean salad. She was also delighted to find books displayed alongside the foods.

She and Balthazar loaded up their plates and then found a secluded table.

“Now,” said Balthazar, spreading a napkin on his lap. “I’m sure you have a lot of questions for me.”

Gilda hardly knew what to ask first. How did Balthazar develop his psychic skills in the first place-or was he just born that way? How should the two of them catch this CIA mole Loomis Trench? And who, exactly, was the ghost in the Spy Museum?

While Gilda contemplated these questions, Balthazar stared at her with a strange intensity.

“What’s the matter?”

“You remind me of someone. My sister, actually.”

“Isn’t she a lot older than me?”

“She would have been.” Balthazar wiped his mouth and Gilda perceived the faintest quiver of emotion in his voice. “Sadly, she passed away when she was much younger than you; she was only eleven years old.”

“What happened to her? I mean, if you don’t mind my asking?”