Chauffeurs, Drop-Dead Spikes and Citrus:

Chauffeurs, Drop-Dead Spikes and Citrus: My Career in Espionage

I will always remember the especially unique experience when I worked not as my true self, Lily Groban, but as a secret agent for the CIA during the Cold War. As a young graduate student in California, I contented myself with disassociation from the government when the Cold War began. I majored in biochemistry and minored in mechanics. I graduated at the top of my class, and planned to go on to get my PhD. The summer before I began my studies, I visited my uncle, who I remembered at the time as a boring old accountant. During my visit, he revealed to me that the CIA recruited him back before wrinkles obscured every inch of his face and that he continued to spy for them. He told me that the CIA wanted to recruit me for a project they believed I would excel at but, for safety reasons, refused to tell me about just then. I swore to complete secrecy and I agreed that I would take the job. My uncle informed me that the USSR decided to put much research into developing suicide weapons for agents to use to kill themselves if the U.S. caught them. This way the USSR decreased the risk of one of their agents leaking secrets to the U.S. if the U.S. caught one of the USSR’s spies and wanted information. The CIA wanted me to infiltrate the program developing the suicide weapons and neutralize the chemicals in them without detection. I needed to relocate to Kiev in one year after taking Russian. The CIA gave me a secret identity of Tasha Andropov, which I would use for up to the next six years.
Acting as Tasha Andropov proved like acting in a movie or a play. I always wanted to act professionally years ago, and now my wish came true, just in a different way than I would have guessed. The CIA decided that Tasha originally came from Moscow, but moved to Kiev to attend their University. “Gatos miyos! COLD!” popped into my head the second I stepped off the plane and arrived in Kiev. Even though I arrived in the middle of May, I froze so much that I assured my dog each night that I would die from the kind of cold a native Southern Californian never knows. Of course, I couldn’t show that I suffered from the cold because that would give me away. I remember suffering greatly from the cold that first year. I started working in Kiev as an assistant to a scientist who developed poisons to put on tips of safety pins and such. During my stay in Kiev, I decided that Tasha loved dogs. Tasha needed to have odd quirks and loves just like any other human so she wouldn’t stand out and get caught. That year, I saw snow for the first time in my life. It excited me greatly, but I couldn’t show my excitement without giving myself away. I found out the hard way that chemicals react differently in cold places. I had to do some extra work to re-configure some recipes because of the coldness and dryness of Ukraine. My life in Kiev mentally taxed me in that I lived alone in my knowledge of my real self. All day I had to pretend to have someone else’s identity.
After about three years in Kiev, a chemist offered me a job developing suicide weapons in a secret laboratory in Moscow. I consulted with my CIA contact, and she decided that the job could benefit the mission. I took the job and relocated. I developed lethal poisons that one could neutralize with simple, common chemicals like the citric acid found in oranges and lemons. I sent the recipes for the poisons to the U.S. using a drop-dead spike and I made useless suicide weapons for USSR spies. The tedious work bored me, but something interesting happened one day. As I walked home from the laboratory I saw a person I swore I recognized. He stood waiting by a limo, an important air about him. Sunglasses obscured his face, but the face reverberated familiarity to me. He reached up to his head and wiped all his hair to one side. I had seen that distinctive gesture before! My brother, Johnny, had always done that since before either of us could remember. I approached the man to get a better view of at him. My brother Johnny stood right before me! Trying not to call attention to myself, I walked over to Johnny. Luckily, because of Moscow’s unbelievable size, inconspicuousness proved fairly easy. I whispered “Mama Elephant must miss us.” In elementary school, we regularly played a game in which we turned into elephants. . Our mother’s code name: “Mama Elephant” In our code, uttering her name signaled when we wanted to or should go home. Johnny stared at me, comprehension dawning on his face. “Lily?” he wondered aloud. “Hi Johnny. I see you live here in the USSR. Why?” I asked. He hastily explained that I should call him by his secret identity, Piccup, and that he had a job as spy for the U.S. and acted as Nikita Khrushekev’s chauffer. His secret identity’s last name, funnily enough, turned out the same as mine: Andropov. That made my brother a chauffer named Piccup Andropov. Luckily, no Russians understood the English play on words of my brother’s name. I tried not to laugh. I explained how I also got a job as a spy for the U.S., and we talked until guards poured out of the building Johnny had parked Khrushekev’s limo in front of. Khrushekev came out quickly and I had to go. Johnny and I kept in contact for the rest of the war, and we greatly relied on each others letters to get us through our grand charade that we both lived. We both agreed on one plan: after the war, we would both eternally bask in the warm Southern California sun.
I spent three years neutralizing poisons and inventing new ones to send to the U.S. It bored me. Everyday I passed the hole in the ground where I could drop a drop-dead spike and pick one up if I needed help. Everyday I saw lonely emptiness where a dead-drop spike might wait. Life, however, went on. Then, one day, as I walked to work, I saw something odd. A drop-dead spike rested in the hole I used! I hastily picked up the spike and tucked it in my bag. I would read it in a more private situation where eyes other than my own couldn’t see my paper. Later during everyone else’s lunch break, I opened the capsule. I saw that it contained a rolled up piece of paper. I pulled the paper and read the message. It read “Come home. Too dangerous to continue. Arrive at the train station at 7:00 am tomorrow.” Euphoria rushed through me. In a day or two, I would see my family and friends again. I told Johnny the news, and he admitted to jealousy. “I want to go home too…” he said. I assured him that all would turn out well. We spent the entire night talking, and soon it came time for me to leave. I tearfully left Johnny and the land I had called home for an eternity. I would never forget Mother Russia, but I needed no readying to go home. Upon my return, I learned that one of my coworkers suspected me of my true identity, an American spy. Apparently he had tried several times to kill me, but I hadn’t noticed because his attempts failed subtlety. The news shocked and terrified me, but I learned to live with it and eventually gained peace. I lived the rest of the war in happiness, and I threw a party when Johnny came home. I always have one piece of advice to anyone who wants to go into the field of espionage: “If it gets boring, you’re in trouble.”