Spy Games

FBI Special Agent Emily Hayes casually followed her target, Pavel Yuriev, into Riley Park. Yuriev paused near a soccer pitch, ostensibly to watch the game, but leaning oddly against a tree so that Agent Hayes lost sight of his hands. A few minutes later, Yuriev stepped forward applauding a goal, then walked away.

Agent Hayes waited to see if anyone else approached the tree and when no one did, she did so herself. In a cut about two feet from the base was a folded note. Pulling it out, she moved to an isolated park bench before reading it. The note was encoded, but using a surprisingly simple method. Perhaps Yuriev had no time to spare for deeper encryption she guessed.

The note gave directions to where it promised a letter divulging a very compromising story was hidden. Hayes smiled as she burned the paper, leaving the ashes on the dirt beneath the bench. She then went to find the letter.

Twenty minutes later Hayes stood outside Paul’s Barber Shop. Attached to the brick beside the door was a traditional barber pole, with its rotating helix of red, white and blue stripes. Taped inconspicuously to the wall behind it was an envelope. Hayes peeled the envelope away and opened it.

A moment later, a boy rushed out of the shop brandishing a push broom flecked with hair.

“What are you doing?” he cried. “That’s mine.”

Hayes withdrew the letter and read it, discovering it revealed that a girl named Abagail had a mad crush on someone named Brian. “Why all the cloak and dagger?” she asked.

“My friends and me like playing spy games,” he replied.

FBI Special Agent Emily Hayes dropped her shoulders and sighed, then headed back to Riley Park.