43. The Secret War, Chapter 5

Chapter 5

When I stepped inside the door, the phone was ringing—then went to voice mail.  A familiar voice—“The Voice”--said, “I see the package has been delivered. I’ll leave you to it.” Click.

For the sake of complete privacy, I locked myself in the bathroom, sat on the toilet, and opened the envelope. The first page was empty except for a typed statement: “This page intentionally left blank.” I crumpled up that page and went on to the next page. It was a map. Below is a copy of the map.

 

  

The map came with a simple set of instructions. They said to follow the arrow from “Skwamis to Lasska. U will fin wat yer lookin’ 4.” Parenthetically was another note: “My daughter wanted to help . . . “  Then the instructions changed tone: “Make a determined attempt to employ several modalities of transport to take full advantage of Canada’s varied and progressive navigational opportunities. Have fun!”

I studied the map for several minutes. Apparently, I was to start from where I was now and head north to somewhere in Alaska. That much about the map was clear. Modalities  made me regret throwing away my old college paperback dictionary.  I went on to the next page. It was blank. I went on to the next page. It said, “The previous page was intentionally left blank.” A smiley face was attached, along with TV. After several hours, I figured out that TV meant The Voice.

The next page was typewritten. Now, I thought, here would be the serious stuff—the heart of my mission, its ultimate goal, the strategies and tactics, alternative escape plans, tips for negotiating with the enemy, and the necessary number of changes of clothes for maximum comfort. Instead, the message was unusually brief and for some reason typed in an oversized, fancy font. Below is a copy of the message:

See Ed. Go to Marbles’ place.

Arrive by 2:19 pm.

Three more blank pages were included. A final page contained a child’s drawing with a handwritten message. A copy of it is included as documentation for my final report.

Several decades after the mission to Alaska, the following information about the above illustration was reclassified from TOP SECRET to FOR YOUR EYES ONLY, and the nosy liberal press exposed these details: A handwriting analyst applied several computer algorithms to the little girl’s handwritten message and concluded that, with spelling errors corrected, it said, “Good luck poopy head.” A graphical analyst further concluded that, yes, the little girl was “flipping the bird” to her intended audience. An in-house psycho-analyst and art historian, after discovering the image was that of a little girl related to TV, rated the skill level “well beyond her years, advanced even for a graduate level art student in any state university, excluding Alaska,” and determined its level of hostility to be “perfectly within the normal range, even bordering on the whimsical.”

I looked at my watch. It was 5:15 pm.