TOP SECRET

To: Tom Cruise

From: Jerry Zezima

Re: “Mission: Implausible”

Dear Mr. Cruise:

I am a dashing, heroic and admittedly aging spy cleverly disguised as a syndicated newspaper columnist whose work is highly suspect. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to let me star in the next installment of your fabulously successful film series.

My qualifications are impeccable — or maybe, more fittingly, they’re impossible — because I recently went on a dangerous and sometimes embarrassing mission at the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C.

I can’t say I sneaked into the museum, which a professional spy would have done, but I did have a ticket, so they let me in. Accompanying me were my wife, our two daughters, one of our sons-in-law and our five grandchildren, all of whom, if my information is correct, were better spies than I was.

Nonetheless, I wasn’t captured by a foreign power and imprisoned in a dingy jail cell, only to escape using my wits, or at least half of them, and save the world from evil.

But I did have a good time.

Don’t tell anyone, as you are sworn to secrecy, but in order to begin my mission, I was given a new identity.

My name was Drew Smith. I was from Athens (Greece, not Georgia), my occupation was as an artist, despite the fact that I can’t even draw a good salary, and my code name was Rattler. The comparison to a poisonous snake was insulting, but I’ve been called worse.

Still, it was especially dangerous because I would be — you guessed it — unarmed.

I also, unofficially, gave myself the code name 0072, because that’s my age. I didn’t walk up to other visitors and identify myself by saying, “Zezima, Jerry Zezima,” but I did ask someone on staff if the museum served martinis — shaken, not stirred.

I’m surprised I wasn’t thrown out.

My adventure began when I went to the first of several touchscreens I would have to navigate and signed in as Rattler. Then I got these instructions:

“We believe a cybercriminal has their base of operations in Moscow. YOUR MISSION: Determine the location of their secret headquarters. Continue to your next Undercover Mission stop.”

At my next stop, I had to identify myself again (spies can never be too careful, I guess) and got these further instructions:

“You’ve received a secret message from headquarters. Assignment: Crack the coded message to figure out the next steps for your mission.”

It turned out that I wasn’t too smart — I was more like Maxwell Smart, the bumbling Agent 86 on the 1960s TV spy spoof “Get Smart” — so I needed help. Here’s what I got: “Ops cracked the message for you. Your mission is a go!”

I went to the Gadget Lab to design the right tool for the job. I picked a lock pick kit, which I’m glad I didn’t have to say five times fast.

“Good work!” it said on the screen.

From there I went to the Disguise Screen, where I chose a photo of myself with a trench coat and a fedora, and then to the Briefing Station to assume my cover on a Stealth Mission, which entailed crawling through an overhead vent while my grandchildren, giggling behind me, played Follow the Geezer.

I somehow made it through the Operational Zone in Moscow even though I blew most of the questions about security threats.

At the end, I got this message: “Intel received. Nice work, agent. This is the key piece of intel that we were looking for. We will take it from here.”

I had completed my mission. Now I am a certified secret agent.

Your assignment, Mr. Cruise, is to cast me in your next “Mission” movie. My new code name: Poppie. It’s what my grandchildren call me.

____

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