James Bond for a Day

It’s true: You can be a spy in shorts and flip-flops. That’s one thing I learned during a recent visit to the International Spy Museum while my boyfriend, Jon, was in town.

Like other perfectly normal couples, we’re fans of espionage (or at least James Bond martinis). We’re also quite partial to acting like 13-year-olds (who, legally and unfortunately, cannot enjoy said vodka martinis).

Operation Spy was a no-brainer. Operation Spy, and the Spy Museum itself, is worth a visit for those with a sense of humor, keen detective skills (or the ability to fake it) and genuine interest in seeing what a day in the life of a spy is like.

Along with 15 or so others—adult tourists, another couple close to our age, and, well, actual 13-year-olds—we embarked upon a mission with trusty confidante (Spy Museum employee) Sarah, who happened to be perfectly equipped for every task we attempted.

We were quickly given the background to our mission (which, we later learned, is actually based off of real cases): A top-secret, nuclear triggering device has gone missing in the fictitious land of Khandar.

People want to buy it, but the rest is unknown. Who took it? Why did they take it? And, as Jon quizzically remarked, why does our chief sound remarkably like the head honcho from Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?

Must be a spy thing.

Our first mission splits the group into teams, frantically panning and zooming in on suspects and allies, overhearing arguments and pegging anything out of the ordinary. From there, it just gets stranger. After each mission, the team rallies and discusses possibilities, ranging from the sane to the outlandish, but it’s all for fun.

Sarah not so gently urges us along, “What next? No, that doesn’t make sense. What else could he mean? No, that’s wrong.” Sheepishly, we realize the life of spies might be a tad harder than anticipated.

But in the end, it’s a game everyone wants to win.

That much was proven at the critical juncture, which had me scrambling for documents offering clues to what really transpired, working with teammates to piece it all together. Glancing across the room, Jon had his head bent over the safe containing a crucial element in our team’s mission—apparently, espionage is his calling, since he cracked it.

The groups are graded on how well they fare throughout their mission, and I’m proud to say our team got a near-perfect score.

The museum also offers historical background on espionage topics ranging from women spies to hidden cameras, spy propaganda, decoding tips and—my favorite exhibit—a look into the Red Scare (“War of the Spies”). Think your next-door neighbor is nosy? Imagine living next to Joe McCarthy…

It’s true, I totally flashed back to my Harriet the Spy days, lugging around a spy kit and dusting everything in the house for fingerprints.

What’s interesting about the Spy Museum is its focus on the reality of spies—the good, the bad and the ugly. There are only brief mentions of fictitious, commercialized spies, and the museum focuses on making visitors feel as though they are part of the intelligence community with historically accurate, and interesting, information. (One commercialization entirely necessary: the Bond Car on display amid all the other spy gadgets.)

Like the real world of espionage, the Spy Museum offers unpredictability through every twist and turn, with plenty of distractions to entertain the 13-year-old within. As for Operation Spy—I won’t spoil what the real story is, but things are definitely not what they seem in the land of Khandar.

Operation Spy is appropriate for "agents" 12 years old and up. Tickets are $14 if you buy them at the museum; they are $16 if you buy them online ($2 charge for a so-called convenience fee). Note that there's a separate fee for entering The Spy Museum; 800 F St. NW; 202/393-7798; spymuseum.org