Seventh Inning Secrets

The ballpark smell hit Marcus first—that particular blend of stale beer, roasted peanuts, and something sweetly decayed that he'd spent twenty years trying to forget. He hadn't stepped foot in a stadium since the summer everything changed. Since the summer Tommy disappeared.

'You came.'

Marcus turned to find the familiar stranger sitting beside him, gray threading his temples like silver map lines across a face Marcus still knew better than his own. Tommy. His best friend. His betrayer. His spy.

'I came.' Marcus settled into the plastic seat, his knee where a baseball had shattered the cartilage in '98 giving a phantom twinge. 'You said it was urgent.'

On the field, the pitcher wound up. The crack of the bat echoed like a gunshot. Both men flinched.

'They're closing in, Marcus. The Agency. What happened in Prague—it's not over. They know I helped you.' Tommy's voice dropped to a near-whisper. 'I need you to do something for me. One last favor between friends.'

Marcus laughed, a dry humorless sound. 'Friends? You spent three years reporting on my crypto work. Every late night, every breakthrough—I was your mission.' He watched the outfielder catch a fly ball, the sun glinting off his sunglasses like the reflection off a hotel window in Vienna. 'I loved you, you know. That wasn't part of the assignment.'

Tommy's hand moved fractionally toward Marcus's on the armrest, then stopped. 'I know. That's why I'm still alive. That's why you're still alive.'

The crowd roared as someone hit a home run. Confetti cannons exploded, raining paper down like counterintelligence files scattered to the wind.

'I have a daughter now,' Tommy said suddenly. 'She's seven. She plays softball. Has your old glove.' He pulled a small USB drive from his pocket, pressed it into Marcus's palm. 'Everything. Names, dates, the black ops fund routing numbers. If something happens to me...'

'Why tell me now?'

Tommy smiled, that crooked boyish grin that had made Marcus fall in love with him across a thousand baseball fields. 'Because today's the seventh inning stretch. And some songs, you finally have to finish.'