The Dead Drop

The baseball stadium lights hummed above us, a constellation of artificial stars. I adjusted my wig—hairs that weren't mine scratching against my scalp—and checked my watch. Three minutes until the drop.

"You're going to miss it," she said, not looking at me. Eleanor. Three years married, seven years as my handler at the Agency.

"The game or the extraction?"

"Both."

The crowd roared as someone hit a home run. I didn't care. I'd been a spy too long—fifteen years of stolen documents, dead drops in hollow trees,hotel rooms that all smelled the same. I felt like a zombie going through the motions of being alive. My real hair had started graying at thirty. Now at forty-two, I wore disguises more often than my own face.

"We could walk away," Eleanor said, finally turning. Her eyes held that dangerous look—the one that made me recruit her. "The flash drive is in your pocket. Nobody knows we have it."

The corporate secrets on that drive could destroy careers, ruin lives. Or we could sell it ourselves and disappear.

I thought about baseball—how I used to play as a kid, the smell of cut grass, the satisfying crack of the bat. Simple rules. Clear winners and losers. Not like espionage, where everyone lost eventually.

"Your hair," I said, reaching to touch a strand escaping her bun. "It's different."

"Dyed it. For the role." She leaned into my touch. "So are we doing this?"

The extraction team would be here in ninety seconds. If we ran, we'd be hunted. If we stayed, we'd be owned.

I took her hand instead of the gun. We walked toward the exit while the baseball game continued behind us, thousands of people cheering for something that didn't matter. The night air smelled of popcorn and possibility.

"Mexico first," she said, squeezing my fingers.

"Anywhere."

Somewhere behind us, a dead drop went unclaimed. Somewhere ahead, we might finally start living.