The Seventh Inning Stretch

The flask of bourbon burned going down, same way Eleanor's words had burned three nights ago. You're not a husband anymore, she'd said, packing her bags with methodical precision. You're a spy who forgot which side he's on.

At the ballpark, Section 204, Row 12 — their seats since before the mortgage, before the promotion that required more "business trips" than any marriage should withstand. The corporate *dog* and pony show had consumed him slowly, like termites in a foundation. First it was occasional surveillance on competitors. Then it was bribery, blackmail, the whole ethical slippery slope they'd warned about in business ethics courses he'd slept through.

Now this: tomorrow morning, 9 AM, stealing proprietary research from the company that had paid for his daughter's *baseball* lessons, his wife's antidepressants, this very seat he sat in alone. The *bull* in the china shop, that's what his handler called him. Plausible deniability. Just a consultant doing due diligence.

A vendor walked by shouting. The couple beside him argued about money. Normal problems. Problems that didn't involve federal crimes or the hollowed-out feeling where his conscience used to be.

He excused himself, made his way to the concourse, found himself standing before the aquarium tank near the left field entrance. Sea turtles glided through artificial currents, endless *swimming* in circles. Going nowhere beautifully.

That's when he saw her — his handler — sitting by the carousel, sipping a lemonade like she wasn't destroying lives for a living. Their eyes met. She checked her watch. Tomorrow's drop. Don't be late.

He nodded. Walked back to his seat. Pulled out his phone and typed three texts: one to his lawyer, one to a journalist he'd met years ago, one to Eleanor.

The turtles kept swimming. The game continued. But something in the machinery had finally changed direction.