Free Midnight Sun by Basil Sands Page A

whose cheeks had reddened, a shocked expression on her face. Hilde blinked a few times and opened her mouth, but the words didn't seem to form.
    “ Sorry to burst your bubble, if you had one about me, ” she said. “ I was a month pregnant and newly married when I got a letter Marcus sent from New Guinea. I didn ’ t even have the guts to talk to him. Just left his letters unanswered until someone else told him what I ’ d done. We had no contact for more than ten years after that. ”
    Hilde stared at her. After a long of silence, she mumbled, “ You ’ ve got another child? ”
    “ The baby miscarried. A couple of years later, my playboy husband left me for a teenaged Air Force floozy and I ended up burying myself in a career of beating the crap out of bad guys. ”
    “ How … when …” Hilde stumbled over the words, struggling to grasp this new depth with which she was getting to know Lonnie. “ How did you and Marcus finally get back together? ”
    “ After he retired from the Marines, he came home and we kinda got tossed back at each other, thanks to a police call, of all things. ”
    “ Your life sounds like a movie, ” Hilde said. Motion high in the sky caught her attention. She glanced up and saw an eagle, its massive wings spread wide. It floated in a long, lazy arc on a current of air several hundred feet above them. Even at that distance, it still looked huge.
    “I don't know about that. But things turned out pretty good in the end … so far at least,” said Lonnie.   “So how about you and Mike, how did you two meet? ”
    “ Fate as well, I guess. It's kinda complicated as well. He and my boss were old buddies in the Marines. Mike's first wife and son... ”
    “ Got your side arm? ” Lonnie blurted , instantly derailing the conversation.
    “ Huh? ”
    “ If not, there's one in the glove box. Get it out now. ” Lonnie reached into her purse and produced a.45 caliber Glock 39 pistol.
    Hilde turned toward her and saw why. More than h alf a dozen men walked out from behind a warehouse building on Lonnie's side of the truck. Dressed in baggy blue jeans and white T -shirts, most sported tattoos that covered their arms and wriggled out of their collars. Pieces of pipe and short baseball bats swung at the sides of many of them. Pistol butts jutted from a couple of waist bands. One man flipped a long butterfly knife back and forth in his hand, the metal handles snapping rhythmically with each flick of his wrist. Their feet crunched on the gravel surface of the rail yard as they crossed.
    “ Who are they? ” Hilde asked, her voice rising with the tension.
    “ Local gang, ” Lonnie said. “ Get ready with the gun. Glove box. It's chambered. Get it out, but keep it beneath the window for now. ”
    The men encircled the truck. Hilde discreetly opened the glove box and found a Smith & Wesson 4566, .45 caliber pistol on top of the car's registration form. She recognized the weapon as one that many FBI agents had carried in the past. She’d fired one a few times but the power and kick of the large caliber were too much for her. She preferred her personal side arm, the much smaller SIG P232. Hilde slid the mean-looking weapon out of the space and held it low. The weight of the blued steel felt cold and awkward in her hand. She was an analyst, not an operative. She only qualified on her own weapon, once a year and wasn't sure if she'd even remember how to use it if things got crazy. Her heart smacked against the inside of her ribcage.
    “ I'm not a field agent , just surveillance. ” H er voice rattled with nervous tension.
    “ You know how to use one of these? ” Lonnie asked without looking back at her.
    “ Yeah, but I've never shot anyone. ”
    “ Pray we don't have to tonight. Got your badge? ”
    “ In my purse. ”
    “ Get it out, but keep it down too. ”
    One of the men approached Lonnie's side of the truck, stopped several paces away, and raised his hands above his head in a