Midnight Sun by Basil Sands Page A

patrol as a regular trooper and then four as an investigator. Bloody murders, suicides, and scores of fatal motor vehicle accidents were part of the job. Her promotion two years earlier had taken her off patrols and into a supervisory role, and the last few months of the pregnancy further relegated her to mostly desk work. Between the hormones of pregnancy and the genuine stress of seeing a good friend killed before her eyes, the load had become too much to carry. She cried in his arms until they both drifted into an exhausted sleep.
    ***
    At five o'clock they awoke, still cuddled together. They got up, he dressed and she fixed her hair. Blessed with naturally smooth skin, Lonnie wore very little , if any, makeup, so getting ready to go out was a fairly quick process for her most of the time. They made their way down to the lobby, where they met with Mike and Hilde. The group walked out the front of the hotel onto Fourth Avenue and made their way one block west to Simon & Seafort ’ s restaurant. They had not made reservations, and the hostess told them it would be a thirty-minute wait unless they were willing to dine in the bar area. The restaurant was smoke free, and at the early hour, the bar was quieter than the dining room. Most of the noise in there came from two large flat-screen TVs hanging above the bar, the sound background murmurs of a baseball game and the local news channel.
    They chose a table near a window that framed Mt. Susitna across the inlet. The mountain is locally known as Sleeping Lady, due to the fact that from certain angles, it looks like a long-haired woman lying on her back. They ordered and made small talk over drinks as they waited for their food. The conversation drifted from the photo hunt to babies and the Farris's decision to try having children. Hilde was thirty-nine years old, and felt like it was now or never. Lonnie was about the same age and encouraged her to go for it; she would not get many more chances.
    Dessert and coffee came. Hilde held a spoon of rich chocolate mousse in front of her mouth and smiled as she imagined cradling an infant in her arms. She knew Lonnie was right—this might be her only chance. Menopause was not far in the future, and if she waited too long, she'd be in her sixties, looking like a grandparent, when her child graduated high school. Mike had a child of his own with his first marriage, but that wife and their toddler son were both killed in a drive-by shooting two years earlier. While she never felt that she was a replacement for his former family, Hilde did feel that it would be good therapy for Mike to have another child. She leaned back against her seat and absentmindedly glanced up at one of the massive plasma TVs above the bar. The local evening news was playing, the sound barely audible above the din of the crowd which had grown significantly since they had sat down.
    Video of a car accident played across the screen. As the announcer described the event, Lonnie's pregnant form suddenly came into view on the screen. Hilde tapped Mike on the arm and he looked up. Marcus and Lonnie looked as well, but Lonnie turned away once she realized what it was. She glanced toward Hilde and saw the FBI analyst’s face morph into a shocked expression as she stared at the screen.
    “ I know that man, ” Hilde said in a harsh whisper.
    Lonnie looked up just in time to see Steven Farrah flash past the edge of the screen.
    “ Him? ” she asked .
    Hilde's face colored.
    “ How do you know him? ” Mike asked.
    She leaned closer to the table, lowering her voice. T he others bent toward the center and focused on what she said .
    “ He's on the watch list, ” she whispered. “ Added just a few weeks ago. Sokol Albajani. ”
    “ You sure? ” Mike asked.
    “Y ou know I never forget their faces, ” she said, pursing her lips. “ That is Sokol Albajani. ”
    “ Who is he? ” Marcus asked.
    “ A mid-ranking officer in the Sons of the Sword, an a