Twilight Hunger. Maggie Shayne

Twilight Hunger

turning, ran back the way she had come. She refused to look again at the carnage. Refused to look behind her, even when she swore she felt the disfigured man’s gaze burning into her back. She just hurried as fast as she could back to where she’d left her friends and fell to her knees near the shrub where they waited.

“God, thank God, you’re back!” Storm said. She bent over Max, stroking her back. “Are you all right? What happened back there?”

“Did you find anything? What did you see?” Jason asked.

Maxine lifted her head, looked at them. “It’s … there were … bodies.”

“Oh, God,” Storm said, closing her eyes.

Max gripped Jason’s forearm, and he helped her to her feet. “Let’s get the hell out of here, okay?” he suggested.

She nodded. They fell into step together, with Max in the center, her two friends flanking her almost protectively. They had made it almost all the way to the front gate when the sounds of rumbling motors flooded the night and vehicles came roaring along the street and into the drive. They ducked into the nearby pines, watching as camo-painted trucks and Jeeps with spotlights mounted on them bounded past. At least one vehicle had a machine gun mounted on a tripod in the back. Soldiers armed with weapons came spilling out of the trucks and fanned out onto the grounds.

Ten feet ahead of Max, a cop stood with his back to them, looking at the commotion with his head tilted to one side. Her cop, Maxine realized with a rush of relief.

Jason saw him at the same time, squeezed Max’s arm, whispered, “Cop.”

“It’s okay. It’s Lou Malone.”

Jason sent her a frown.

“He teaches that women’s self-defense course I take.”

“You remember him, Jay,” Storm put in. “He used to work our high school dances. He’s the one Maxie always had a crush on.”

“Oh, yeah. That one.” He sent Max a look that asked if she still did, but she just rolled her eyes and looked away.

Someone spoke into a bullhorn, startling her so much that she jerked her gaze away from the back of Lou’s head. “This is a government facility and therefore, a military operation. Local firefighters are to cease all activity at once. No one is to leave this site without clearance. Line up in an orderly fashion near the front gate and you’ll be escorted off the premises. That is all.”

“What the hell is going on, Max?” Storm whispered, clutching Maxine’s arm. “They’ve got guns.”

“They’re not going to use them.” Jason tried to sound confident and sure of himself but missed that goal by about a mile. “I mean, they’re soldiers. They have to carry guns. Right?”

They watched from their pine-scented blind as the soldiers tugged firemen away from their hoses. Some of the firefighters obeyed, moving to form a straggling line by the gate. Those who didn’t move fast enough were searched where they were, then escorted to the front gate and through it. More soldiers searched the fire trucks, and the vehicles in the street, as well.

“Well, I’ll be dipped,” Officer Malone said to himself. “What the hell is all this about?”

Licking her lips, Maxine stepped out of her cover, walked up to Lou and cleared her throat. He turned fast, then gaped at her in surprise. She loved him. Had since tenth grade. And it didn’t matter that his face was hard and lined, or that he was eighteen years older than she was, or that he saw her as little more than a pain-in-the-ass kid with a big imagination.

“Well, if it isn’t Mad Maxie Stuart, my favorite redhead,” he said, shaking his head slowly. “Why the hell am I not surprised to see you here?”

“Hey, Lou. I just wanted to see the fire.”

“Uh-huh.” He glanced at her friends. “Don’t you two know better than to let her drag you into her schemes?”

They shrugged, said nothing.

“Lou, I don’t like this,” Max said. “This whole soldier bit. They’re searching everyone.”

“Yeah, I see that.”

“Just an excuse to grope the females,” Stormy said. “If they think they’re gonna run their hands all over my body, they’d better think again.”

Maxine watched Lou’s eyes slide to hers as Stormy spoke and knew her friend had fallen on the right tactic. “I don’t relish the idea of them copping a feel of my ass, either, Storm.” Even as she said it, a soldier slammed a firefighter who resisted him up against the guardhouse. Lou saw it and winced.

“I’m scared, Lou. I just want to get out of here,” Max said.

Lou Malone pursed his lips in thought; then, finally, he nodded. “It’s not like you kids are any threat to national security. These guys are a little overzealous, I think. Look, there’s a break in the fence, just past those pines. See that tallest one? It’s near that. Go on, get outta here. I never saw you.”

“Thanks, Lou.”

He gave Maxine a worried nod, and, impulsively, she leaned up and planted a kiss on his cheek.

“Get your ass straight home, Mad Max. No more screwing around with grown-up stuff, okay?”

“I promise,” she said. Then she ran off in the direction he’d shown her.

Max waited until Jason and Storm had gone home. She told them nothing about the man she had seen gathering evidence from the rubble. Nothing about the trophies she had recovered. She didn’t want to tell them anything that could put them in danger or make them accessories if what she had done turned out to be a crime. Late that night, very late, she gently wiped the soot from the partially melted plastic of the name badge.

There was a photograph of a man, and the words, “Frank W. Stiles. Security Level: Alpha. DPI.”

She knew what “Security Level: Alpha” meant. She had learned that the first time she tried to uncover the truth about UFOs and government cover-ups. Alpha was the word used to indicate the top-level security clearances in certain agencies under the auspices of the CIA. But in all her years of research she had never once come across any reference to any agency or operation called DPI.

Jesus, what the hell had she stumbled upon?

She was nearly shaking when she washed the soot from the CD-ROM and slid it into her computer, praying the heat hadn’t ruined it.

It hadn’t.

When she clicked RUN, the driver whirred and the screen went black. Red letters lit up the screen.