To her surprise, DePresti knew about the higher-level summit.
“Colonel Hawke always went and then back-briefed us afterward,” he told her. “They weren’t hiding anything, or at least I didn’t think they were.”
“Well, they talked about Bronze Knot, or at least its data center location,” Parkowski continued.
DePresti nodded, seemingly unsurprised by that revelation. “Do you think it’s still there?”
“Yes,” she confirmed. “And I think we need to go there.”
She then told DePresti her theory as to the additional payload added to the SH-21 mission.
He didn’t confirm or deny it.
“That’s the most likely thing I’ve heard all day,” her boyfriend told her. “OuterTek has been changing parts on rockets for ten years. Adding an additional satellite to the PAF — especially one blessed by the Space Force — wouldn’t hurt my brain one bit.” DePresti paused, then continued. “I was with the rocket the whole time. I was away from it maybe once, and my boss was there when it happened. It’s unlikely, but possible. We just need to figure out exactly what it is.”
“And then we do what?”
DePresti thought for half a minute.
“Then, if Andrew’s theory is correct, we will hold all of the cards,” he told her. “The government agency or private corporation that has been after us since Sunday will have to deal.”
“And then hopefully this will all be over,” Parkowski said, “and we can go back to our normal lives.”
She got a series of nods from a tired-looking DePresti in response.
They were just outside Barstow now, near the turn to the road that would take them to Chang’s compound. Parkowski noticed a couple of black Suburbans parked on the side of the road near a power line, but they looked deserted.
They looked like the same ones that had chased them just a few days ago.
She took a quick breath. “Do you see those?”
“Yes,” DePresti confirmed.
“Should we keep going?”
“Yes,” he repeated himself. “It’s probably a coincidence. Chang would have called us via sat-phone if he had been in trouble.”
Parkowski nodded and kept driving.
The sun was almost down now at the end of the short autumn day. She had to squint in what remained of its light to see the narrow, windy road out of Barstow.
When they got to Chang’s house, his lifted truck was there in the carport.
Everything appeared to be normal.
She took a deep breath of relief and pulled up behind it.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Parkowski turned the truck off and carefully got out, grabbing her bags as she went. DePresti did the same on the other side.
He stopped and held up a hand as they walked towards the small house’s front door. “Do you hear anything?”
She frowned. “No, why?”
“Exactly. It’s too quiet.”
The complex was almost entirely pitch-black now, save for the house’s porch light.
Parkowski squinted and scanned her surroundings. Chang’s place looked deserted, the animals she had seen the last few days were either asleep or hiding.
The homestead itself was surrounded on three sides by short, rounded hills that branched off of a larger formation that ran west-to-east outside of the city. Chang’s land was nestled snugly between them.
The hills were topped by scraggly brush, a common theme in the Mojave. Parkowski could barely make out the outline of a few bushes and tumbleweeds in the dim light.
She walked to the door with DePresti in tow and tried the doorknob. Finding it unlocked, she turned and pushed it open, her boyfriend following closely behind her.
It didn’t seem like anyone was home.
Parkowski felt a strange sensation on the back of her neck. The house was deadly silent. Chang was nowhere to be found.
She wrinkled her nose. There was an odd smell to the house that hadn’t been there earlier, something pungent that was very different from the weed-and-air-freshener odor that normally permeated it.
DePresti didn’t seem to notice it. He stepped forward and methodically searched each room for any sign of Chang.
“He’s not here,” she said as she crossed her arms and remained in the entryway. “If he was here, he’d come out to see us.”
“Maybe he’s downstairs,” he suggested.
Parkowski wasn’t so sure but really wasn’t looking forward to the alternative. And she wasn’t so sure that those black SUVs parked along the road were here for something else entirely.
DePresti knelt next to the hidden entryway to the space below, then removed the rug. The concealed metal door was locked. “How do you open the stupid thing again,” he said to himself.
She didn’t answer him. Instead, after finding the hidden switch disguised as a GFCI reset button, she pressed it.
“You haven’t been paying attention, have you?” Parkowski said as the floor panel unlocked.
“Apparently not.”
They descended into the dark basement. Parkowski fumbled for a light switch, and eventually found one. Flipping it on, she saw the long hallway that Chang had carefully planned his entire complex around.
There was still no sign of the former Space Force officer. All of the doors were closed, and there were no sounds that would indicate that Chang was behind any of them. The smell of marijuana was strong, stronger than normal, but there was a hint of the odor in the upstairs as well.
“Shit,” she said softly to herself. Parkowski had hoped that their friend was just hanging out in the hidden main level of the structure; high, drunk, or some combination of the two, and just had ignored their return.
They went room by room, looking for any sign of Chang, but there weren’t any to be found. His room was in its normal untidy state with clothing askew on the floor and the bathroom looking like it hadn’t been cleaned in months, if ever. The office looked like he had gotten up in the middle of something and just left. His main computer was still logged in, displaying a web browser with a dozen tabs open, the lights were all on, and a half-finished beer was next to the keyboard. A black handgun was on top of one of the other desks. Parkowski didn’t check to see if it was loaded or not. “I don’t like this,” Parkowski said quietly.
“Me either,” her boyfriend agreed. “Let’s keep checking. Maybe he fell asleep somewhere weird.”
The other rooms were just as deserted as the last.
“I don’t get it,” Parkowski said to herself.
“Why would he leave without telling us? He had to have a pretty damn good reason,” DePresti offered.
“Maybe he got robbed.”
DePresti laughed. “He would have put a full magazine into them,” he told her. “Did you see the pistol in his office?”
“I did.”
“That’s his favorite, a Glock 17. He always has one on him regardless if it’s legal to carry or not. Andrew used to be on the Air Force competitive shooting team. He’s really, really, good. If someone came here to rob his place, he would have mag-dumped and then hid the body. I didn’t see any sign of a gunfight or any struggle, did you?”
“No,” Parkowski admitted. “I get it. So what do we do now? Call him again”
“Let’s go back up and look around again,” DePresti suggested. “Maybe we missed something.”
They went back up the stairs to the main level.
Parkowski made her own search now of the upper level while DePresti grabbed a soda out of the refrigerator.
In the bedroom she had spent her first night in, right under a slightly opened window, she found a cylinder roughly the size of a tall can of beer.
She didn’t pick it up, instead squatting down to get a better look. Parkowski couldn't make out the color in the dim light. It had a small black protrusion at its top and a small silver handle along its side.