Parkowski was exhausted. The only thing that kept her going was the promise of solutions to all of her unanswered questions.
After what felt like forever, they started to see lights off in the distance.
“Is that where we’re going?” she quietly asked DePresti.
He nodded. “That’s the main complex,” he answered in a hushed whisper, “and somewhere in there is Hangar AZ.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
They continued towards the main part of the base.
It seemed so easy. They were finally going to get to the bottom of the mystery.
Parkowski and DePresti passed through a mess of structures. There were large, multi-story buildings comparable to Aering’s high bay, shorter, lower hangars that looked like they had been built back in the Apollo days, and more modern three or four-story office buildings. “I had no idea this was all here,” Parkowski said to DePresti.
He smiled. “I didn’t either, not until I started spending a lot of time out here. It takes a great deal of work that goes on behind the scenes to make the rockets go up and the pretty webcasts happen,” DePresti told her in a low voice. “And the footprint here is only going to get bigger as more and more launches take place.”
It was almost like a town now, with stoplights and crosswalks; well-lit with streetlights suspended over the roads. The parking lots were mostly empty; the majority of the people working on the Cape had left for the day, but there were still a few cars parked. Operations at the launch complexes were twenty-four/seven.
Hangar AZ was located at the far end of the complex from where Parkowski and DePresti had entered it, built along the Banana River that flowed between Merritt Island and the Cape. The two-story building with a semicircular roof reminiscent of an overgrown Quonset hut was sandwiched in between Hangar AE, a NASA facility, and Hangar AO, a former Space Shuttle auxiliary building that was leased by OuterTek. If there was a naming scheme, Parkowski couldn’t figure it out.
They crossed Phillips Parkway, the main north-south thoroughfare on the Space Force Station, and passed by the small AAFES shoppette before they reached Hangar Road. There, DePresti and Parkowski had to wait for a small convoy of work trucks to pass by going south towards the main gate before they could continue through the parking lots and towards Hangar AZ.
Unlike the two facilities on either side of it, the hangar looked deserted. No lights were on at the entryway, or inside that they could see through the dirty glass door. The badge reader appeared to be nonfunctional. Not that they had any badges that would work on it. Paint peeled from the sides of the buildings, and unlike the hangars on either side, no cars were parked in its small parking lot.
Parkowski and DePresti crept around the facility, probing for a way inside.
They found a pair of doors on either side, all of which were locked, and a large vault-style door reminiscent of the one that Parkowski had gotten through weeks ago at Aering with a similar cipher lock above the handle.
That one was locked too.
“Shit,” Parkowski said, “what now?”
“We keep looking,” her boyfriend responded. “There’s got to be a way in.”
They walked around a second time. Parkowski focused on the roof and upper level, maybe she could find a way in there but was unsuccessful.
DePresti found a manhole that was unlocked on the far corner of the building, on a small concrete slab that seemed to have been placed just for that purpose. “Want to try this?”
“Sure,” Parkowski responded.
He opened it and climbed down the ladder. His girlfriend followed him, closing the cover as she cleared the opening.
At the bottom, they found themselves in a concrete tunnel with a stagnant inch of water on its floor. Dying light bulbs were strung along the top every fifteen feet or so. It had a musty smell of stale water. Apparently, these passageways were rarely used.
It appeared to travel forever in both directions.
“How do we get up into the hangar?” DePresti asked.
Parkowski tried to re-orient her internal compass. “I think we go that way,” she said, pointing toward what she thought was Hangar AZ.
They walked for a minute before coming to a dead end.
“I don’t think that’s the right way,” Parkowski said. “Sorry.”
DePresti grunted and started in the other direction. She followed close behind.
They came to a fork and took the left path, which should have taken them in the direction of their desired destination, but that was a dead end as well.
“Do you want to give up and go back up to the surface?” DePresti asked.
She shook her head. “No, let’s try the other way, and if that doesn’t work we’ll go back up.”
They took the other way at the fork. It took them on a winding path with another fork that they took the left hand at. Thankfully, it led them back in the direction of Hangar AZ.
At its terminus, instead of a dead end, there was another ladder. At its top was a gunmetal gray door with the letters “AZ” on it in faded red paint.
“Ladies first,” DePresti said with a grin.
Parkowski carefully climbed the ladder and opened the unlocked door. Beyond it, the room was pitch black.
She stepped forward so DePresti had space to get in, and started fumbling around for a light switch. She stopped when she realized how futile it was.
A few moments later she heard her boyfriend, huffing and puffing, pass through the door. “Shit, it’s dark,” DePresti said.
“Shh,” she warned as her eyes continued to adjust to the absolute lack of light.
Eventually, Parkowski felt comfortable enough to start feeling around again. She walked forward slowly and after a couple of steps came to what felt like a wall or a door.
She ran her hand along the wall at roughly the height of where she thought a light switch would be. Parkowski found a corner and continued her search. Finally, she found a lone switch, then flipped it up, and immediately shielded her eyes.
They were in a small utility room lit by a pair of naked light bulbs. There was an additional, decrepit wooden door on the far wall. She walked to it, DePresti closely behind her, opened it, and stepped through.
Parkowski was in a Spartan, featureless hallway with doors on either side. The only light was from the room behind her.
DePresti got his flashlight out of his satchel and shone it down the hallway. It made a right turn at the end. The other end of the hallway made a left.
It was a fairly standard design for government buildings. The majority of the offices were spread in a loop around the exterior of the structure. On the inside were either more offices, likely for lower-ranking individuals or support contractors, or for the building’s SCIF or secure area.
That was where they wanted to go.
They walked softly around the hallway, looking for a way in.
There was only one door into Hangar AZ’s interior. It was like the one at the rear exterior of the building and the one in the secure room at Aering El Segundo, a large, metal bank vault-style door with a cipher lock.
DePresti and Parkowski paused in front of it.
“Any idea what the code is?” the Space Force captain asked her.
“I only know one code,” Parkowski said, “and they changed it after I got in the first time at Aering. But it worked that one time.”
“Well, what are you waiting for?” DePresti asked. “Go ahead and try it.”
The code was burned into her memory.
One.
Five.
Three and two together.
Four.
Parkowski heard the satisfying click.
“No fucking way,” DePresti breathed.