“To include Dr. Pham?” she asked.
“Yes,” Everson said, “who wasn’t our most willing participant, but he was read into the high side.” He went on. “Then, we tried to make you stop. A phone call directly to you, having your management tell you to stop, even a visit from yours truly,” Everson said. “But, Ms. Parkowski, you are quite determined to get to the bottom of this.”
He took a breath. “Then, you went to Dr. Pham. You forced the issue. We were similarly forced to take drastic measures, ones that I did not want to have to do, but that were necessary. Our leadership believed that based on the information we had at our disposal, Dr. Pham was going to reveal the crown jewels of the operation, the big secret that everyone wants to know.”
“And what would that be?” Parkowski asked, a little annoyed.
Everson ignored her again. He wasn’t going to tell them anything that Parkowski and DePresti didn’t already know. “I had to make the call to one of the other organizations that exists within our larger one,” he continued. This was almost like a carefully prepared monologue to himself, like DePresti and Parkowski weren’t sitting there in front of him. “They eliminated the threat — Dr. Pham — and attempted to eliminate the two of you as well. However, you escaped the initial attack and somehow eluded our pursuit. We lost your position at San Bernardino. From there, you could have doubled back to Los Angeles, gone to Barstow or Las Vegas, or cut south to Riverside and Orange County.
“We started to search for you but our leadership pulled us back. They had another idea. The two of you, particularly you, Ms. Parkowski, got frighteningly close to unraveling what my organization has spent years planning. If you could do it, given your relative lack of experience, other people could do it, too.”
Parkowski’s mouth fell open again, this time in horror. She knew what he was going to say next.
“We went from elimination mode to reconnaissance mode,” Everson explained. “We didn’t initially know where your base of operations was located, but we knew it was in the Barstow area. It was easy enough to keep tracking teams in the city and trail you on your excursion in and out of Los Angeles as well as your road trip across the country until we lost you in Texas, but we knew your final destination. We even had a fun time staging a shootout at Chang’s house — neither of you was really in any danger. Your friend is fine, by the way, just in federal custody until we can take care of this issue. We had to keep you moving along in your investigation.
“We briefly lost contact with you today, and to be honest I’m not entirely sure how exactly you got on base, but we had sensors placed at all of the relevant BKT buildings for the launch campaign that we reactivated yesterday. We were already on base, working on another project, when we realized that someone had gotten into our hangar. And imagine my shock when I found you here. Now, we can close all of the doors that you opened and lock and bar them so that no one else can learn what you did.”
It was her worst fear, something that she had suppressed for days. It had been far too easy for them. They had been allowed to get as far as they did because Everson and whoever he worked for wanted to make sure that no one would ever travel down the path they had taken again.
DePresti gave a short, nervous laugh. “You’re part of some spooky, unnamed intelligence agency. I’ve heard of organizations like yours. You get funded off the books through the CIA or DIA or whatever agency they funnel the money through, but your name and purpose remain hidden. The IC is full of people like you. You’re totally unaccountable to Congress and to the taxpayer.”
Everson laughed back at him. “What makes you think we’re part of the intelligence community, or really, part of the government at all?” he said, refuting DePresti’s central argument.
“The American intelligence community is a mockery of the word intelligence,” he continued, pointing a finger at DePresti with his free hand, “if they told me the sun was going to come up tomorrow, I would have to go out in the morning to verify it. We work in the shadows, in the cracks, to advance our interests forward.”
“And what would those be?” DePresti asked. Parkowski was still in shock. She had led herself to believe that they had outsmarted and outmaneuvered their pursuers; instead, they had just let them see how far they could get so they knew which holes to patch.
Everson didn’t answer her boyfriend’s question. Instead, he just sat there, handgun pointed at Parkowski.
She finally worked up the courage to talk. “I know why you told us all of that,” Parkowski told Everson, “you’re not going to let us out of here alive.”
Everson smiled. “You’ve got a smart one here, Captain DePresti. I’m afraid Ms. Parkowski is correct. I’m going full, open, and honest here because you are never going to be able to tell anyone what you’ve learned.”
Her heart sank. That confirmed her worst fears.
“And, the best part,” Everson continued, “is that you’re going to go to your graves never knowing the full story behind Bronze Knot.”
He leaned back. “I could tell you the truth, or, hell, I could make up a good story about aliens or dragons or whatever I wanted to,” the man said in his deep voice, “but to be honest, the two of you have pissed me off so much over the last few weeks that I’m not going to give you that satisfaction. Instead, you’re going to answer a few questions for me.”
Everson transitioned to interrogating DePresti and Parkowski. He wanted to know just how much they had been able to figure out.
They refused to give him what he wanted.
Parkowski was surprisingly aware of her own mortality. She had come to grips that she was likely going to be killed within the next hour or so. Everson seemed like a hard, mean man, and the other two men who had come in with him even more so. They looked like former special forces types with scraggly beards and wraparound sunglasses and intimidated her without saying a word.
Any one of those three would kill her without blinking.
These could be her last few minutes alive. Regardless, she didn’t give the mysterious operative what he wanted.
But, if Everson had grown annoyed at her and DePresti, he didn’t show it.
“Very well,” he said after getting nowhere with his lines of questioning. “We’re going to take the two of you for a drive. We can’t splatter your brains all over government property.”
He waved the handgun at Parkowski as he stood up from his chair. “Get up, both of you.”
They did as he asked.
One of the two silent men opened the door to the secure room while the other one walked out into the dark hallway beyond.
Everson motioned with the weapon and Parkowski and DePresti followed him out into the interior of Hangar AZ.
They continued down the dimly lit hall until they came to the entrance of the building.
The fake AFOSI/PJ agent pulled a card out of his pocket and scanned it on a reader, unlocking the glass door. Then the five of them walked out into the parking lot.
It was pitch-black. All of the lights that had been on just an hour ago had been turned off, save for a few on the far side of the gaggle of buildings. Everson snapped his fingers and, seemingly out of nowhere, an older paneled work van with government plates turned on and headed towards them at the front of Hangar AZ. Parkowski couldn’t see inside the front as it came in their direction; the window was heavily tinted but it was too dark to see anyway.
It pulled up and the two men who had accompanied Everson opened the rear door.
“Get in,” the older man said.
Parkowski and DePresti didn’t have a choice. They followed Everson’s command and got into the back of the van.