With no alarm, Parkowski slept until eleven. She sat up in the small twin bed in the old-fashioned motel room with a start. DePresti still snored away on the other bed. The sun shone through the two windows at the front of the room.
Parkowski wondered why she had slept for so long, but then remembered that in the last three days, she and her boyfriend had driven almost twenty-five hundred miles. It was mentally and physically exhausting. Plus, the three-hour difference in time zones probably played a big role too.
She let DePresti sleep and ran out to get a box of donuts and a pair of coffees. It was warm in Florida, but not overwhelmingly so. She understood why people wanted to spend winters here.
By the time she got back, DePresti was awake. They quickly ate and then set up all of their equipment and paperwork in order to plan their next move.
DePresti had a pretty good plan, Parkowski thought. They would go on base with all of their gear in the truck. From there, they would find a secluded spot on the base and wait. Security was mostly concerned with keeping people without access to the Cape off of it, not preventing the movement of accessed people once they got on. They could literally just sit in the truck, or even better, in the back with the windows blocked, and wait for the day shift to leave the facility. Then, they could find Hangar AZ, break in, and finally solve the Bronze Knot mystery.
She breathed a sigh of relief. It was almost all over.
They showered and DePresti shaved. After packing everything they’d need, including the two pistols Chang had given them, Parkowski and DePresti grabbed lunch at a Wawa and headed back up Florida A1A towards the Space Force Station.
Parkowski ate on the way while DePresti drove. It was relatively peaceful, the early rush to the beaches was over, and just a few tourists were walking back to their rental houses and hotels. It was warm, roughly the same temperature she had experienced in LA, and the salty smell of the Atlantic was again refreshing to her senses.
They got off of A1A towards the cruise ships. One of the two that Parkowski had seen the night before was gone, the other still in port but in the process of loading up with passengers. She smiled at the juxtaposition of family-friendly cruise ships with the military launch facility just up the road.
After going through some rumble strips, they got to the gate. DePresti put out his hand and Parkowski gave him his CAC as well as her Aering badge. At least a dozen cars were coming out of the facility while theirs was the only one entering. DePresti pulled up to the leftmost guard shack and handed the gate guard, an Air Force airman first class, the two ID cards.
The other man promptly saluted and went into the small shack with the IDs.
“What’s going on?” Parkowski asked as soon as the A1C was out of earshot. “Is that normal?”
DePresti shook his head. “No, they normally just give it a cursory scan and hand it back to you. Something’s up.”
The security forces E-3 came back to the Chevy truck. “I’m sorry, sir, but y’all ain’t on the list.”
“What list?” DePresti asked.
“The list of people supporting the NROL-204 launch,” the other man said.
DePresti’s mouth fell open in shock — there was something they had missed despite all of their planning — but Parkowski was quick on her feet. “That’s why we’re here,” she told the gate guard. “We just got into town. We might not be on the list yet.”
“Sorry,” the E-3 said with a shrug. “If you’re not on the list, you can’t get in. This is a highly classified launch, and security is a lot tighter than normal.”
“How long is it going to be like this?” DePresti asked.
“Until they launch the thing,” the enlisted man said. “And that’s not for another week or two.”
“Oh, ok, thanks,” DePresti said, probably realizing that they were momentarily defeated. “I’ll call our boss and get it all sorted out.”
“Works for me, sir,” the E-3 said. “Good luck! If you could turn around up here,” he continued as he pointed at a turnaround fifty feet in front of them, “and head back towards the cruise ships that’d be great. Hopefully, it all gets worked out.”
The Space Force captain nodded. “Thanks, sorry about that,” he said to the guard as he pulled forward and turned around, heading back the way they had come in.
They just missed hitting a giant turtle that was crossing the road. DePresti swerved to avoid it and the reptile continued its path to the other side. Parkowski made a note of the turtle’s size — it was massive.
As soon as they were off of the base DePresti hit his hand on the dashboard next to the steering wheel. “Goddammit!” he yelled.
“What?” Parkowski asked.
“I should have checked the launch manifest,” her boyfriend said. “Fuck. I had no idea that there was a processing campaign going on right now. It’s all on the internet, too, but neither of us thought to look.”
