After paying for all of that in cash, they drove farther up A1A to the seafood restaurants located just before Port Canaveral.
The wait was too long at the first one they tried, but the second one had none. They ate outdoors along the dock. The weather was perfect, absolutely perfect, thought Parkowski, and there weren’t any bugs or seagulls to ruin the setting.
She ordered a crabcake sandwich while her boyfriend got blackened, freshly caught tuna.
They ate mostly in silence, Parkowski’s mind elsewhere, as the second of the two cruise ships departed the port for the open waters of the Atlantic.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” DePresti asked, seemingly out of nowhere.
Parkowski nodded. “I need to figure this out, Mike. I need to know what Bronze Knot is. Even if it’s something mundane.” She paused. “It’s bigger than the both of us now.”
“I know how you feel,” he said in agreement. “I’ve felt the same way ever since we had to jump off of the pier. Not only is that the only way for us to get out of this mess, deep down I need to know why the government and a bunch of defense contractors seemingly need to kill people in order to protect a secret.”
After dinner, they headed back and went to bed early. Tomorrow was going to be a big day.
Unlike the previous day, they both woke up early at nine.
There was a rare morning rain shower, large raindrops beating against the motel room’s window as they packed their gear and got the scuba equipment ready. Their two handguns and one of their laptops went into the waterproof satchel along with some food and maps.
Parkowski only had half a dozen dives under her belt, and only one in the open ocean, but she felt ready for tonight. It wasn’t like she had much of a choice. They were either going to uncover the secret behind Bronze Knot or slink back to Los Angeles with their tails figuratively between their legs, hopeful that the people who had killed Pham and all of those innocent people on the pier had forgotten about them.
After a quick lunch, they put on bathing suits underneath their street clothes and headed to the boat rental shop they had selected the night before.
The elderly man in the Navy hat running it was kind and understanding. No, they didn’t need to use a card, cash was fine as long as they paid a $500 security deposit, taking most of DePresti’s remaining reserves. Yes, he would show them how to use the boat — Parkowski and DePresti had both piloted small craft before, but it had been many years since the last time they had done it — yes, they could keep the small fifteen-foot Boston Whaler overnight, just make sure it was returned by the morning.
The whole process was a lot easier than Parkowski had thought it would be.
DePresti practiced driving it up and down the beach, before the sandbar, while Parkowski went to the local Wawa and picked up sandwiches and snacks for dinner.
To kill time, they took the boat down to Melbourne Beach, just a few miles down the coast from Cocoa Beach, and back.
Parkowski would have enjoyed it a lot more if her mind wasn’t stuck on the mission.
DePresti let her drive a little, but for the most part, he stuck to the wheel. The beaches, while not packed, had plenty of people on them and the waters had more traffic than they had expected.
At five, they headed out for the open ocean through a gap in the sandbar clearly marked by buoys. Storm clouds lurked far out to the west, but they weren’t supposed to hit the area until closer to midnight. The sea was calm, almost too calm, Parkowski thought.
They anchored and ate a quick dinner. DePresti and Parkowski did a once-over on their gear and equipment before slipping their clothes off and their wetsuits on. Their clothing went into the waterproof satchel.
The next step was to put the scuba gear on. After their tanks, respirators, buoyancy compensators, and masks were put on, they checked each other to make sure they had done it correctly.
Parkowski nervously kept checking the water around them for a patrol craft from the Space Force Station or Kennedy to pass by, or maybe their mysterious pursuers, but there were no other ships or boats present. The beach two miles in front of them was deserted as well. All of the precautions they were taking, coming in underwater so as to not be seen from land, didn’t even seem necessary, but she knew deep down that they were. Nothing was ever as easy as it seemed.
When they were ready, they flipped off of the boat backward into the calm Atlantic, DePresti carrying their gear in his bag.
The water was murkier than she had expected. Visibility was low, maybe seven or eight feet, but it was enough. She stayed about two or three feet under the surface and started swimming.
They were in about forty or fifty feet of water according to the NOAA chart they had looked at yesterday. Parkowski had a fleeting thought — what if there were sharks? She shook it off and continued towards the coast of Cape Canaveral.
As the sun set, the visibility underwater worsened. Parkowski just kept going and going. There wasn’t much of a current, and the calm seas made it easy. DePresti swam just a few feet in front of her. He surfaced every couple of minutes to make sure the heading on his compass was still accurate.
Nevertheless, two miles was a long way to swim. After about twenty minutes she started to feel fatigued, but Parkowski pushed herself to keep going.
At the halfway point, DePresti stopped. He was tired too. They took a five-minute break and then continued their path towards the beach.
When they finally reached it, Parkowski was exhausted, but she knew she still had a long way to go. They quickly took off their flippers and ran across the beach to the safety of the grass and shrubs beyond.
The two quickly stripped off their gear and placed it in a pile at the edge of the sand in a tangle of brushes and tall grass. DePresti made a small rock cairn to indicate that this was where they had put it, but it wouldn’t mean anything to anyone who didn’t look too closely.
They then put their street clothes back on, including their sneakers. Parkowski got out the map and figured out where they were. They were in between the defunct LC-12, an old Atlas pad, and LC-36, owned by a private space company and currently under construction. The spot they had landed was just short of DePresti’s target of Landing Zones 1 & 2, but it wasn’t that far off.
Somehow, they hadn’t been spotted.
Parkowski and DePresti had just broken into one of the most secure military facilities in the country.
It wasn’t quite Area 51, but it wasn’t that far off, either.
She shook her head in amazement. Parkowski had expected security to be a lot tighter, especially with the NRO launch currently processing. But, it worked out in their favor.
Parkowski tingled with excitement. She had never been this close to solving the Bronze Knot mystery. Hopefully, they would be able to get to Hangar AZ without the Air Force security forces catching them.
They wolfed down energy bars and set off for the main section of the Cape.
DePresti and Parkowski kept off of the main roads as much as they could. A couple of times they saw a vehicle, but on both occasions they were far enough from the main road to not be spotted. It was a weak, waxing moon and there weren’t many artificial lights on the Space Force Station. Someone would basically have to be on top of them to detect their presence.
There were some bugs, but surprisingly little wildlife to be seen as they passed through the green, preserved areas between the roadways.