The Sensory Deception (37 page)

Captain Gaynes helped the barge pilot set anchor close to the site, but not so close that the anchors were in danger of hitting any barrels. The barge consisted of a long, narrow deck with a command tower near its bow.

Farley walked from person to person about the deck and introduced himself. He could see the two journalists up on the bridge and felt a camera on him as he lingered a few minutes with each person. He asked about their personal lives, whether they were married and had children, any hobbies they might be able to pursue on board, and their favorite music. He made sure to refer to them by name at least three times and tried to remember the names of anyone they mentioned before moving on to the next.

It was an amazingly stout crew. The smallest was a Vietnamese woman named Cai, not quite five feet tall, a paramedic from San Clemente. The biggest was a man named Spencer, a former paratrooper and veteran of both Iraq wars. He was stern, stoic, a few inches taller than Farley, and easily three hundred pounds—mostly muscle but with a hard, round gut. The youngest was a twenty-year-old veteran of the war in Afghanistan. Manny Carrasquillo had been a Navy SEAL. His arms were thick with muscles and tattoos. He stood nearly a foot shorter than Farley but probably weighed about the same. Yes,
stout
was the word.

Manny laughed when Farley asked if he was married. “No way, man,” he said, dripping South Central LA with every syllable. “It’s illegal for me to get married.”

Farley shook his head, confused.

Manny filled him in: “Yeah, get it? I’m gay—fucked over by the man.”

Farley nodded the way he did, from the waist. “Glad to have you.”

The oldest of the team was Julia Nowak. She was a nuclear engineer with experience directing Superfund cleanups along the Hudson River. A tall, thin woman with deep frown lines, she had the look of someone in a constant state of concentration. He liked her immediately, thought she was someone who could be trusted to worry about things so that he didn’t have to.

Everyone wanted to get to work right away. Farley agreed but needed to make sure the journalists had what they needed to record and transmit the whole story. He guided Julia up to the bridge. Manny followed, badgering them with comments and wisecracks. The journalists were a Laurel and Hardy pair, the reporter tall and thin, the videographer short and wide. Laurel held a palm-size video camera. Hardy attached microphones to Farley and Julia. Everything they captured would be uploaded to the VISHNU website in almost real time.

Standing at her side, Farley described the situation to Julia. Julia pulled from her backpack a bright yellow, book-size plastic device with an LCD display and a large knob. Speaking to the camera, she said, “This is a Geiger counter. It will tell us just how dangerous our work will be.” She turned the knob and it emitted a low-pitched muffled noise. She smiled at the camera. Her frown lines evaporated. “That was a crucial test.” She held the counter so that the LCD screen was visible to the camera. Numbers on the display varied from zero to five at random. “If the numbers shown here exceeded a hundred or so, I’d be climbing into a lead suit and demanding that the ship get out of Dodge, ASAP.”

Farley laughed.

“Of course, if there were a serious leak, the villagers would be suffering radiation sickness. The rate of birth defects reported in
Survival in Somalia
could be evidence of previous leaks.” Then she explained that their first task would be to map the radiation levels of the cleanup site. If one of the barrels had even the tiniest leak, they needed to locate and deal with it first.

Farley and Julia continued to discuss strategy and what they would accomplish that day. When their conversation descended into mundane organizational details, the journalists moved down to the deck and interviewed members of the team.

Finally, Farley assembled the crew and described the plan. It was simple. Once the radiation levels were mapped, they would begin hauling barrels to the surface and secure them on the barge. They’d spend the first few days in on-the-job training. Julia would teach them the safest practices for securing the crane and monitoring for radiation as the barrels were raised. Once everyone was trained, they could begin in earnest. When he finished, he asked for questions.

Manny piped up. “Yeah, so what if one o’ these barrels pops?”

Julia’s frown lines deepened. “That’s the thing about being a cowboy,” she said. “We’re not exactly working to OSHA standards. If one of the barrels ruptures, we’re all in trouble. The villagers are in trouble, and the coastline may not be habitable. Don’t forget that. You have to do exactly what I say.” She waited for it to sink in, but no one on the team seemed concerned. She added, “Our working conditions are superior to those I directed on the Hudson River, and you are a more dedicated crew. Besides, the waste comes from an EU country, so it is probably packed to reasonable standards.”

They spent the afternoon mapping radiation levels at the waste site. To get everyone involved, Farley rotated groups of three so that everyone would get some time underwater
with Julia. The journalists were not divers and hadn’t brought underwater equipment, so Farley mounted one of Ringo’s ultra-resolution cameras to his head.

As the sun set across the plain, Sy’s little navy finally appeared and ferried the crew ashore. A huge white tent had been set up in the clear zone below the ridge north of the village. Farley had no idea such a tent was available and was pleased with Sy’s magnanimous gesture—a welcome party. Armed guards toured the area around the tent. Inside, the ground was covered with tarps and a few tired rugs. Farley guided everyone in and Sy introduced himself.

It was stuffy in the tent, but everyone looked content after a day in the surf and sun. Mapping the radioactivity was already complete, a major accomplishment and a step toward home. The Laurel and Hardy journalist team were on the
Cetacean Avenger
editing commentary into the video for CNN’s morning broadcast. It was just as well, Farley figured. Better for the team to unwind without the scrutiny of the camera’s eye.

Farley didn’t see Tahir, so he jogged to their room/lab in the old school building. No sign of him. He figured Tahir was pacing the grounds and went back to the tent.

Everyone on the team was equipped with an earthenware goblet brimming with wine. Sy offered one to Farley. This was another small oddity. Sy didn’t permit alcohol in his kingdom. Farley started to ask, but Sy told him to propose a toast. Sy held a cup of tea and looked even more uncomfortable now than he had the previous night.

Tahir had learned long ago that it was as dangerous to trust in good fortune as it was to wallow in misfortune. For weeks pirates
had patrolled over the waste site, and then, when the documentary went online, they left. Maybe their sponsors were crawling into a hole until the situation brought on by the documentary cooled down. Maybe not. It shouldn’t have been that easy.

And why had Sy been depressed last night?

That morning, after watching from shore as the barge arrived, Tahir returned to camp. Over the months, he’d taken the same circuitous path over and over again all day long. Maybe the first time he walked that path Sy’s guards had thought it strange. Maybe the second time, too. But they wouldn’t find it strange today. The path circled the well at the camp’s center and passed among the huts where Sy’s people lived. He waved to the same people he waved to each day, smiled at the same children, gave the same cheer to the boys playing soccer with a ball made of rags, and worked his way north of the old school building, north of the fertile field.

Today he timed his walk so that the sun would be directly behind him when he reached an area just on the camp side of the clear zone. The timing gave him a well-lit, unobstructed view of Sy’s makeshift prison. It was a habit born of distrust in the generosity of others. Not a habit he was proud of, but habit nonetheless. He had never seen the inside of a prison, though from Tehran to Baghdad, hundreds of police, elite guards, and soldiers had tried to capture him.

The land below the ridge appeared as flat as the surface of a pond. The ridge rose less than thirty feet above this plain. Tahir had discovered, however, that there was a rise in the plain. A rise so gentle it was nearly invisible. From this summit, Tahir had an unobstructed view of the ridge and the prison and, with the sun at his back, was invisible to the prison guards. Were Tahir charged with guarding the camp, he would have a permanent guard at this spot. It had occurred to him to suggest this very
thing to Sayyid Hassan, but the selfish voice of self-preservation had held his tongue.

He saw the huge white tent. It seemed inconsistent with Sy’s behavior. A man preparing a party to greet friends and comrades should have been gregarious, not morose. Villagers ferried trays of food into the tent from the south. This camp had no excess, and Sy wasn’t the sort to condone a feast for strangers.

Sy’s guards maintained a twenty-four-hour presence on the ridge. Not only could they scan the eastern horizon for pirate activity at sea, but they could watch the southern and western borders of camp for invaders. More important than that, though, they maintained an armed presence on the high ground. Tahir expected the guard on the ridge to be reinforced, but it wasn’t. Instead, those guards who usually toured the ridge were down on the plain near the makeshift prison—exactly the most vulnerable spot in camp.

Tahir scanned the ridge so many times that he didn’t notice Farley and the cleanup team coming up the beach until they were already entering the tent. He wanted to warn Farley, but how could he warn him of an unsubstantiated suspicion?

He saw Farley leave the tent, saw him jog to the room in the old classroom. He hoped Farley would have the sense to stay there, but a minute later saw him jogging back to the tent.

Then Tahir understood. Even as Farley entered the jaws of the trap, Tahir knew what would happen. In that instant, he also understood why. He understood Sy’s decision. He understood Farley’s naïveté and regretted that he hadn’t shared his doubts in time to save the man who he now doubted would ever be his son-in-law.

He understood that, for the second time in his life, he had failed his daughter.

Farley sipped his wine. Its taste bordered on vinegar, but he relished it. He mingled around the tent the same way he had ten hours earlier on the barge deck, this time addressing each person by name and either complimenting them on some action they’d performed that day or kidding them for having had a nice swim if he couldn’t recall anything else. Several people asked if they could raise the sides of the tent to encourage a breeze.

When Farley made it back to the front, next to Sy, he conveyed the team’s request for air, and Sy said he’d take care of it after the toast and prayer.

“All right, everyone,” Farley said, holding his goblet out to the team. The crowd faced him and went silent. “We have all dedicated our lives to protect Earth and sea and the air we breathe. Most people can only hope that their small efforts, like voting, fund-raising, recycling, add up to the change necessary for the harmony of life on this planet to continue.” He paused and looked around the room. Sy had stepped out. He’d looked impatient, like a man late for a meeting. Farley continued, “You are different. Not only are you solving a huge problem, you’re changing the way people think about their own lives. It’s a bumper sticker slogan, I know, but you are the evidence. ‘Never doubt that a small group of dedicated people can change the world, because nothing else ever has.’ Thank you for your dedication.” He raised his goblet above his head. “Let’s get this done and go home and watch it on TV.” He drank.

Before the wine made its way down his throat, Farley knew something was wrong. The first sign was a ripple through the ceiling and walls of the tent. Then the walls rose. Turbaned men with beards wielding AK-47s replaced those walls. They pointed their guns downward and fired. Staccato eruptions of automatic weapons moved the crew into a tight circle. Each blast drew another line in the dirt. Successive blasts closed people in on themselves as lines of bullet holes shredded the carpets.