Uncharted (2 page)

Owen

Los Angeles

May 1999

I parked my BMW in the long-term parking ramp at the airport. Professor Donahue would pick it up later, using the extra set of keys I’d given him. “I’m going to drive the hell out of that car while you’re gone,” he said.

I’d looked at him and laughed. “I hope you do.”

I wrestled my large suitcase out of the trunk and pulled it behind me, carrying my duffel bag in my other hand. Trying to strike the right balance of things to bring with me hadn’t been easy. In the end I’d decided to be as practical as possible, and my suitcase held mostly clothes and toiletries. Captain Forrester was in charge of buying everything else I would need.

The attractive woman behind the Emirat
es ticket counter smiled at me when it was my turn to check in. She tucked her long hair behind her ears and stood up straighter. Stuck her chest out a little, too. Under different circumstances I might have been interested, but not that day. I handed her my driver’s license and passport, watching silently as she tapped on the keyboard.

“How many bags?” she asked.

“Just one,” I said.

“The Maldives is a beautiful place,” she said. “Have you ever been there?”

“No.”

She looked at me and smiled. “Are you traveling for business or pleasure?”

I took the boarding passes she held out to me and my smile was enigmatic at best when I said, “Neither.”

•   •   •

My next stop was the locker storage facility near the ticket counters. The short, fat man behind the counter eyed me suspiciously when I pulled a large manila envelope out of my duffel bag. “That’s all you want to store?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Contents?”

“Three keys and twenty CDs.” The keys were to my car, house, and safe deposit box, and the CDs held information that used to be on my hard drive.

“How long do you want it stored? I can keep it for up to sixty days.”

“I want it stored indefinitely.”

“I don’t do indefinitely.”

“Sure you do,” I said, smiling politely and pulling a stack of bills from my wallet. I counted off ten one-hundred-dollar bills and laid the money on the counter. Easiest thousand bucks this guy would ever make.

“Okay,” he said, just like I knew he would. “Here’s the claim ticket.”

“I need a pen.”

He pulled one from his front pocket and handed it to me. I scribbled out the number on the claim ticket and wrote four numbers in their place, numbers I’d never have trouble remembering. This wasn’t the only place I was storing the encrypted data, but if the guy held up his end of the bargain, it would be the easiest place to retrieve it.

“Put this someplace safe. This is the number I’ll give you when I come to pick up the envelope.”

“Whatever you want,” he said as he took the claim ticket from me. “It’s your show.”

“Have a nice day,” I said, and then I picked up my bag and headed toward my gate.

•   •   •

I landed in Dubai fifteen hours later, eight of which I slept away thanks to the Xanax I’d convinced my doctor to prescribe.
Stress,
I’d said.
I’m not sleeping well.

Making my way slowly down the aisle, I yawned and stretched and followed the people in front of me into the terminal. I had several hours to kill before my flight to Malé, so I wandered aimlessly through the crowded airport, listening to a jumble of voices having conversations in languages I didn’t speak. When I arrived at the departures area in Terminal 1, I stopped at a restaurant serving American food and ordered a burger and a beer. My cell phone remained in my pocket, turned off. I had no desire to see how many messages had piled up. It wasn’t as though I planned on answering any of them.

With each mile I put behind me, I felt less stress. More confidence in my decision. Maybe it was extreme and completely over-the-top. Eccentric, even. But I really didn’t care because all I wanted to do was get lost for a while and this seemed like the best way to do it.

I’d become fascinated with the Maldives after listening to a business acquaintance talk about the chain of islands. “The resorts are amazing,” he’d said. “But there are also islands that are completely uninhabited. You can go there if you want. Spend the night, too. They’ll come back and get you.”

In the days leading up to my company’s IPO, when things were really getting out of hand, I couldn’t stop thinking about how much easier my life would be if I just walked away from it all. My cell phone rang constantly. So did the one that sat on the big mahogany desk in my corner office. The ringing grated on my nerves and made me feel as if I couldn’t breathe. Everyone wanted something from me: time, money, help.

On a particularly stressful afternoon, I picked up the phone and used it to make a few inquiries of my own. Over the next few weeks I obtained a sponsorship visa, which allowed me to enter the Maldives and stay indefinitely. I located a pilot willing to fly me where I needed to go—and purchase the supplies I require—with a minimum of questions asked. I expected to hit a roadblock at some point, which would have stopped my plan in its tracks, but I didn’t. It’s easy to disappear if you have enough money, and I had plenty of it.

And it was in my best interest to be far, far away when everyone discovered that their gravy train had come to a screeching halt.

•   •   •

It was morning when I landed in Malé; I’d been traveling for so many hours that I was already confused about what day it was. I found a restroom and ducked into a stall to change into a pair of shorts and a T-shirt.

The line at the seaplane counter in the arrival hall wasn’t long. I waited patiently and when it was my turn I pulled a sheet of paper with a confirmation number on it out of my wallet. “It’s a private charter,” I said. “Captain Forrester is the pilot.”

The woman behind the counter pulled up my reservation on the computer. “You’re checked in and ready to go, Mr. Sparks. I’ll page Captain Forrester. I believe he’s standing by.”

“I’m positive he is,” I said. I’d paid him generously to be waiting for me, no matter how many travel problems I encountered, or what time I arrived. I knew with absolute certainty that the seaplane would be idling at the dock.

“Please come with me,” a uniformed employee of the airline said. I followed him outside and stood at the curb. “The shuttle will transport you to the seaplane terminal. It will arrive momentarily.”

“Thank you,” I said. Coming out of the air-conditioned building made the heat seem much more oppressive. The air felt heavy and damp when I inhaled, and I started sweating almost immediately. When the minivan arrived I climbed into the air-conditioned interior, telling myself I’d better not get too used to it. After the driver pulled up to the seaplane terminal he led me through a set of double doors. We crossed to another set of doors on the opposite side of the room and then we were back outside. Seaplanes were lined up, tied to a series of rectangular intersecting docks. I handed my boarding pass to the driver and he looked down at it and said, “Right this way, Mr. Sparks.”

I followed him to the seaplane and when he motioned for me to hand him my bag I gave it to him and watched as he boarded the plane. Looking around, I took in the blue water and the cloudless sky. Everything seemed so much simpler already, and I felt the last of my stress melt away.

A middle-age man popped his head out of the doorway of the plane.

“Captain Forrester?” I asked, stepping forward and reaching out to shake his hand. “I’m Owen Sparks.”

He took one look at me and shook his head. “Well, I’ll be goddamned,” he said, chuckling and clasping my hand in his. “You are not what I was expecting. How old are you, son?”

“Twenty-three,” I said. I didn’t take his reaction personally; I was used to it. It was the way I conducted business that made me appear older than I was. You couldn’t achieve what I’d achieved at such a young age by acting like a punk. People treated me with respect, listened to what I had to say.

I had no doubt that my net worth also set me apart from most of my peers. And there were times—like right then—when I was glad I had so much money. I’d earned it, and it was nice to use it for something I really wanted instead of feeling as if I had to give it to everyone just because they had their hand out.

“Well, come on,” he said. I followed him through the door of the cabin, and he pointed to the rows of seats behind him. “Sit wherever you like. Just make sure to fasten your seat belt.”

My duffel bag had been placed on a seat in the front row, so I sat down next to it and stowed it on the floor at my feet. I watched as Captain Forrester placed a headset on his head and started flipping switches. He spoke briefly into the microphone near his mouth, and as soon as he had clearance, we pulled away from the platform. We picked up speed and I felt the thrust when we lifted off.

As we flew I looked out my window, amazed at the view. I squinted against the bright sunlight that flooded the cabin and dug my sunglasses out of my bag. The cloudless sky was just as blue as the water below.

It took close to two hours to reach our destination. I hadn’t seen any land in a while, but finally the plane descended and I got my first look at the island. It wasn’t overly large, maybe a mile in length. Pristine, white-sand beach. Green vegetation. Palm and coconut trees reaching high up to the sky in the densely forested area near the center of the land mass.

I remember thinking that nothing bad could ever happen in such a beautiful place.

We landed right in the lagoon.

“Better take off those shoes,” he said.

I smiled when I looked down at his feet and realized he’d been flying the seaplane barefoot.

After I took off my shoes and shoved them into my bag he swung open the cabin door and we jumped into the knee-deep water. He opened the cargo hold on the side of the plane and we started carrying my supplies to the shore, making several trips in order to unload it all. Small schools of fish darted away as I walked in water as warm as a bath.

“Let’s go through the checklist and make sure I didn’t miss anything,” he said, after we’d placed the last of the gear on the sand. From his shirt pocket he pulled out a folded piece of paper that I recognized as one of the emails I’d sent to him.

The first item was an Iridium satellite phone. He’d informed me that my regular cell phone wouldn’t work because the island was too remote. “My number is already programmed into it, so if you get in trouble, or you need me, all you have to do is push this button,” he said, pointing to it and handing the phone to me. He leaned in and pointed to another button. “If for some reason I don’t answer, call this number. It’s the airport. The battery should last for months if you don’t start calling people when you get lonely.”

“I’m not going to call anybody,” I said. There wasn’t a single person I’d left behind that I wanted to talk to.

He reached for the next item, a large backpack resting on the sand. It was the kind that serious hikers used when they wanted to go backcountry camping and not be dependent on anyone else to carry in their supplies. The last time I’d used a backpack like this was when I was twelve years old. For my birthday I’d asked my dad to sign me up for a week-long backpacking and rock-climbing expedition in the Sierra Nevada mountains through Outward Bound. My dad and I loved to camp, and he’d been taking me with him for as long as I could remember. My mom wasn’t interested and neither was my sister, but I never felt happier than when I was outdoors, and the more remote the location, the better. When my dad brought the Outward Bound brochure home and we read through it together, I knew right away that I was up for the challenge.

The seven days I spent in the wilderness was everything I had hoped for, and it changed me in ways I didn’t fully understand at the time. But my dad died of a brain aneurysm two days after I got back from my Outward Bound expedition, and I hadn’t been camping since.

Now, standing on the beach, I wondered if my desire to live on the island, alone and in such a desolate place, was my attempt to re-create the way I felt on that expedition. I was too young back then to experience a true epiphany, but I’d sensed that something larger existed. Some sort of awakening that could be achieved only by living in a place virtually untouched by other humans, in total solitude.

I unzipped the backpack and pulled out the contents: sleeping bag, ground mat, and tent. I didn’t necessarily need the backpack, but it kept everything contained and made it easier to transport the items from the seaplane to the beach. It might come in handy when I explored the island.

He picked up the list and made a checkmark as I sifted through the contents of a large cardboard box and said them out loud. “Camp stove, fuel, knife, lighter, flashlight, fishing pole, tackle box, a pot and pan, first-aid kit, utensils, insect repellant, sunscreen, solar shower, shovel, large, wide-mouth plastic container, toilet paper, and garbage bags.”

The nonperishable food was next. Everything was dehydrated and vacuum-packed or in a can with a metal pull tab. There were plenty of nuts, dried cereal and fruit, beef jerky, and a powdered drink mix I could add water to. Cans of green beans and corn. “The lagoon is full of fish. There’s coconuts and breadfruit. You’ll have plenty to eat.”

He pointed to the three seven-gallon containers that contained drinking water. “Keep those in the shade,” he said. “The water won’t be cold, but it’ll stay a bit fresher. It’s not enough to last you for thirty days, but if you collect rain water in this—he held up the plastic container—you’ll be fine.”

“Okay,” I said. Making sure I had enough water made me nervous. When I first started corresponding with him, and explained what I wanted to do, he said that lack of fresh water was the biggest obstacle to living on an uninhabited island.

“Make sure you put everything that can’t be burned in one of the garbage bags. You’ll bring it back with you so we can dispose of it.”

I planned on treating the island as I would a campground, respecting it the way I would any piece of land I was temporarily inhabiting. “I won’t leave any garbage behind.”