The Sensory Deception

by Ransom Stephens

  Farley pointed to a region of the Indian Ocean below the broad shoulder of Africa, off the coast of Somalia, south of Mozambique.

  Tahir looked at Farley from the corners of his eyes and smiled. “You believe that you do not need help interpreting the culture?”

  “We’ll be at sea.”

  “You have not considered the foreign culture. You don’t plan?” Tahir stood and added, “Perhaps you should consider planning.”

  Gloria flashed Farley a told-you-so smile.

  “I don’t mean to offend,” Tahir said. “I’m better with my hands than with words.” He turned to Chopper. “I will help in any way I can. Consider me labor except in worst-case situation. I will not be in your way.”

  Chopper started to speak, but Tahir kept going. “I am not a scientist or even a skilled worker. I can provide details that you will otherwise miss. Details about what is happening around you, on the ship or off. Who are your friends and who are not. I can help you understand your options.”

  Ringo said, “Do you wear a cape?”

  Everyone but Tahir laughed. He didn’t seem to understand the reference.

  “Oh, you don’t understand?” He spoke to Gloria, “Did you not tell them?”

  “I was about to when you got here.”

  “You should have said. No wonder you doubt me.” He stepped back and sat on the stool at the counter.

  “My father,” Gloria said, “managed to infiltrate the Iranian Army, the Iraqi Republican Guard, and the US Army.” Then she told the story of her childhood from Iran to Iraq to California.

  “The best description of my career in the Middle East was commando—umm, independent commando. You face two major threats in this region, criminal warlords and the Islamic terrorist group Al-Shabaab. I have fought both with and against these groups. I speak five languages—Arabic, Farsi, English, Hebrew, and French. I understand weaponry, explosives, and how men use them to accomplish their goals.”

  Farley caught himself hoping that they wouldn’t need someone with Tahir’s skills. The thought nudged him closer to accepting the idea; hoping against hope is a fool’s game. “We barely have money to keep the business afloat.”

  Gloria pointed to the travel budget on the whiteboard and said, “His ticket is already in the budget.”

  “I’ll pay my own way.”

  Ringo said, “Why do you want to go, Mr. Baradaran? I’ve traveled with these guys. You’re going to get seasick, and you’ll spend all your time waiting around. It’s all discomfort and boredom.”

  “I drive a cab in San Francisco for nearly twenty years. I am immune to discomfort and boredom.” Tahir took two steps to Farley’s side. “May I have a word with you in private?”

  Farley looked at Gloria. She shrugged.

  Farley guided Tahir out onto the deck.

  Farley said, “What is it?”

  Tahir looked uncomfortable, like a proud man unaccustomed to sharing his thoughts with strangers. Farley faced the ocean, knowing that Tahir would follow his example. It seemed to settle him.

  Tahir cleared his throat. “I drive each day up and down San Francisco’s hills. It is existence without purpose. My only desire is to be with Golie, but I have no place in this modern young American woman’s life. Until, maybe, now. My daughter asked me to accompany you on your travels. It is the only thing she has asked of me in many years.”

  Farley stroked his beard and said, “I still don’t understand why she wants you to come with us.”

  “I believe Golie wants me to protect you.”

  At this, Farley smiled and would have laughed if Tahir hadn’t remained stern.

  “You should listen to me,” Tahir said. “If this were just about business, you could hire someone. I know my daughter. She cares for you. She wouldn’t worry like this if she didn’t. She believes, and I agree, that you are traveling with dangerous naïveté.”

  Farley said, “The only thing I need help with is attaching equipment to a sixty-ton animal that might not like the feel of my feet on his back.”

  Tahir laughed, and this bothered Farley.

  Tahir said, “Let me explain something. Your weakness and your strength are the same: you are confident. Even when you don’t know what the future holds, you are confident. It’s a tremendous gift that I don’t share. I am not a leader, but I will be able to help you. Please.”

  “Confidence is sometimes an illusion,” Farley said. “It’s impossible for me to motivate others, make them believe in themselves, if they don’t believe in me.”

  “You don’t deny your weakness?”

  “My grandfather, the man who built this house, was a great leader. People just did what he asked. Growing up, I thought he’d never had a doubt in his life. After he died, I read his journals and learned the truth.” He turned to face the other man. “Tahir, I’ll appreciate any help you can provide.”

  “My Golie, she has good taste in men.”

  “Gloria and I work together. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very fond of her. She’s dynamic, strong, brilliant, and beautiful, too, but I don’t think that her interest in me is romantic.”

  “What is your interest in her?”

  Farley smiled, patted Tahir on the back, and said, “Let’s go inside. I need to teach you about virtual reality and data acquisition technology.”

  PART 3

  Farley credited Gloria’s meticulous paperwork for how easily the equipment made it through customs from San Francisco to Paris to Nairobi. The next step, loading the crates onto the turboprop for the short trip to Mombasa on Kenya’s southeast coast, might have been impossible without Tahir. He recognized who to bribe and how much to offer. When they landed, Randy Gaynes was waiting on the runway. Farley took a deep breath of the hot, wet air blowing off the Indian Ocean.

  Gaynes greeted Farley with a tight smile. “A Norwegian whaler spotted your pod—you know what that means.”

  Farley, Chopper, and Tahir strapped the equipment onto an old Range Rover. The driver seemed to zero in on every bump and pothole, but they made it to the ship within twenty minutes.

  The instant they got their equipment on deck, Gaynes piloted the Cetacean Avenger out of the harbor. The crew looked more like Santa Cruz surfers than Indian Ocean sailors. Their accents betrayed them as Australian, English, American, Dutch, and German. A woman named Ann Witherby, the ship’s medic, directed them to a cargo hold that would serve as their on-ship lab and quarters. Having stowed the equipment, Farley suggested that Tahir spend some time on deck. He said that it would speed the acclimation process faster than if he took Dramamine. Chopper’s radar picked up that Farley wanted him next to Tahir until the worst had passed.

  Farley went to the bridge. Gaynes stood over an unrolled chart in front of a computer monitor. The monitor showed the coast of East Africa. Two locations were marked, and Gaynes moused the cursor to each of them. One indicated the reported location of the Norwegian whaling ship—Gaynes called it “the killer”—and the other showed the last known location of the pod of sperm whales off the coast of Somalia.

  “It’s absurd, isn’t it?” Gaynes said. “The world’s greatest predators need us to protect them from fucking anthropods.”

  Farley asked, “How do you know the location of the whaler?”

  Gaynes turned to Farley with one eyebrow raised. “Ah yes, my network.” Randy Gaynes was a thin man almost as tall as Farley. He had sun-bleached brown hair, the walk of a man accustomed to a rolling deck, and a voice loud enough to be heard over high winds and breaking waves. Right now Gaynes looked like a kid who desperately wanted to share a secret.

  Farley waited. It felt good to be on a real ship again. The long rolls spoke of the deep sea, in contrast to the abrupt movements of his sailboat back in Monterey Bay. He saw Tahir on the deck below, leaning against a rail. He couldn’t see Chopper but knew he’d be close enough to keep an eye on Tahir and far enough away to avoid embarrassing him.

  “I have the entire coast of East Africa under sur
veillance,” Gaynes said. “None of these countries has a navy or coast guard. It’s freewheelin’, but I have allies—guys the media call pirates. You like that? My buddies are pirates.”

  “Pirates?” Farley asked. “You call them pirates, too.”

  “Only between you and me.”

  “What do they have against whalers?”

  “It’s their water, man. They take care of it.”

  The Cetacean Avenger sailed steadily north along a path ten miles off Africa’s east coast.

  Farley and Chopper set up the lab and double-checked the sensors and transmitters that would be attached to Moby-Dick. A few wires had come loose, but other than that, everything had survived the trip. Farley configured the data acquisition computer, a laptop with a peripheral transmitter/receiver based on a satellite telephone link. This DAQ system was just for data checking and debugging. The full-featured data reception system was in the garage back in Santa Cruz. The DAQ computer aboard the Cetacean Avenger also provided limited Internet access through periodic connections to the DAQ system in Santa Cruz. The ship used a satellite link for Internet access but didn’t provide Wi-Fi connections. Of course, there was no cell phone coverage on the Horn of Africa’s continental shelf.

  Tahir spent those first few days pale and green but denied discomfort. When he recovered, he integrated himself into the ship’s culture by taking on some of the hard work. He joined in physical labor and worked shifts in the kitchen and machine shop. In the process, he spent time with everyone on the ship but the captain, enough time to find out who they were and where they came from. He judged them dedicated, well educated, and naive—like Farley.

  Late in the morning on the fifth day of the voyage, Tahir came to Farley and told him that the crew seemed to be on alert. Farley shared his own observation that they were now traveling due west, toward the coast.

  Farley headed for the bridge, where he found Gaynes at the navigation computer giving orders to the pilot, a tough-looking woman who responded with “aye-aye, Captain” in a French accent. Two crewmen examined freshly printed charts and marked them with different colored highlighters.

  Gaynes took a pair of binoculars and scanned the horizon. He called Farley over and indicated extra binoculars hanging from a peg. Gaynes issued more orders to the pilot. Farley recognized that he was directing the ship in line with a current to maximize their speed. Gaynes indicated the starboard side. Farley scanned the horizon.

  There they were! Every sighting in his life had felt like this. Raw, juvenile excitement at the sight of blowing whales.

  Now staring off the port side, Gaynes lowered his binoculars and pointed. “Over there, you see ’em?”

  Looking through the binoculars, Farley expected to see the Norwegian whaling ship but instead saw three small white boats bounding toward them over the blue sea with rainbows reflected from the spray of their wakes.

  He started to ask who they were, but Gaynes cut him off.

  “Three to port,” Gaynes yelled. He turned to the computer monitor and clicked the mouse. “Prepare to go hard alee—I want ninety degrees in ten seconds!”

  Farley focused on one of the oncoming boats, a broad-sided fiberglass skiff, the sort of vessel used by sport fishermen but with none of the frills—no canopy, no seats—just four men holding on as their boat careened through the sea. They had to be going fifty knots. The boat launched up each swell, took flight, and then splashed into the trough that followed. None of the men wore a life jacket.

  “Your friends?” Farley asked.

  Laughing, Gaynes replied, “You better hope so.” He grabbed the intercom microphone, flipped a switch, and broadcast throughout his ship: “All hands to stations—one to port, one to stern, and one to bow.” He set the mike back in its rack and took a walkie-talkie. As he stepped to the stairs, he patted Farley’s shoulder and said, “Come on, and bring the binocs with you.”

  On the port deck, Farley saw Tahir leaning in the shadows against a bulkhead. Farley couldn’t see Chopper but understood that he would be on the starboard side monitoring the sperm whale pod.

  The three boats slowed, and as one went to the bow and another to the stern of the Cetacean Avenger, the central boat raised a light blue flag. Gaynes spoke into the radio. “Relax stations.” The command was repeated across the ship a second later, and two men threw ropes and dropped a ladder down the side of the ship.

  To Farley, Gaynes said, “You’re gonna love this guy.”

  “I am Sayyid Hassan.” He spoke with the crisp English accent of a BBC news anchor. He was shorter than Farley but built like a fullback, at least 250 pounds distributed evenly from tree-trunk thighs to hulk chest to twelve-gauge biceps and a neck so thick you couldn’t distinguish it from his shoulders. He had the piercing black eyes that Farley could only think of as the defining characteristics of a natural-born African chief. The phrase “badass motherfucker” came to mind, too.

  Still, all that immediate physical intimidation was incongruous with his next words: “Is the kettle on? I’d fancy a cup of tea.”

  Sayyid Hassan was accompanied by three wiry men in colorful turbans, none of whom spoke English. Tahir would later inform Farley that they had been speaking Somali.

  Gaynes led them to the galley. The chief barked commands at his entourage and they scattered about the deck. Farley followed him and Gaynes through the narrow inner corridors to the galley, the smell of baked goods growing stronger as they approached. In the mess, a table extending from the bulkhead was covered with a tablecloth. Sayyid stood at a bench opposite a porthole. Farley followed his lead, apparently waiting for Captain Gaynes to sit. Sayyid closed his eyes and mumbled to himself before sitting. As Farley lowered himself to the bench opposite Sayyid, he saw Tahir in the kitchen adjoining the mess. Tahir raised both hands in a motion signifying “Who is this man?”

  “Sy,” Gaynes said, “Farley Rutherford is interested in studying your whales.”

  The man, radiating authority, looked Farley up and down. “Perhaps, if my people are compensated. They are large fish. Fifty thousand euros.”

  Farley said, “We don’t have access to that much money. I couldn’t even come up with a thousand.”

  “Don’t be like the others. Don’t expect to receive value without providing value in return. Don’t offend me.”

  “We won’t hurt the whale. We’re going to attach some equipment that will provide a great deal of information about its behavior.”

  “Will you make money with this information?”

  “Maybe.”

  Sy looked at Gaynes and asked, “You told him nothing?”

  Gaynes said, “That’s right.”

  “You are a civilized man,” Sy said, turning back to Farley. “Let me explain my situation so that you understand how this tariff will be spent. Two thousand people depend on me for food and shelter in a country with no government. Most are women and children. The men who follow me have fought in many wars. They are aggressive, hungry, and violent, and they pray five times each day. We have a saying in my camp—” He paused and furrowed his brow. “I should say, my community? my village? my ‘piracy’? No. That is, my kingdom. Yes, we have a saying in my kingdom: All old men are dead.”

  A sailor brought a steaming bone china teapot with three small cups and poured dark English tea. Tahir followed with a plate of scones and butter.

  Sy drank his tea and ate a scone. As he poured his second cup, he said, “Farley Rutherford, American entrepreneur.” Then, in a poor American accent, “Out to make a fortune in ecology.” He laughed at his own humor. “And I am a pirate.” He stopped laughing. “There are several ways for you to address my fee. You are a creative man. I am also a creative man. It will behoove you to, um, consider how you can most effectively benefit my people, my…my kingdom. It would be best to provide this now. If you need time to sort it out, you may pay me later, but you must understand that I will not permit you to leave until my people are compensated for your use of our resources
.”

  As the words “I will not permit you to leave” echoed in his mind, Farley tried to appear relaxed by continuing to spread butter on a scone. He looked up at Gaynes, who stared at him, smiling as though it were all a big joke. Farley couldn’t hold back a sigh as he reached for the jam jar. He didn’t think Gaynes would be so nonchalant if he were delivering Farley to an actual kidnapper. What’s more, this man, Sayyid Hassan, while possessing a huge ego, carried a large weight of responsibility. Farley sipped his tea and bit into the scone. He saw Tahir hovering in the passage between the galley and mess.

  Farley trusted his ability to judge character, and only one conclusion made any sense. This man, this pirate, was troubled and needed help. That statement, “I will not permit you to leave,” had to be a plea, not a threat.

  Farley said, “Truth is, I’m not much of an entrepreneur. And”—Farley looked deep into Sy’s eyes—“I suspect you’re not much of a pirate.”

  “In the West, people like you call people like me pirates.” Sy drank from his cup. As he swallowed, he seemed to make a decision because he then leaned forward, elbows on the table, and looked up at Farley. “My parents were executives in the Somali Democratic Republic—the last government of Somalia, a dictatorship really. My father was President Siad Barre’s chief bureaucrat. I was educated at Imperial College London. I did first degree honors in mechanical engineering. I returned in 1992 to a state with no order.

  “Mechanical engineering was a brilliant choice. My community—I apologize; I may be a king in practice, but I am not one in philosophy—my community, or, as your people would say, my refugee camp, has clean water from wells that I dug. We have shelter and we manage to eat with some regularity. As we are short a government, guarding the coast falls upon me. My people were once fishermen, but European, Japanese, Indian, and American fisheries removed the stock a decade past. When a poaching vessel enters our waters, I levy fines. That I must collect these fines by boarding ships and holding hostages makes me a ‘pirate.’ Did you notice a Norwegian ship on the horizon, sailing away as you approached? The captain had no desire to pay the tariff; he left without bothering my fish.