The Sensory Deception (48 page)

“Ringo,” Farley asks, “how much time have I got?”

“Based on burn rates, her position, and the visual feed, my best guess is two days, maybe three—I set a ninety-five percent confidence level upper limit at four days. But Farley, I can’t account for whatever is going on with Chopper.”

The fifteen-hour flight to São Paulo pulls into the gate twenty minutes ahead of schedule. They’re on another jetliner within the hour and land in Manaus two hours after that. Ringo has arranged a hotel room. As they check in, Farley is given a package that includes a satellite phone, more cash, and a complete list of expenditures made on Chopper’s VirtExArts credit card, including names and addresses. One expenditure jumps out: payment to a company called “Van O’Reilly Travel Services” made in a town called Uarini, Amazonas.

Tahir has a list of equipment they need: ropes, packs, rifles and ammunition, a hatchet, machetes, light and dry food, water
purification tablets, and toilet paper. Farley’s list is shorter: airplane tickets to Uarini.

With the help of the concierge, they split up in the sprawling city and manage to assemble everything except the firearms.

“I’ve never fired a gun,” Farley says.

Tahir starts to speak. His mouth hangs open for a few seconds, and then he laughs. He grasps Farley’s forearm and pulls the larger man into a hug. “Any other situation, Farley, any other. It is a dream to me, that my Golie can marry a man who never needs to fire a weapon—it would be a dream.”

T
he constant threats—not just from flames and gunfire but from sinkholes, carnivorous fish, disease-toting insects, and snakes ranging from meter-long corals to giant anacondas and boas—limit time for reflection. Still, each instant of peace brings Gloria closer to the woman she once was. She has recovered enough to realize that she’ll never make it all the way back.

Gloria and the little girl don’t share a language, of course, but they communicate through facial expression, signs, sounds, and affection. The child’s name is Iara, and Gloria trusts her judgment in every area where she can’t trust her own. Iara rappels up vines into trees and knows the jungle the way Gloria once knew Silicon Valley. She guides Gloria along shadowed paths away from reptile predators. She indicates which plants to eat and safe places to sleep, way up in trees. She’s not perfect. The white fruit they ate two days ago gave them both cramps, and it’s a good thing they’re strong swimmers or what she judged to be the best spot to cross a creek could have swallowed them. A few days after her reawakening to reflective sentience, Gloria realizes that Iara is following the song of screaming monkeys. The little primates sound like a call to safety, but right now she hears them in every direction.

It’s their second day on this island. At least Gloria thinks it’s an island; every direction they’ve walked has led to the river. It’s
also been two days since they last saw Chopper. It’s a big jungle, maybe big enough to hide from Chopper forever, but way too big for a city girl like Gloria to survive.

Hoping that the sensors attached to her head and back are transmitting to a DAQ receiver in Santa Cruz, Gloria describes her predicament as well as she can reconstruct it to whoever might be listening. She does this over and over again. It feels like she’s praying to some distant god, and she pictures Ringo in the Santa Cruz garage listening. Maybe someday she can thank him for answering her prayers. If not, she doesn’t have much chance here. But Iara does, and so Gloria perseveres.

Just after noon, the twin-prop, 1950s-era plane sets down on Uarini’s gravel runway. Farley and Tahir are in the outback now. Where the Somali coast had been hot and dry and plants had to be coaxed into surviving, they are now in thick, wet air, a place where life appears everywhere.

Farley jogs from the plane to a whitewashed house at the edge of the airstrip. There are two people inside: a fat man who operates a radio, and his wife, an equally large woman who recognizes the name Van O’Reilly when Farley asks about him.

“Van O’Reilly,” she says, riffling through a pile on her desk. “He come back tomorrow, maybe next day.”

Farley asks for other air-travel options and she gives him a well-handled brochure advertising “adventure tours.” Its cover has a picture of a shiny yellow amphibious biplane floating on a river. She says something he doesn’t understand. She repeats it twice and then motions out the window to a few haphazardly parked planes. Most are covered in tarps. He looks back at the woman. She stands up and again points to
the row of planes. Farley shakes his head. She takes his hand and walks him out the door. Now he sees it. He can tell that it was once yellow. It’s gray now. He walks over and around it. It looks sound. It looks fine. Back in the building, she draws him a map of the town and tells him the name of the pilot and where to find him.

Farley turns to Tahir and says, “We need to locate the pilot and be ready to move.”

“This O’Reilly is due back tomorrow?” Tahir asks.

“Or the next day,” Farley replies. “We need to leave today.” Farley holds out the map. “There’s not much to it, a couple of streets and one building marked with an
x
. Let’s split up. The guy’s name is Aluino Senona.”

Tahir says, “I’ll procure the rest of our equipment.”

“Let’s try to get out of here by three.”

An hour later, Farley returns to the airstrip with the pilot, a short man with a large mustache.

Tahir is sitting on a bench in the shade amid two disassembled rifles.

“It’s not perfect,” Farley says. “Aluino doesn’t understand what I mean by GPS coordinates, but he knows the river and I have the satellite phone—Ringo can get us there. It’ll have to do.” He offers Tahir a hand up and adds, “Let’s go.”

Tahir’s gaze dwells on the pilot for several seconds. The pilot stares back. Farley can feel Tahir reading the lines in the man’s face. Tahir shakes his head and in a calm, quiet voice says, “We will wait one day for Van O’Reilly.”

“By Ringo’s calculation we have one, maybe two days, at most three,” Farley says. “We have to get out there now.”

“No. We’re not ready.” Tahir raises a rifle barrel to his eye, stares down it, sets it aside, and begins disassembling the chamber.

“What?” Farley asks.

“We must assure that we are going to the right place with the right tools or we might as well stay here.”

“Ringo’s calculations will get us within a hundred meters of Gloria.”

Tahir shakes his head and then applies oil to different pieces of the rifle, checking each moving part.

Farley looks around as though he’s not seeing something. “We have to get in and get it done. Damn it, Tahir, we’re talking about Gloria!”

Tahir turns slowly to Farley, his eyes narrowed against the sunlight. “I would have you remember that this is not the first time I have rescued her.” His gaze lingers a few seconds longer before his attention returns to the gun.

“Tahir,” Farley says, “I’m leaving. Are you coming or not?”

“Success is more important than action. What is it that I have heard Gloria say about you people in Silicon Valley?” Tahir strokes his chin, trying to remember.

To Farley it looks like an intentional delay.

Tahir nods to himself and says, “How many times have you experienced this thing that Gloria says: There is never time to do it right, but there always is time to do it over? This time, Farley, we get only one chance. By preparing we reduce risk; we make the clock work for us instead of against us.”

Farley shakes his head, grinds his hands together. “Okay. What have you got? I need to do something.”

In a matter of seconds, Tahir throws the gun back together, puts a few rounds in a magazine, inserts it into the rifle, holds the
barrel up to his ear, pumps one into the chamber, and hands the rifle to Farley, stock first. “Learn how to use this.”

They spend the night camped out at the airport. Farley can’t keep his eyes closed. He knows the value of sleep and he understands the value of experience, but he also hears the clock ticking. He watches the quarter-moon set. It’s just past midnight. There ought to be more stars visible. The haze is as thick as it is in Los Angeles and they’re hundreds of miles from civilization. He yawns and realizes how short his breath has been all day. He leans on his side and watches Tahir. The wiry old man is curled in a knot, sound asleep.

Farley takes another deep breath and concentrates on relaxing each part of his body from his toes up to his neck. His thoughts run back to the beginning. The day he met Gloria, then farther back, the day he met Chopper. He loves them both. He can’t shake the notion that there is a mistake. There has to be.
No way would Chopper hurt Gloria. It doesn’t fit. No one is more loyal than Chopper.
He combs his memory and time jogs on.
No, it doesn’t work. If Gloria is in trouble, Chopper is trying to save her. The data is being misinterpreted
. He releases the breath.

Now he hears the background noise: beneath the insects’ buzz there’s an owl asking its eternal question.