Eva Rozen’s assets were transferred to her only beneficiary, Dana Rafael Ecco, along with additional software that prevented the transfers from being traced. By the time the claims and counterclaims among Doyle, Governor Azevedo and the United States government were resolved, there would be no financial assets remaining over which to bicker.
38
EL YUNQUE
FROM THE MEMORIES
OF DANA ECCO
The journey to Puerto Rico had been fraught with reminders of the past days’ horrors. I flew in the same NMech jet that had delivered my grandfather to Eva and Nancy Kiley to her death. Sean Doyle had seized the craft, but with the assistance of a handful of attorneys, and a bit of ghosting on my part, I’d regained the use of some of NMech’s assets.
I landed in Luis Munoz Marin International Airport and dismissed the waiting NMech driver and security. The fewer reminders of NMech the better. I stood wilting in the tropical heat outside the terminal, unsure of my next destination. In the end, I took a P-cab, still undecided. I sat in the driverless car and hesitated over several preset destinations. I did not choose El Yunque, but the fortress of El Morro, instead.
The Spanish conquistadores built the stone fort at the tip of the island. For centuries it was an impregnable stronghold on the land they’d conquered. But it was no match for the United States’ military might. In 1898, the fort yielded during a brief assault. Soon the defenders capitulated and Puerto Rico became property of the United States. The conquerors called the military action the Spanish-American War. The island population came to know it as the Invasion of 1898.
I walked the ramparts of El Morro’s stone walls and the wind asked me,
Night fell, as sudden as a sneeze this close to the equator, and the stress of the last several days caught up to me. I sat heavily in the courtyard of an apartment building. It was high above
The sounds of explosive breathing—a grunting family of pigs—drew me out of my reverie. I lay very still as the sow and her shoats snuffed at my legs. Indifferent, they moved on, heading on their rounds before returning to
With that observation, I was ready to travel to El Yunque, to meet Abuela. How would I find my mother’s family—my family? I had only a small photograph of the old woman. I could imagine my mother telling me that Yocahu would show the way.
As the sun inched above the horizon, my P-cab rolled to a silent stop at El Portal, the visitor center at the rainforest entrance. This was part of the journey that a frightened thirteen-year-old girl had taken. She had just lost her mother. I’d just lost mine.
I decided to explore the rainforest that my mother held so dearly. Perhaps I’d find Denise Warren, the NMech bookkeeper we’d met at the beginning of the Great Washout. I put that thought aside; it would be another NMech reminder. I wanted to see El Yunque with the same clear eyes that my mother would have brought to bear on it.
Which way to go? El Yunque Peak beckoned, a bristling shard of rock, green-carpeted and crowned with misty clouds. Was this the home of the legendary Yocahu? A place of magic or mere volcanic debris hoisted up during the formation of the Caribbean tectonic plate?
The morning’s hike brought me six kilometers to the peak. Would the All-Powerful deity descend from the mountain like Moses carrying the Law writ in stone? What a waste! At least I had kept my promise and come to the mountain.
I sensed the presence behind me before I saw her. No footsteps announced her approach. A small, wizened figure stood near, just as she’d once stood near my mother. Again, she was still, save a crooning voice. The old woman’s face was even more deeply lined with sun and age and care but her eyes shone clearly. She spoke the same words to me as she had to my mother.
“Hijo” she intoned, stretching out the vowels—child. A single word carrying eight decades of love and wisdom. Abuela. My great-grandmother. She was real.
“I’m not angry, Abuela,” I had said. “I’m just tired and sad and I miss my mother and father.”
Abuela merely pointed to my tightly-clenched fist. Then she took my hand, uncurled the fingers and led me into the rainforest, into a place where I could choose peace and life.
Many hands make lighter work and several pair contributed to
My thanks to:
My father for inspiring me to write. He compelled me to write compositions on Saturday mornings, on a light blue, three-legged stool in the bathroom. I wished I’d asked him why he chose that particular venue.
Dr. Allison Lloyd McDonough, medicine woman and healer, who answered more medical questions than appear on the MCAT exam.
It’s easy to create a villain, to dream up dirty deeds. It’s not so easy to imbue a villian with humanity. I would have failed without expert guidance from Dr. Steven Krugman and Sybil Houlding. Neither allowed me to remain in the flat-plane world of Bad Seed cliche. I struggled for four years to bring Eva from the unformed to the expressible and would not have found her character without Sybil and Steve’s astute coaching. Sybil is the brightest living light of the psychoanalytic community. That she is my sister is irrelevant.
Murray Steinman, P.R. and branding maven. That he is my brother is not irrelevant in the least. Need a good PR firm? Talk to Murray.
Roger Gefvert—one of the two gentlest people I know. He is artful, thoughtful, and talented like you wouldn’t believe, and generous with his labor. Thank you, Roger, for the cover and interior design. Wow!
Jordan Rich, for your unexpected generosity in promoting
Rebecca Houlding, who helped keep the courtroom scene tethered to reality. She and her father are the world’s greatest attorneys. That she is my niece is irrelevant.
Attorney David Ceruolo, for quick answers to many legal questions.
Dr. Lindsay Drennan-Harris, for explaining the chemistry of iron, the Little Atom That Could.
Terri Bright, soon to be
