Little Deadly Things (48 page)

“Why are we meeting here?” Doyle blurted out when he stood in front of her desk.

Azevedo wore her trademark white baiana dress and turban, the traditional garb of the Bahia region of Brazil. Brazilian immigrants to Massachusetts had become the second-largest voting bloc in the state, and the occupant of the governor’s seat was likely to be determined by the Carioca and Baiano population for many elections to come.

“Sit down, Sean,” Azevedo ordered. “What are we going to do with Eva Rozen’s message?”

“What’s to decide? A full holographic confession? Details on how she triggered the Washout? Where’s the issue?”

“It’s perfect for you as Special Prosecutor, but what will it do for the Commonwealth?”

“You mean for your reelection,” Doyle replied.

“Sean, are you planning to run in ’48?”

“Well, a confession, a conviction of a mass murderer, etc., etc., Madame Governor—I’m not going to waste that kind of political capital.”

“For chrissakes, Sean. Drop the formalities. Do you see any cameras in here?” Doyle looked around and then shook his head. “Then let’s not dance around this. If we release Rozen’s message, how do we both manage to get what we both want? You’ve been drooling over my office for years, and I just fought tooth-and-nail to win it. What will you take instead?”

“Why do I have to take anything if I have her confession?”

“Simple. I fire you on the spot for malfeasance and appoint one of my own people as Special Prosecutor. A few years ago, this nobody, this—what’s his name?—this Jim Ecco character gets off with a disorderly instead of a felonious assault. You screwed up the prosecution, Sean. Now he lands in a pile of bodies with the worst mass murderer in U.S. history. How’s that going to play to the voters?”

“I did no such thing. It was a routine plea bargain.” Doyle’s pale Irish features reddened. He shouted, “And that was years ago!”

“Calm down, Sean, or you’ll bust a blood vessel and trigger a med-alert. That won’t play well with voters.”

Azevedo watched as Doyle grew still. He looked dangerous. When he spoke again, she heard control return to his voice. “Attorney General in ‘48,” he said, “and I want your support in ‘52 if I run for governor or for the senate.”

“I’ll support you for AG. Unless you screw this up or cross me, you’ll pretty much run unopposed. You can have the AG’s office in ’48 but you support me for the senate. You can look at a senate seat after a couple terms as governor—hell, you could try for the Oval Office then. But I announce Rozen’s statement. Deal?” asked Azevedo.

Doyle rose, his pinstriped blue suit following him as carefully as a diligent mother of a two-year-old child. His club tie remained perfectly knotted. He offered his hand. “We have a duty to the people. You announce and then I’ll take questions.”

Azevedo winced inwardly at Doyle’s pompous rhetoric, then smiled. Her political future was secure, at least for the next eight years. After that? Well, she just might see Doyle again, likely on the hustings during a presidential primary race some years from this day.

Azevedo’s flowing white dress and Doyle’s pinstripes made an unlikely diptych as the two politicians addressed the press. As agreed, she announced and played Eva’s confession and then handed Doyle to the media.

Eva Rozen had recorded a holograph. She stood life-size, four feet, four inches tall, wearing her trademark black cargo pants and a black work shirt. Her hands trembled as she spoke. Her accent, gone since childhood, had returned.

“I have nothing to do with Rockford. You want to know how that happen? Go to Texas to find out. Look at results of tests. Look at containment building. Data is no good. I warn you and you ignore me. You cheer when they finish ahead of schedule. You know how they finish early? Sloppy science. That’s why building leaks and explodes. Okay, you pay for that in blood. But then you accuse me of murder? You say I trigger Rockford?”

“Nobody accuse me. You are fools. You will pay. I do not attack you. But I stop my charities. Nobody make me do them. I do myself, I pay for myself, and I stop them myself. You call it public health. Except I pay, not the public. If I cancel anybody by mistake, don’t worry. I give refund. All is fair. Nemo me impune lacessit.”

The conference erupted. Doyle took his time fielding questions, while Governor Azevedo looked on, looking solemn for the vidbots, and left when the obvious question, “Why did she make a confession?” caught the Special Prosecutor by surprise. “I think she was bragging,” Doyle managed, “It was her way of going out with a bang.”

In fact, her confession exonerated Marta and Jim. Doyle did not consider that loyalty might be a part of a mass murderer’s emotional inventory.

A reporter cornered Azevedo backstage and asked how she felt. She peered at the reporter and noted the presence of vidbots. “How do I feel? Terrible! Thousands of people died. However, I am satisfied because a killer will be brought to justice, if posthumously. Her presumed accomplices were cleared of wrongdoing. In fact, I am going to issue a proclamation honoring the memory of Dr. Maria Cruz, who was a hero.”

“What about her husband, Jim Ecco?” the reporter asked.

“Yes, him too.”

Dana Ecco’s datasleeve was the third human target of the kill switch’s transmissions. It activated a series of commands that had lain dormant in the sleeve. There followed hundreds of electronic conversations. These flashed from Dana’s sleeve to financial institutions targeted earlier by Eva Rozen. Data sped back to his sleeve. One by one, 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.

___________________________________________

EL YUNQUE

FROM THE MEMORIES
OF DANA ECCO

T
he 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 Muñoz Marín 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,
What is there here for you? Leave this monument to war and find peace in the forest.
Still, I walked. The open ocean hugged one side of the battlements, the old city the other. Both vistas called me—the surging ocean with its wild currents and the well-constructed old city. Would I find peace in wildness or in order? Revenge for my parents’ death or healing for the needy?

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
La Perla,
the city slums below Old San Juan. I leaned against a wall, listening to the faint sounds of the shanties and alleys below. Sea breezes began a steady march inland and cooled the earth. Stars rose and fell and I relaxed into the rhythms of the night.

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
La Perla.
It was possible that I was the wealthiest person in the world, and yet I had nothing of interest to a drove of swine.

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.

“Hijo...Mira aquí.”
Look here. Abuela touched her hand to my heart.
“Estás tan airado.”
You are so angry.

“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.

THE END

M
any hands make lighter work and several pair contributed to
Little Deadly Things.
First, infinite thanks to Jody for insisting that a quarter-century’s germination was enough. She went all in on my dream. Jody read more drafts than you’ll find in an old New England barn. Lordy, I love that woman.

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.