Because Nate was half-Brazilian now, he wore no wristwatch. Time mattered little. It was late, probably midnight. The rain had battered them for four hours.
NATE SLEPT a few hours in the hammock, and awakened just after dawn. He found Jevy snoring on his bunk in the tiny cabin behind the wheelhouse. Welly was at the wheel, himself half-asleep. Nate sent him for coffee and took the helm of the Santa Loura.
The clouds were back, but no rain was in sight. The river was littered with limbs and leaves, the rubble and remains from last night's storm. It was wide and there was no traffic, so Nate the skipper sent Welly to the hammock for a nap while he commanded the vessel.
It beat the hell out of a courtroom. Shirtless, shoeless, sipping sweet coffee while leading an expedition into the heart of the world's largest swamp. In the glory days, he would've been racing to a trial somewhere, juggling ten things at once, phones stuck in every pocket. He didn't really miss it; no lawyer in his right mind really missed the courtroom. But he would never admit that.
The boat practically guided itself. With Jevy's binoculars, he watched the shoreline for jacares, snakes, and capivaras. And he counted tuiuius, the tall, white, long-necked bird with a red head that had become the symbol of the Pantanal. There were twelve in one flock on a sandbar. They stood still and watched the boat go by.
The captain and his sleepy crew steamed northward, as the sky turned orange and the day began. Deeper and deeper into the Pantanal, uncertain where their journey would lead them.
Chapter Twenty-One
THE COORDINATOR of South American Missions was a woman named Neva Collier. She was born in an igloo in Newfoundland, where her parents had worked for twenty years among the Inuit natives. She herself had spent eleven years working in the mountains of New Guinea, so she knew firsthand the trials and challenges of the nine hundred or so people whose activities she coordinated.
And she was the only person who knew that Rachel Porter had once been Rachel Lane, illegitimate daughter of Troy Phelan. After med school, Rachel had changed names in an effort to erase as much of her past as possible. She had no family; both adoptive parents had died. No siblings. No aunts, uncles, or cousins. At least none that she knew. She had only Troy, and she was desperate to remove him from her life. After completing the World Tribes seminary, Rachel had confided her secrets to Neva Collier.
The higher-ups at World Tribes knew Rachel had secrets, but not a history that would impede her yearning to serve God. She was a doctor, a graduate of their seminary, a dedicated and humble servant of Christ who was eager to enter the mission field. They promised never to divulge anything about Rachel, including her exact location in South America.
Sitting in her small neat office in Houston, Neva read the extraordinary account of the reading of Mr. Phelan's will. She had been following the story since the suicide.
Communication with Rachel was a slow process. They exchanged mail twice a year, in March and in August, and Rachel usually called once a year from a pay phone in Corumba when she went there for supplies. Neva had spoken to her the year before. Her last furlough had been in 1992. After six weeks she'd abandoned it and returned to the Pantanal. She had no interest in being in the United States, she had confided in Neva. It was not her home. She belonged with her people.
Judging from the lawyers' comments in the article, the issue was far from settled. Neva put the file away and decided to wait. At the appropriate time, whenever that might be, she would inform her governing board of Rachel's old identity.
She hoped that moment would never come. But how, exactly, does one hide eleven billion dollars?
No ONE really expected the lawyers to agree on where to meet. Each firm insisted on choosing the site of the summit. The fact that they agreed to actually get together, on such short notice, was monumental.
So they met at a hotel, the Ritz in Tysons Corner, in a banquet room where tables had been hastily wedged together in a perfect square. When the door was finally closed, there were close to fifty people in the room, for every firm felt obliged to bring along extra associates and paralegals and even secretaries to impress.
The tension was almost visible. No Phelans were present, only their legal teams.
Hark Gettys called the meeting to order, and did the wise thing of cracking a very funny joke. Like humor in the courtroom, where people were anxious and not expecting comedy, the laughter was loud and healthy. He suggested they go around the table and let one lawyer per Phelan heir say what was on his or her mind. He would go last.
An objection was lodged. "Who exactly are the heirs?"
"The six Phelan children," Hark responded.
"What about the three wives?"
"They're not heirs. They're ex-wives."
This upset the attorneys for the wives, and after a heated battle they threatened to walk out. Someone suggested allowing them to speak anyway, and this solved the problem.
Grit, the feisty litigator hired by Mary Ross Phelan Jackman and her husband, stood and made a plea for war. "We have no choice but to challenge the will," he said. "There was no undue influence, so we have to prove the old buzzard was crazy. Hell, he jumped to his death. And he gave one of the world's great fortunes to some unknown heir. Sounds crazy to me. We can find psychiatrists who'll testify."
"What about the three who examined him before he jumped?" someone shot from across the table.
"That was stupid," Grit snarled back. "It was a setup, and you guys fell for it."
This upset Hark and the other lawyers who had agreed on the mental exam. "Perfect hindsight," Yancy said, and that stalled Grit for the moment.
The legal team for Geena and Cody Strong was headed by a woman named Langhorne, who was tall and thick and wore an Armani dress. She had once been a professor at Georgetown Law and when she addressed the group she did so with the air of one who knew everything. Point one: There were only two grounds for contesting a will in Virginia-undue influence and lack of mental capacity. Since no one knew Rachel Lane, it was safe to assume she had little or no contact with Troy. Therefore, it would be difficult if not impossible to prove she somehow unduly influenced him when he made his last will. Point two: Lack of testamentary capacity was their only hope. Point three: Forget fraud. Sure he lured them into the mental exam under false pretenses, but a will cannot be attacked on the grounds of fraud. A contract yes, a will no. They had already done the research and she had the cases, if anyone cared.
She worked from a brief of some sort, and was impeccably prepared. No less than six others from her firm huddled behind her in support.
Point four: The mental exam would be very difficult to crack. She'd seen the video. They would probably lose the war, but they could get paid for the battle. Her conclusion: Challenge the will with a fury, and hope for a lucrative out-of-court settlement.
Her lecture lasted for ten minutes, and covered little new ground. She was tolerated without interruption because she was female and the chip was almost visible.
Wally Bright, he of the night school, was next, and in sharp contrast to Ms. Langhorne, he raged and railed at injustice in general. Nothing was prepared-no brief, no notes, no thoughts about what he would say next, just a lot of hot air by a brawler who perpetually flew by the seat of his pants.
Two of Lillian's lawyers stood at the same time, and appeared to be joined at the hip. Both wore black suits, and had the pale faces of estate lawyers who rarely saw the sun. One would start a sentence and the other would finish it. One would ask a rhetorical question, the other had the answer. One mentioned a file, the other pulled it from a briefcase. The tag team was efficient, to the point, and repeated in succinct fashion what had already been said.