Minutes to Burn

A few men were blasting a chunk of raised concrete that reared up from the sidewalk like an angry animal. They were arguing about where to set the TNT. The seal of the Ecuadorian army painted on its side, the crate of TNT sat open, revealing a tangle of assorted blasting caps and detonators.

"The military dropped off explosives?" Cameron asked.

Juan nodded. "The ejercito. For the roads and fallen buildings."

Tucker stopped beside the men and pointed. "There," he said. "That's your stress point." They looked at him uncomprehending, so he took the red block and positioned it on the concrete. He made a sound like an explosion. The men stared at him as if he were psychotic. "You'll see," he said.

Juan explained to them in Spanish, and one of them nodded. They backed up and blew the concrete. It severed almost perfectly at road level, crumbling onto the pavement. Tucker made a gun with his hand and blew the invisible smoke from the barrel of his finger. The men laughed and nodded their thanks as the soldiers headed up the road.

Clusters of people sat at tables on the sidewalks, laughing and drinking from large brown bottles labeled Pilsener. They watched the squad as it passed but did not seem particularly interested or intimidated. A truck lumbered by, weaving expertly to avoid cracks and potholes. To the right, water sneaked through lava rocks to lap against the concrete sea wall protecting the street.

Cameron nodded at a group of teenagers hanging out in the back of a diesel-guzzling blue truck, parked at the curb. A little girl sat in the dri-ver's seat, playing with a pair of handcuffs that had been decoratively hooked around the rearview mirror. The teenagers waved and smiled, calling out in Spanish, asking if they were movie stars.

Eventually, the road forked into two dirt roads. Juan continued to the right, heading between a cemetery studded with raised white blocks of caskets and a bent sign featuring a smiling marine iguana wearing scuba gear. The others followed.

Tucker stopped beneath a tall tree with small green fruit. He tugged on a dark green leaf and it snapped free, a drop of white fluid beading from the stem.

The red dirt of the road dusted their boots, and their pants to the knees. Bushes and muyuyo trees lined the road on both sides. A mam-moth Opuntia guarded the front of a hay hut, its prickly beavertail pads protruding in clusters.

Tucker suddenly cried out, dropping the leaf and rubbing his hand.

"What?" Cameron asked. "What is it?"

"I don't know," Tucker said. "Something stung me or something." He raised his hand to his mouth, but Rex grabbed him around the wrist.

"Don't do that," Rex barked. Tucker tried to yank his arm away, but Rex held it tightly. "Calm down and let me look at it." Turning Tucker's hand, he examined the small red patch of dermatitis. He crouched and picked up the leaf that Tucker had dropped, careful not to touch the white fluid leaking from the broken stem. "Manzanillo," he said. "Poison apple tree." He snapped his fingers at Derek. "Give me your canteen."

He poured water over Tucker's hand, smoothing it across the rash with his thumb. "It'll be fine," Rex said. He turned to the others. "Don't fondle the vegetation. You're not in a garden here."

The Station was a wide grouping of buildings arranged around a loop at the end of the road. They approached a plain, cream-colored building, a wooden sign hammered into the flower box out front. Estacion Cienti-fica Charles Darwin.

Rex walked inside the administration building, calling out in Spanish. The soldiers waited impatiently in the hot sun. Tank set down the telemetry box and sat on it. It creaked under his weight. Juan gazed ahead at the crumbling Plantas y Invertebrados and Proteccion buildings, his face coloring with concern. Odd-shaped and fronted with large stones and concrete, the buildings were shaded by a large, swooping strip of roof that dipped in the middle, giving it the appearance of a ramp. Wires and extension cords threaded out the shattered windows of both buildings and across a collapsed deck.

Rex emerged from the administration building. "No one there," he said.

Juan pointed at the complex ahead. "We'll check here and you head down to Bio Mar. That is where, I believe, the seismology people were working."

Cameron and Rex jogged down to the Bio Mar building, passing a small dock with blue and white posts. Marine iguanas nibbled algae off the submerged planks. A 3.2-meter Zodiac was moored to the dock, a thirty-five-horsepower Evinrude secured to the wood transom. The Darwin Station decal was peeling off the rubber hull.

Inside the building, only a few overturned tables and a broken com-puter mouse remained. A rat was gnawing through the mouse cord. It looked up at them, its beady yellow eyes glowing. It did not scurry away.

Discouraged, they headed back. The others were circled up outside, and Juan leaned through the broken window of the Plantas y Invertebra-dos building.

"No one inside," Derek said. "Anywhere."