There was a pause as he searched my eyes.

"Joke, right?"

I nodded, hoping it would break the ice a bit.

"I was expecting to see Carrie as well."

He pointed behind me.

"She's right here."

I turned to see GI Jane approaching us. She greeted me with a smile and an out thrust hand.

"Hi, I'm Carrie."

Her hair was dark, cut into the nape of her neck. She was maybe mid- to late thirties just a few years younger than me. There were a few lines coming from behind the lenses of her dark gla.s.ses, and small creases in the side of her mouth as she spoke.

I shook her firm hand.

"I'm Nick. Finished your Pepsi, then?" I didn't know if she'd seen me waiting, not that it really mattered.

"Sure, it was good." Her manner was brisk, sort of aggressive, and wouldn't have been out of place on Wall Street. Like Aaron's, her voice was educated but then, anyone who p.r.o.nounced their aitches sounded educated to me.

She stood by Aaron and they certainly made an unusual pair. Maybe I'd got this wrong. Maybe they were father and daughter. He had a slight pot belly and showed his age; she had a body that was well toned and looked after.

People poured in and out. The sound of aircraft and a gust of heat enveloped us each time the doors slid open.

Carrie shrugged.

"What happens now?"

They were waiting for instructions.

"You haven't done this before, have you?"

Aaron shook his head.

"First time. All we know is that we pick you up and you tell us the rest."

"OK do you have any imagery yet?"

She nodded.

"It's satellite, I pulled it off the web last night. It's at the house."

"How far away is that?"

"If the rain holds off, four hours maybe. If not, anything over five. We're talking boondocks."

"How far to the other guy's house?"

"An hour thirty from here, maybe two. It's the other side of the city it's in the boonies, too."

I'd like to see his place first, then back to yours. Will I be able to get close enough to have a good look?"

There wasn't enough time to spend maybe ten hours on the road, or even prepare myself for a day under the canopy. I'd have to get on and do the CTR of the house first, since it was so close, and then, on the way back to their place, get planning what I was going to do next, and how.

She nodded, confirming with Aaron at the same time.

"Sure, but like I said, it's in the forest." She turned to Aaron.

"You know what? I'll go pick up Luce from the dentist and meet you two at home."

There was a pause as if there was more to say, as if she expected me to pick up on what she'd said. But I didn't care that much who Luce was. It wasn't important at the moment, and I was sure to be told soon anyway.

"Ready when you are."

We headed outside and into the oppressive heat. I screwed up my eyes against the sun, which burned straight through the cheap acrylic of my sweatshirt on my shoulders and the back of my neck.

She walked the other side of Aaron. There was no wedding ring, no watch or any other jewellery on either of her hands. Her hair was beyond dark, it was jet black, and her skin was only lightly tanned, not dark and leathery like Aaron's.

Her armpits were shaved and, for some reason, I wouldn't have expected that.

Maybe I'd been harbouring images of New Age travellers from the moment I saw Aaron.

The service road was jammed with mini-buses, taxis and cars dropping off pa.s.sengers, with porters hustling the drop-offs for business. The noise was just as loud out here as it had been in the hall, with vehicle horns sounding off and taxi drivers arguing over parking s.p.a.ces.

The dazzling sunshine felt as if I had a searchlight pointed straight into my eyes. I squinted like a mole and looked down as they started to feel gritty.

Aaron pulled a pair of John Lennon sungla.s.ses from a pocket of his waistcoat and put them on as he pointed to our half right.

"We're over here."

We crossed the road to what might have been a parking lot in any US shopping mall. j.a.panese and American SUVs were lined up alongside saloons and people carriers and none of them looked more than one or two years old. It surprised me: I'd been expecting worse.

Carrie broke away from us and headed towards the other side of the car park.

"See you both later."

I nodded goodbye. Aaron didn't say a word, just nodded with me.

The ground was wet with rain and sunlight glinted off the tarmac. My eyes were still half closed when we reached a blue, rusty, mud-covered Mazda pickup.

This is us."

This was more what I'd been expecting. It had a double cab, with an equally old fibregla.s.s Bac Pac cover over the rear that turned it into a van. The sheen of the paintwork had been burned off long ago by tropical heat. Aaron was already inside, leaning over to open my door.

It was like climbing into an oven. The sun had been beating down on the windscreen and it was so hot inside it was hard to breathe. I was just pleased that there was an old blanket draped over the seats to protect us from the almost molten PVC upholstery, though the heat was still doing the business.

A floating ball compa.s.s was stuck to the windscreen, and fixed to the dash was a small open can half filled with green liquid. Judging by the picture of flowers on the label it had been air-freshener in a previous life.

"Will you excuse me, Nick? I need a moment. Won't be long."

I kept my door open, trying to let some air in as he closed his and disappeared behind the Mazda.

It had only been a hundred metres from the terminal building but I was already sweating. My jeans stuck to my thighs and a bead of sweat rolled down the bridge of my nose and added to the misery. At least the air-conditioning would kick in when he started the engine.

I caught four Aarons and Carries in the broken wing mirror, and standing next to her, four wagons. It was also a pickup, but a much older style than the Mazda, maybe an old Chevy, with a rounded bonnet and wings and a flatbed that had wooden slats up the sides, the sort of thing you'd transport livestock in. They were arguing as they stood by the opened driver's door. She waved her hands in the air and Aaron kept shaking his head at her.

I changed view and looked out at the green mountains in the distance and thought of the months I'd spent living in that stuff, and waited for them to finish as a jet-lagged headache started to brew.

A minute or two later he jumped into the cab as if nothing had happened.

"Sorry about that, Nick, just some things I needed from the store."

By the way she'd reacted they must have been pretty expensive. I nodded as if I hadn't seen a thing, we closed our doors and he started up.

Having kept my window closed to help the air-conditioner spark up, I saw Aaron frantically winding his down as he manoeuvred out of the parking s.p.a.ce, using just his fingertips to steer as the wheel must have been hot enough to peel skin. He sounded almost apologetic.

"You need to belt up. They're pretty tough on that round here."

Glancing at my closed window he added, "Sorry, no air."

I wound it down and both of us gingerly fastened belt buckles as hot as a tumble-dried coin. There was no sign of Carrie as we drove out of the car park; she must have driven away straight after being given her shopping list.

I lowered the sun visor as we pa.s.sed a group of young black guys dressed in football shorts armed with large yellow buckets, sponges and bottles of washing up liquid. They seemed to be doing a roaring trade; their pools of soapy water on the tarmac just lay there, not evaporating in the high humidity. The Mazda could have done with their services, inside as well as out. Its worn rubber mats were covered in dried mud; sweet wrappers were scattered all over, some stuffed into my door pocket along with used tissues and a half-eaten tube of mints. On the back seat lay yellowing copies of the Miami Herald. Everything looked and smelt tired; even the PVC under the blanket was ripped.

He was still looking nervous as we drove out of the airport and along a dual carriage way The exhaust rattled under the wagon as we picked up speed, and the open windows made no difference to the heat. Billboards advertising everything from expensive perfumes to machined ball bearings and textile factories were banged into the ground at random, fighting to be seen above pampas gra.s.s nearly three metres tall each side of the road.

Less than two minutes later we had to stop at a toll booth and Aaron handed over a US dollar bill to the operator.

"It's the currency here," he told me.

"It's called a Balboa."

I nodded as if I cared and watched the road become a newly laid dual carriage way The sunlight rebounded off the light-grey concrete big time, making my headache get a happy on.

Aaron could see my problem and rummaged in his door pocket.

"Here, Nick, want these?"

The sungla.s.ses must have been Carrie's, with large oval lenses that Jackie Ona.s.sis would have been proud of. They covered half my face. I probably looked a right nugget, but they worked.

The jungle was soon trying to reclaim the land back from the pampas gra.s.s either side of the carriage way at least on the areas that weren't covered with breeze block and tin shacks. King-size leaves and vines spread up telegraph poles and over fences like a green disease.

I decided to warm him up before I asked the important ones.

"How long have you lived here?"

"Always have. I'm a Zonian."

It must have been obvious that I didn't have a clue what he was on about.

"I was born here in the Zone, the US Ca.n.a.l Zone. It's a ten-mile-wide strip about sixteen K that used to bracket the whole length of the ca.n.a.l. The US controlled the Zone from the early nineteen hundreds, you know." There was pride in his voice.

"I didn't know that." I thought the US just used to have bases there, not jurisdiction over a whole chunk of the country "My father was a ca.n.a.l pilot. Before him, my grandfather started as a tug captain and made it to tonnage surveyor you know, a.s.sessing the ships' weights to determine their tolls. The Zone is home."

Now that we were moving at speed, the wind was. .h.i.tting the right side of my face. It wasn't that cool, but at least it was a breeze. The downside was that we had to shout at each other over the wind rush and the flapping of newspaper and blanket corners against the PVC.

"But you're an American, right?"

He gave a small, gentle laugh at my ignorance. Ivly grandfather was born in Minneapolis, but my father was also born here, in the Zone. The US have always been here, working for the ca.n.a.l authority or in the military. This used to be the headquarters of Southern Command we've had up to sixty-five thousand troops stationed here. But now, of course, everything's gone."

The scenery was still very green, but now mostly gra.s.s. Much of the land had been cleared and the odd flea-bitten cow was grazing away. When the trees did come, they were the same size as European ones, not at all like the ma.s.sive hundred-foot-tall b.u.t.tress trees I'd seen in primary jungle further south in Colombia or South East Asia. This low canopy of leaf and palm created secondary jungle conditions because sunlight could penetrate so vegetation could grow between the tree-trunks. Tall gra.s.s, large palms and creeping vines of all descriptions were trying their best to catch the rays.

"I read about that. It must be quite a shock after all those years."

Aaron nodded slowly as he watched the road.

"Yes, sir, growing up here was just like small-town USA," he enthused, 'apart from no air in the house there wasn't enough juice on the grid in those days. But what the h.e.l.l? It didn't matter. I'd come home from school and wham! I'm right into the forest. Building forts, fishing for tarpon. We'd play basketball, football, baseball, just like up north. It was Utopia, everything we needed was in the Zone. You know what? I didn't even venture into Panama City until I was fourteen, can you believe that?

For the Boy Scout jamboree." A smile of fondness for the good old days played across his face as his grey ponytail fluttered in the wind.

"Of course I went north, to California, for my university years, came back with my degree to lecture at the university. I still lecture, but not so much now. That's where I met Carrie."

So she was his wife. I was pleased to have my curiosity satisfied, and got a sudden burst of hope for the future if I ever reached old age.

What do you teach?"

As soon as he started to answer, I wished I hadn't bothered asking.

"Protecting the bio diversity of plants and wildlife. Forestry conservation and management, that sort of thing. We have a cathedral of nature here." He looked to his right, past me and up at the canopy and gra.s.s-covered mountains in the far distance.

"You know what? Panama is still one of the richest ecological regions on earth, a mother lode of bio diversity ..."

He gazed out again at the mountains and had a tree-hugging moment.

I could only see red and white communication masts the size of the Eiffel Tower that seemed to have been positioned on every fourth peak.

"But you know what, Nick, we're losing it..."

Buildings started to come into view on both sides of the road.

They ranged from tin shacks with rotting rubbish piled up outside and the odd mangy dog picking at the waste, to neat lines of not-quite-finished brand new houses. Each was about the size of a small garage, with a flat red tin roof over whitewashed breeze blocks. The construction workers were stretched out in the shade, hiding from the midday sun.

Ahead, in the far distance, I began to make out a high-rise skyline that looked like a mini Manhattan something else I hadn't been expecting.

I tried to get off the subject in case he turned into the Green version of Billy Graham. I didn't like the idea of losing trees to concrete, or anything else for that matter, but I didn't have enough commitment even to listen, let alone do anything about it. That was why people like him were needed, I supposed.