Although the rest of the island was covered in ashy debris, the area in front of the broken building was clear. That was strange. Was this perhaps where the company was farming its medicine? Was that why it had been cleared of debris?

He was sure to take plenty of samples here, wondering what kind of plants could be worth a multi-million-dollar investment. Then he approached the building.

It was a plain, blocky, one-story concrete building. It remained largely intact, though its windows were blown out and its metal door hung by only one hinge.

He stepped inside. The concentrated fumes of the accelerant were overwhelming.

They really wanted to get rid of whatever was in here.

Ash covered the floor, yet despite the apparent heat of the blaze, the fire hadn’t completely destroyed everything. On the floor were a series of blackened lumps. Nate walked over to one and, using a small metal pick, carefully probed the debris.

Surprisingly, the piles were relatively solid.

Scraping some of the char off, he found the warped and partially melted remains of a computer’s motherboard. Most of the chips that would normally have been soldered onto the board must have popped off and been consumed by the fire.

Next to the destroyed computer was a burnt and misshapen metal object that Nate recognized as a microscope.

All along the walls of the small building, Nate saw similar paired lumps. Broken computer next to a broken microscope.

Nate yanked the radio off his belt. “You guys finding anything?”

“Anderson here. So far, nothing but dead crabs, seagull shit, and lots and lots of dead seagulls. I’m thinking they ate some of this gasoline-soaked crap.”

“Liu here. West side is the same story. I’ve collected a couple of these sorry gulls, just in case. This place is an ecological disaster.”

“All right guys, change of plans. Meet me at the concrete building at the center of the island. I’ve found some bits of computers. They’re probably a lost cause, but just in case, I want to bag them up for the lab guys in Quantico. I’ll need help cataloging all this stuff and dragging it out of here.”

“Roger that. East team will be there in twenty.”

“Ditto for the west team.”

Hooking the radio back onto his belt, Nate stepped out of the building to escape the smell. He scraped the toe of his boot on the ground as his mind raced and he began to work through what he knew.

“Some big pharma conglomerate was pissed because someone destroyed their drug crop? That was certainly plausible. But there was more to it.

“The military destroyed this place, but why? No harmless crop would need to be burned to the ground like this. They wouldn’t destroy microscopes or computers unless someone was hiding something.”