FOR DONZIGER, THE MORE PUBLICITY the better, in both Ecuador and the U.S.; he does his best to arrange a good show. For the Guanta inspection, in addition to the Quito journalists, he'd brought in a separate busload of photo-ready Cofán Indians, all of them wearing colorful native frocks and the unhappy frowns of the dispossessed.

Our first stop was town hall, an ugly, four-story, glass-skinned structure. The judge's chambers were on the top floor, inside a small, book-lined room never intended to be filled with lawyers, reporters, TV cameras, students, and Indians. Judge Novillo, a soft-spoken man who looks like he's on the tired side of his fifties, reacted calmly to the invasion. The latest book by Gabriel García Márquez sat on his desk, and he got a real-life dose of magical realism when the mob barreled into his office, accusing him of postponing the inspection at the behest of a foreign company.

"Texaco organized this!" shouted a law student from Quito who wore a bandanna around his neck in the imagined style of Che Guevara. His class was on a field trip with their professor, Alejandro Ponce Víllacis, a 38-year-old lawyer who is one of the case's most prominent faces in Ecuador.

"This order is from state security," Novillo replied, flashing an official-looking piece of paper.

"Let us see it," Ponce demanded.

"I cannot show it," Novillo said.

Howls of outrage filled the chamber. Giving ground, Novillo began reading the order, which he said had come from the local special-forces base, Rayo-24 ("Lightning-24").

"'Military intelligence fears there could be a hostile situation,'" he read, but Ponce cut him off.

"The people have a right to know!" he shouted.

"You are not showing it!" the law student added.

The judge flashed the letter again, a bit longer this time. Not good enough. "This is a manipulation from Texaco!" someone shouted. "We have been hurt by the pollution," a short Indian woman wailed.

I heard a baby cry. With all the bodies packed into the room, the humidity reached 1,000 percent. For the judge, there was no escape. He was being forced into a sort of data striptease, with information revealed piece by piece to the panting crowd. Finally, he held out the letter for everyone to read.

Donziger is not a member of the bar in Ecuador. With the judge, as in court proceedings, he let his Ecuadorean colleagues do the talking: Pablo Fajardo Mendoza, a ferocious 32-year-old who got his degree from an extension school and has emerged as the case's lead courtroom litigator; and Professor Ponce, whose father once defended Chevron. The Frente's legal coordinator, 44-year-old Luis Yanza, plays a key role outside the courtroom, and, like the rest of his team, he's patient. He laughed a little too hysterically when I asked if he'd ever thought the case would last more than a decade.

After the face-off with Novillo, the buses of Indians and lawyers and students and journalists rolled up to the army base on the outskirts of Lago Agrio. We stood outside the gate in a soaking drizzle, armed with cheap umbrellas. The special-forces commander, Lieutenant Colonel Francisco Narvaez, soon emerged, wearing fatigues and a burgundy beret.

"I do not know about the existence of the letter," he told the crowd. His statement met with disbelief; everyone had seen that the order was signed by Narvaez's second in command.

"I am going to investigate it, and when I find the answer I will meet with you and tell you what is going on," he said.

Donziger, Ponce, and Fajardo decided to try something new. "The Texaco staff stays here," Donziger said to Narvaez. "There is an agreement." This was cast as an accusation.

"There might be," the lieutenant colonel responded uneasily.

Donziger had known for months that Chevron had built a villa at the base and agreed to give it to the military once the case ended. He hadn't publicly opposed the deal—Chevron is not popular in Lago Agrio, and its lawyers would be safer on the base. But with a dozen soggy, news-hungry journalists recording the moment, the Frente's lawyers suspected the time was right to accuse the military of colluding with gringos. It turned out they were correct. The accusation made headlines, and a few weeks later the defense ministry canceled all military contracts with oil firms and ordered Chevron off the base.