“DCS is the Defense Courier Service, and they’d be the ones I’d expect to give me a hard copy of something if it was classified. But I can’t think of a reason why you’d be getting anything. May I?” He held out a hand.

“Sure.” Juan handed over the envelope.

“One second, let me be very cautious about this…” He pulled open a desk drawer, retrieved two latex gloves, and pulled them on.

Juan’s eyes widened. “Do you think there’s something harmful in there?”

Nate shook his head. “It’s not that so much as I don’t want my greasy paws on any of this. We don’t know where this came from, so it’s just a good precaution in case anything needs to be used for evidence.”

Nate drew a folding knife from his pocket and slit open the top of the envelope. He peered inside, then pulled out the inner envelope. “Interesting.”

It had both Top Secret classified markings as well as Human Intelligence markings. He slit open the inner envelope as well.

Inside were a dozen or more sheets of paper. Nate reached down to his desk drawer and tossed Juan a pair of disposable gloves. “Put those on and come look at these.”

Nate motioned for Juan to come to his side of the desk as he laid the papers out in order. “It looks like autopsy reports.”

Juan stood and leaned over the desk. “Why are all the reports I see constantly marked up whenever I’m expecting to see a location or a name?”

“It depends on where the report came from, but generally speaking, these reports are masked to hide identifying marks if it involves a US citizen. It rarely makes any difference for proper analysis.”

Pointing at the third page, Juan read aloud from the report. “A fifty-year-old white male was brought in by ambulance, unconscious with a 105.2-degree fever. Upon entry into the ER the arterial pressure dropped to thirty millimeters of mercury, which led to a cardiac arrest. Resuscitation was unsuccessful. Autopsy results: acute venous plethora of internal organs; histological examination of skin revealed degranulation of mast cells. The degranulation was also revealed in the myocardium and lungs. Based on the reported exposure to yet unidentified toxins, the patient had a severe immune response that led to anaphylaxis.”

Nate looked up at him. “That mean anything to you?”

Juan pressed his lips together, remaining silent for a few long seconds. “It means that the patient had some systemic reaction. His blood pressure dropped severely, causing him to have a heart attack. All pretty standard stuff for severe allergic reactions that lead to anaphylaxis.”

Nate tapped on the last sentence. “Look at that. Someone wrote the word ‘inflammatory’ and then scratched it out, wrote ‘immune’ instead, and underlined it. Is there a significance to that?”