“I can’t see a pathologist talking about an immune response. The inflammatory response is more typical of anaphylaxis. Maybe someone made that change and sent it to me as a hint?”

“Any idea what that hint would mean?”

“No idea.” Juan looked over the other pages. “These all look like copies from the official autopsy reports. I don’t think I’ve ever seen handwritten notes on these kinds of things before.” He glanced at Nate and asked, “Clearly it’s common to black out stuff in these reports, but is it common for analysts to write on these, or monkey around with some of the words?”

“Never,” Nate said. “We do our own summary sheets and other reports, but we take things as is from other parties for the official record.”

Juan returned to his seat and leaned back, deep in thought.

Nate collected the papers and returned them to their envelope. “It doesn’t look like there’s any live ink on these pages. I’m guessing our techs won’t find any prints, but I’ll have these processed just in case. I’d love to know where these pages came from. And I’ll call the DCS folks and see what they have to say.” He put the envelope aside. “So, how is it going with your analysis?”

“Not well.” Juan frowned. “The samples that caused those deaths appear to be completely inert. Hell, I even had a mouse eat a small portion of the sample from the genetically modified calf. No effect. I won’t yet swear to it, but I think everything you brought back is harmless. It doesn’t make any sense.” Juan scrunched his face and ran his hands through his hair. “I’m missing something. I just don’t know what it is.”

###

Nate’s desk phone rang. He lurched forward and grabbed it, and before he could say a word, his supervisor began talking.

“Nate, listen to me. I just got off the phone with more brass than you can even imagine. I need you and Ragheb ready to rock and roll for a hop down to some grassland outside of Buenos Aires, Argentina. And before you ask about jurisdiction, evidently Argentina’s asked the current administration for help and the White House agreed. You will be going in with a Special Forces team. They’ll be at Andrews at fourteen hundred hours.”

“Uh, are you sure Ragheb is okay for this? If this is a military—”

“Don’t worry about her. You aren’t going to be fast-roping in or anything. But I need her to be in charge of primary biological evidence acquisition for this mission. You’ll understand why soon enough. I’m warning you, this sounds like it’ll be a repeat of your Ash Springs visit, just worse. The Argentine Federal Police are saying there’s hundreds of dead animals and at least a dozen human fatalities.”