She scrambles to her feet, abandoning the warmth of the fire. She begins pacing in a tight circle on the rug, her socks sliding on the concrete.
“A brain stem compression, not a brain bleed, it causes a blown pupil. Unilateral dilation. The pressure pushes on the oculomotor nerve. His were bilateral and pinpoint. That’s chemical. That’s toxicological. That’s a systemic response to a foreign agent.”
“They didn’t find anything.”
“Because they aren’t looking for the right thing.”
She stops, turning to me. She isn’t looking at me like a protector anymore. She’s looking at me like a resource.
“Do you have a secure link? Can I see the file?”
“I can pull the raw data.”
“Pull it.”
She commands me. And I’m listening.
I walk to the dinette table where my laptop sits open. I connect the sat-phone to the computer via a hardline. I type in the authenticator key. The screen flickers, the agency logo spinning for a second before granting access.
The file loads. Autopsy Report: Doe, John.
Iris steps up to my shoulder before the progress bar finishes. She smells of woodsmoke and sleep, a warm, disarming scent clashing with the sterile blue light of the screen. Her presence at my back carries weight, a heat source my body automatically tracks.
“Move.”
It isn’t a request.
I step aside. She takes the chair, her fingers flying over the trackpad. She scrolls past the summary, past the narrative nonsense about “blunt force trauma,” diving straight into the raw data tables.
Blood chemistry. Electrolytes. Enzyme panels. Gas spectrometry results.
She works.
I’ve spent my life surrounded by operators. Men and women who can clear a room in three seconds, who can put a round through a man’s ear canal at eight hundred yards in a crosswind. I respect competence. I respect the ability to impose will upon chaos.
But this is different.
She dissects the data with the same violence I use to dissect a threat. Her gaze darts across the screen, processing information faster than I can read it. She mouths silent words, muttering values. She isn’t guessing. She’s hunting.
“Potassium is elevated.”
Her whisper cuts the silence.
“Seven point four. That’s lethal. But there’s no tissue breakdown to explain it. No crush injury extensive enough to dump that much K+ into the bloodstream.”
“Meaning.”
I lean over her. My arm brushes her shoulder. Neither of us pulls away. The contact grounds me.
“Meaning it didn’t come from the trauma. It came from an exogenous source. It was introduced.”
She scrolls down, moving past the drug panels.
“Cholinesterase levels are floored. Zero point two. Normal range is three to five.”
She looks up at me. Her face runs pale, illuminated by the ghostly glow of the screen. Her eyes go wide, not with fear, but with the particular cold light of a diagnosis clicking into place.
“It isn’t a narcotic. They checked for drugs. Opiates, benzos, amphetamines. It’s a weapon.”
