CIA operatives requested the assistance of Agts. Mulder and Scully in the examination of two deceased males at Bethesda Naval Hospital. The bodies exhibited residual electrostatic discharge, resulting in abnormal post-mortem muscle reflex. Neither body exhibited signs of external lesions or surface burns, which would be consistent with electrocution. The body temperatures registered 98.3 degrees, despite pathologist’s estimation of the time of somatic deaths to have occurred six hours prior to the agents’ examination. X-rays revealed a crushed larynx, esophagus, and hyoid bone, though no external trauma was noted.
Neither CIA agent, both of whom remained unidentified, would respond to queries from Agt. Mulder or Agt. Scully as to where the victims were found, the time of death, or any other pertinent information. At this time, Agts. Mulder and Scully withdrew from the examination room.
Agt. Mulder revealed to Agt. Scully that he believed the deaths were caused by psychokinetic manipulation. Agt. Mulder was able to take fingerprint impressions from both corpses without detection, by imprinting their prints onto his eyeglasses.
Agt. Mulder’s search of the Bureau fingerprint file established the identity of both males, members of an exiled extremist group, the Isfahan. Their most recent sighting was determined to be Philadelphia. Agt. Scully contacted the Philadelphia Police Department and learned that the two male decedents were found in an alleyway adjacent to Broad Street in the city. A search of the immediate vicinity by Agt. Mulder revealed a nearby ATM banking machine. After requesting the ATM video surveillance tape, Agts. Mulder and Scully reviewed the tape, discovering the mugging of a woman by two or more perpetrators. Cross-referencing the time of the attack with a transaction code, the agents learned that the victim was Lauren Kyte, of 1500 Franklin, Bensalem. Kyte was an employee of HTG Industrial Technologies.
A computer enhancement of ATM video frames indicated the blurred image of a fourth person, though the resolution was not clear enough for a positive ID. Two of the suspects were identified as being the deceased Isfahan members examined by Agts. Mulder and Scully at Bethesda.
Agts. Mulder and Scully conducted an interview with Lauren Kyte at her home, where she was apparently packing her belongings in preparation for a move. When first shown mug shots of the deceased Isfahan members, Kyte denied having ever seen the men. After being shown the ATM video still, however, she confessed that she had not wanted to report the incident. Kyte stated that she had broken free and escaped from her attackers. She expressed ignorance of the blurred image of the other individual shown in the photo.
Upon leaving the Kyte residence, the agents' automobile was involved in a collision after the car slipped into gear unexpectedly. Agt. Mulder could not control the vehicle, which was broadsided in an intersection by another car, with no injuries to any of the parties involved.
While processing their car at the Bureau maintenance facility, Agt. Mulder indicated to Agt. Scully that the headlights were lit, even though the switch was not activated. Agt. Mulder attributed this phenomenon to high levels of electrostatic charge, similar to what was observed in the Isfahan members’ bodies in the Bethesda morgue.
Agts. Mulder and Scully began a surveillance of Lauren Kyte, photographing her at various locations, including the parking lot of HTG Industrial Technologies, where the agents observed her arguing with a painter who was attempting to paint over the parking stall name "Howard Graves."
A search of the Philadelphia Daily News's morgue files revealed a news item recounting the suicide of Howard Graves, who had been found in his bathtub with his wrists slit. The article stated that Mr. Graves, co-founder of HTG Industrial Technologies, left no note.
Agt. Mulder developed and printed the surveillance photographs he had taken of Lauren Kyte. A computer-enhanced frame revealed a photo of Lauren Kyte at her upstairs window at home. Beside her in the window was the assumed dead man, Howard Graves, positively identified by comparison with a photo that accompanied his death notice in the Daily News.
Believing that Howard Graves was living and had possibly faked his death, Agts. Mulder and Scully interviewed Ellen Bledsoe, Philadelphia County Medical Examiner, to verify whether or not Graves was deceased. Dr. Bledsoe indicated that following the autopsy of Mr. Graves, his body was cremated. Agt. Scully noted on the coroner’s autopsy report that Graves’s organs and tissue were donated to recipients around the country.
University of Pennsylvania Hospital Tissue Bank records indicated that five different people received Howard Graves’s organs, but that dura matter from his spinal column had been cryogenically preserved by the hospital. A DNA analysis confirmed that the body was that of Howard Graves. While at the hospital, Agt. Mulder received a phone call from Lauren Kyte, requesting that the agents visit her home as soon as possible.
Upon reaching the Kyte home, Agts. Mulder and Scully heard screams emanating from the residence, and drew their weapons before entering. Agt. Mulder was the first through the door, at which time he found a man suspended in mid-air, unsupported by any visible means. The unidentified man fell to the floor, dead, in the presence of Agt. Mulder, who offered as an explanation of this phenomenon his belief in psychokinesis. Agt. Scully entered the house after Agt. Mulder, and discovered Lauren Kyte in a hysterical state, along with a second intruder, a female, also dead from an apparent crushed throat. Kyte could provide no information as to the identity of the intruders, nor how they were killed.
At a federal interrogation facility, Agts. Mulder and Scully attempted to question Kyte, though she was uncommunicative.
CIA agents Webster and Saunders removed Agts. Mulder and Scully from the interrogation room in order to brief them on their own investigation of HTG Industrial Technologies, which was suspected of having sold restricted parts to the Isfahan representatives. Serial numbers on parts from the suspected Isfahan bombing of a U.S. Navy vehicle in Florida were traced to HTG Industrial Technologies.
The CIA agents attempted to question Lauren Kyte, but without success. Agts. Mulder and Scully then interviewed Lauren Kyte again, this time eliciting information about her former boss, Howard Graves. Kyte asserted that he was under pressure by his partner, Robert Dorlund to sell equipment to what Kyte described as a Mideast group. It was her belief that Dorlund had arranged to have Graves killed, and that the death was disguised as a suicide. She gave as evidence her opinion that Graves had showed her how Dorlund had him killed. Kyte indicated that Howard Graves was dead at the time of the statement, and that she felt his presence near her since his death. It should be noted that Agt. Scully disbelieved any notion of psychokinesis as an explanation for the information proffered by Kyte.
FBI and CIA agents joined together to serve a search warrant on HTG Industrial Technologies, seeking evidence of complicity in the sale of restricted manufactured parts, as covered by U.S. Federal law prohibiting the sale of strategic material to terrorist organizations. Lauren Kyte accompanied the agents in order to aid in the potential discovery of incriminating materials.
In Robert Dorlund’s private office, a 3.5-inch floppy disk was discovered that held information incriminating to HTG Industrial Technologies. Robert Dorlund was taken into custody and ultimately indicted by the U.S. Attorney’s office in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.