Ellen O'Hara, R.N., who was in charge of the nursing staff at the Dorian Institute and chair of the union committee for the Gerex Corporation, looked around the room, which was a conference space just off the laboratory in the first level of the basement. Each of the three other nurses present reported directly to her and they had filed in casually one by one, in order not to draw the attention of the research staff as they passed the laboratory. They all sensed the imminence of crisis and this was a clandestine emergency meeting. The appearance of Katherine Starr and the shooting that transpired had left the entire nursing staff in dismay. Of course they all remembered Kristen Starr, the outgoing and scatterbrained TV personality, who had arrived in the throes of a mental meltdown. Some also remembered her mother, Katherine, who had made a nuisance of herself till she was refused further admittance (on the orders, everyone suspected of the owner, Winston Bartlett, who was widely reported to have a romantic relationship with the girl). They also suspected that something had started going terribly wrong with Kristen's cosmetic procedure. After seeming okay, her behavior had suddenly become erratic and she had been immediately whisked into intensive care in the subbasement and quarantined before anybody on the regular nursing staff could learn what the problem was. She was attended by the research team he had brought from California, and the information officer at the registration desk in the lobby, May Gooden, was instructed to say she had voluntarily left the program. (Well, maybe she had, but she hadn't left the institute.) Then less than a week ago, she was rolled out on a gurney and loaded into the ambulance, which was driven by Winston Bartlett's Japanese thug, and taken God knows where. Ellen had checked and was dismayed, though not entirely surprised, to discover that none of this had been included in the weekly clinical- trial reports being forwarded to the National Institutes of Health. (Which in itself was a flagrant violation of procedural requirements.) And now this. Kristen's own mother showed up deranged and carrying a pistol, looking for her. How much longer would it be before the NIH, or the police, found out that something funny had gone on? Right now the first thing to do was to get the three senior nurses in the room to put a lid on the rumors. They were her lieutenants; it was their job. Elise Baker, single and sharp and acerbic, was in charge of the second floor; Mary Hinds, a kindly mother of two, had responsibility for the third floor, and May Gooden, the queen of communication skills, handled the reception and oversaw the staff responsible for the dining room. All three were in their forties and they reported to Ellen O'Hara, who reported to Karl Van de Vliet. "Elise, could you please close the door." "Sure." She was getting up. "Is this the quorum? You don't want anybody else here?"