Elise walked to the door, which had a video camera mounted above it, and a split second later, it buzzed, signaling it was unlocked.

This is a lot of security, Ally thought, for a clinic doing research on cells. Are they worried about spies getting in, or patients getting out?

But the locked steel door was just the beginning of the security. Next they entered a small room just inside the door with an X-ray machine to see into purses and parcels.

"The first floor is reception and dining," Elise explained as she swept through the metal detector. "There are rooms-- we call them suites-- upstairs for patients, and the research lab and offices are in the . .

. lower area."

"What ... what is all this security for?" Ally asked.

"The work here is highly proprietary. No one is allowed to bring in any kind of camera or recording equipment."

The guard dressed in white looked like a retired policeman, with perhaps a few too many jelly doughnuts over his career. He had a beefy red face and a hefty spare tire. But he was certainly alert to his responsibilities, eyeing the three newcomers with scarcely disguised suspicion.

In fact, Ally sensed a palpable paranoia in the air. Well, she told herself, medical research is a high-stakes game. It's understandable they would be concerned about industrial espionage.

After the security check, they went through another steel

door and entered the actual lobby. The first thing she noticed was a grand staircase leading up to the second floor, and then to the third.

Off to the right was a modern elevator with a shiny steel door.

A number of patients were coming down the stairs and heading for a hallway leading to the back. They were mostly women, whose ages ranged anywhere from forty-five to well beyond seventy.

Who are these people? Ally wondered. They must have been sufferers of various kinds of debilitating afflictions, but now they were certainly ambulatory, if not downright sprightly. She wanted to talk to some of them, watching them moving along chatting and smiling, but this was not the moment.

"At eleven-thirty we have meditation in the dining hall," Elise was saying as she led them through the lobby, "for those who care to partic.i.p.ate, and after that a vegetarian lunch is served at twelve- thirty sharp." Then she glanced back. "After you see Dr. Van de Vliet-- and a.s.suming you're admitted--there'll be an orientation and then you're welcome to begin partic.i.p.ating fully in our activities."

"Actually," Ally said, "if people are well enough to be in 'activities,' why can't they be outpatients?"

"These clinical trials require twenty-four-hour supervision," Elise explained, heading for the wide desk in the center of the room. "Now, if you would all sign in here at the desk, Ellen can take you downstairs to the medical reception."

A dark-haired woman smiled from behind the desk, then got up and came around. A sign-in book was there on a steel stand. Ally finally noticed that light cla.s.sical music was wafting through the room, Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake suite.

"You must be Ms. Hampton," the woman said. "And this must be your mother. We were told to expect you."

She nodded a farewell to Elise, who said, "It was so nice to meet you.

Good luck."

She then turned and headed for the back.

Ally signed all three of them in.

"Good," the woman said as she checked the information.

"My name is Ellen O'Hara, by the way. I'm in charge of the nursing staff here. We're ready to go downstairs now."

Ellen O'Hara had a knowing, earnest face that fairly lit up when she smiled. She had short brown hair streaked with gray and was pleasantly full-figured.

When they reached the elevator, she zipped a small plastic card through the reader on the wall and the doors slid open. As they emerged on the lower level, Ally realized they were in the precincts of a very sophisticated medical laboratory. Occupying most of the floor was a gla.s.sed-in area, inside of which she could see three men and two women, all dressed in white. She also noticed rows of steel containers that seemed to be ovens or incubators of some kind as well as racks and racks of vials. At the far end of the laboratory, there was a blackboard on which one of the men was drawing something that looked like hexagonal molecules, linking them together.

"That's Dr. Van de Vliet," Ellen said pointing. "I'll let him know you're here. The laboratory is a special environment. The entrance there is actually an air lock. The air inside is filtered and kept under positive pressure."

She walked over to a communications module, buzzed then announced into the microphone, "Dr. Vee, your eleven- thirty appointment is here."

He turned and stared in their direction, then smiled and waved. Next he walked to a microphone near the center of the room and clicked it on.

"I'll be with you in a minute. Can you please wait in the receiving room? And Ellen, can you start getting them ready?"

"Of course." She nodded then clicked off the microphone and turned.

"Receiving is just down at the end of the hall. Next to his office.

Please come with me."

She led them through a large wooden door, into a room with a retractable metal table covered in white paper and several chairs. It was a typical examination room, with a device on the wall to monitor blood pressure, a stethoscope, and other examination paraphernalia.

"If you'll kindly take a seat," Ellen said, "I'm sure he'll be here as soon as he can, in a few minutes at most. But while we wait, I need to take your temperature and blood pressure, and start a chart."

"Ally, where are we?" Nina asked. Her face was becoming alarmed, and Maria reached to comfort her. "Are we in a hospital somewhere?"

"Yes, Mom, it's actually the inst.i.tute I told you about last night The doctor here wants to see if he can do anything to... help you."

"Oh," she said, "is he the one you told me about? I thought that was just a dream."

"No, he's real. Whether he can help you or not that part is what's still a dream. But we're all praying."

She looked around at the pure white walls and wondered again what she was getting into. Meeting a new specialist in the sterile white cold of an examination room, could be frightening in itself. G.o.d, how many times before had she done this as she trudged through HMO h.e.l.l? Maria was so unsettled she was deathly pale.

Ellen took their blood pressure and temperature, including Maria's, even though she protested mildly, half in Spanish--a sign of how unsettling it was to her. Ellen had only just finished putting all the numbers on clipboard charts for each of them when Karl Van de Vliet opened the door and strode in.

Chapter 13

_Tuesday, April 7

11:39 a.m.