Some may call it "minor surgery," but not the dozen patients who, admitted to Memorial Hospital for routine procedures, get a dose of faulty anesthesia. They never wake up. They are brain dead, gone to sleep in a lifelong coma. Susan Wheeler, a young medical student, hazards her life to find the explanation. She uncovers a plot so ghastly, so far-reaching, so terrifying as to be unbelievable. Yet it is nightmarishly possible.