Prologue
Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital Clinic
Tuesday, April 12th
10:13 A.M.
Lisa Cuddy was stressed. Anyone could see that. If the frazzled hair and curious absence of make-up weren't obvious enough, the deep scowl that was frozen on her face certainly was. Her clothes were wrinkled and her feet were killing her. Running on barely 3 hours of sleep the past two days had taken its toll on her patience. For not the first time over the last month, she wondered once again what she'd done to deserve this nightmare; God was smiting her for the lip-gloss she'd stolen in 7th grade, she decided.
There was a simple cause for the chaos that had enveloped Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital and darkened her mood. It wasn't the electrical failure that had knocked out every elevator in the building, though that certainly didn't help. Nor was it the retirement of four cardiologists in a week, or the jump in worried parents insisting their children had bird flu. No, it was the bombs.
Or rather, she thought grimly, the bomb threats. Yesterday had been the seventh in a month; regulations required her to evacuate the hospital while the bomb squad searched futilely and ultimately deemed the threats false. Patients were transferred to other hospitals, clinic visitors ran screaming from the grounds, and the press…good lord, the press. The first time, reporters had praised her for her quick response to the possible danger. By the fifth, newspapers across New Jersey were calling for better security and ability to examine reliability. And then she had to manage patients that had been admitted somewhere else, figure out whose was whose, not to mention convince the public that the hospital was not going to explode.
The worst part was that she had to take the threats seriously, because if one did go boom, it would be her fault. God, she didn't want to think about that. Shuddering at the possibility, Cuddy stalked to her office and collapsed on the couch. Sleep. Need sleep.
When the phone started ringing, it took her a second to distinguish the noise from the ringing in her ears. Sleep. She dragged herself to the desk, eyes still closed. Where was that damn phone? Ah, there we go.
"What?" she sighed.
"Hello, Ms. Cuddy. Tired?" The voice was giving her goosebumps.
"Who is this?"
He chuckled. "All in good time, Ms. Cuddy. But I would advise you to step away from the window."
She was wide-awake now. "If this is another bomb threat, I'll…"
"You'll what? Ignore it? That would be foolish, Ms. Cuddy. Goodbye now. I hope your day is a blast." The man hung up, giggling. Cuddy rolled her eyes and rubbed her throbbing temples. Not again. Well, she would not be humiliated again. She'd call the bomb squad, but no evacuation. Yes, that's what she'd do. After her nap.
She spun on her heel and had taken a step towards the couch when the bomb exploded. The window behind her desk shattered, sending glass shards flying. The shockwave of heat threw her body against the opposite wall like a rag doll. Red. Flames were everywhere. She tasted blood, saw blood, felt blood. She lay crumpled in a heap on the floor. All she could see was red, even has her conscience slipped away.
Red.