At midnight, in a secret medical clinic in Washington, D.C., two foreign doctors and their team are completing plastic surgery on an anonymous client who is changing the appearance of his face, among other things. After the procedure, the client begins to stir - and suddenly the operating room erupts in violence, and the clinic is ablaze. Washington police conduct an arson investigation, with inconclusive results. But one tantalizing fragment of evidence suggests that a terrorist bombing may be imminent.