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overhead. The warmth of the pale sun on her back lifted her spirits slightly as she walked through the main entrance past the intense scrutiny of a security guard.
    Her interest extended to what she could learn, but no further. She was not burdened by the sight or knowledge of the terrible injuries that so many of the witnesses had suffered; rather, it was the lack of progress finding information that was such a crushing disappointment to her.
    Taking the elevator up to the fifth floor, Naomi asked to see Megan Lawrence. After bluffing or outright lying through a series of questions and filling out the appropriate paperwork, she was finally escorted to Lawrence’s room by an exhausted young resident.
    â€œHer injuries are very severe,” he confided in a low voice, although there was no one within sight to overhear. “She sustained multiple fractures to the skull when her head hit the pavement, but somehow she was only slightly concussed. That’s the least of it. She suffered extensive third-degree burns over thirty percent of her body, penetrating down to the hypodermis. Most of the burns are on her chest and arms, upper legs. There wasn’t much pain at first…Her nerve endings were seared, but she started to feel it on Monday. We’ve had her on a morphine drip for two days.”
    â€œWill she live?”
    The resident shook his head slowly and looked away. “The chemicals inside that rocket produce effects almost identical to those of white phosphorus,” he said. Kharmai was familiar with the statistics relating to that particular substance, but did not volunteer this information. “She’s demonstrating the initial symptoms of osteomyelitis of the jaw, a very rare condition associated primarily with exposure to highly toxic chemicals. The triethylaluminum that was released on the street oxidizes when exposed to air, and the particles continue to burn even after they are embedded in epithelial tissue, so you can imagine how painful these injuries are. The chemicals have also caused irreparable damage to her liver and kidneys, and frankly, she’s just too far down on the donor list for it to make a difference.”
    Naomi thought that if she had truly been related to Lawrence as she had claimed on the forms, the resident’s blunt analysis of the woman’s condition would have sent her into hysterics. Her fears were confirmed when she pointedly flashed her credentials to the Secret Service agent seated in front of Megan’s door, and the doctor did not seem surprised. How did he know who I was? she asked herself angrily. She fervently hoped that news of this visit would not be leaked to the press, but knew that it would probably be a matter of public record within the hour. The interview with Lawrence was the most important of the day, though, and she could not rush through it just to avoid reporters. Before she entered the room, the young resident pulled her back gently.
    â€œListen,” he said, “I don’t know if you’ve had experience with this kind of thing or not, but what you do when you walk in there means a lot. She’ll look to your expression to gauge her own appearance, her own condition. She’s aware of the prognosis—but she doesn’t need to be reminded of it every time someone walks in.”
    Naomi gave a terse nod and pulled away from the doctor abruptly.
    As the agent followed her through the door to keep an eye on the proceedings, she could not keep the sickened expression from her face. The woman on the bed was hardly recognizable as a human being, her body and face scorched by burns so deep that they appeared quite dry and dark red. The lingering smell of garlic pervaded the air, which Naomi knew was the result of the necrosis eating away at the subcutaneous layers of skin. Although the most heavily burned parts of the woman’s body were covered by white sterile dressings drenched in saline, Naomi could see