The breathing difficulty continued, and he couldn't get up. It seemed as if he was being held down. He felt a sense of panic, but at the same time, he felt as if he was drifting into a deeper phase of sleep. For a short time, he fought these conflicting sensations, but eventually he surrendered to the latter feeling.

One by one, prominent staff physicians of Covenant Hospital in Chicago are dying under mysterious circumstances.

When Dr. Harrison is found dead in bed, it appears to be a tragic heart attack. Then Dr. Spann dies of meningitis. When Dr. Albert is found dead in his garage from an apparent suicide, the hospital employees only have slight suspicions about the real cause of death. By the time Dr. Gottlieb expires from a venous air embolism, it becomes apparent that a serial killer is on the loose, and Dr. Jason Pollard knows what he has to do to stop it. Pollard, along with Detective Richard Galinski and his daughter, medical student Amanda Galinski, collaborate in an effort to solve the case. Will they be able to catch the killer before any more doctors die?