FBI agent Robert Cavanaugh thinks he's on to something. The showgirl lover of a dead New York mafioso is murdered in Las Vegas. Her last words are difficult to understand but included the name of Verico, which might refer to a bio-research company in New Jersey. An Ivy League scientist is found dead in a Boston parking lot after a job interview at Verico. And the Mafia has secretly invested in this firm doing cutting-edge work with recombinant DNA. Cavanaugh knows it's all tied together, but not how, and he doesn't have enough hard evidence to convince his boss there's a case anywhere. People keep dying, but nothing makes sense, and Cavanaugh gets more desperate to find the key.