Sarah was good, and handled Dennis very carefully. Dennis himself was another story. He understood Sarah's warnings, but there was one particular fellow staffer who he wanted to believe he could trust with his innermost thoughts.

Unfortunately she did not quite share his sentiments. So when he told her, confidentially, that he hoped to prevent the rumored euthanasia, she mentioned it laughingly to others when he was out of earshot.

Dennis was called onto the carpet. To his credit, he did not tell them about his meetings with Sarah, but he was not a very good liar. So they fired him.

Not a very smart thing for them to do, Dema thought when she found out about it. Dennis had gone to Sarah, and Sarah had sent him straight to Dema, who now had him doing depositions about everything he could come up with on what was going on at Karger.

Dema relayed these depositions to the FDA, highlighting the urgency to get that inspection team to Karger before they could cover their tracks. Cooper's testimony was incriminating, but Karger's lawyers would dismiss it as the inventions of a disgruntled former employee who had been fired for incompetence, if the Karger executives were given time to destroy the evidence. The FDA finally seemed to understand the urgency, and said the team was on the way.

But Dema sensed that all was not well. Sitting at her desk at the DEA, she visited the monkey dream again. Through the eyes and ears of Fred, she witnessed an unusual bustle of activity in the lab. Urgent word had come down to gather up all records of ongoing research and prepare them for transport. Already file drawers were being emptied, and stacks of banker boxes were rising against the walls.

"I still don't understand why we're doing this," someone was saying.

"I heard that word came from Germany that we might be on the FDA's short list for inspections. They want the house to be in order if they show up."

Dema realized that Karger must have someone at the FDA in their pocket. Not too surprising, but it complicated matters. Fred was still listening.

"This is only the beginning," said another. "The animals will be next."

"That rumor is too crazy to believe."

"Don't be too sure. You saw how quick they were to get Cooper out the door. They didn't even let him clean out his locker. They're all uptight ever since that little night raid. Now they want to make sure anything Cooper might spill gets cleaned up before the Feds arrive. And that includes our little pets here."

Dema pulled out of the monkey dream and called Sarah. "How quickly can you organize a protest rally?"

"Where? At Karger?"

"That's right. The FDA team is on its way, but I'm afraid Karger might know about it. There's no such thing as a secret at the FDA, they've got revolving doors for lobbyists and other drug industry people. Karger could have all the evidence out of sight by the time they arrive. We need a distraction."

"I'm on it. I'll have marchers there inside an hour, and more showing up. How long do we need to be there?"

"Until the FDA team gets in the door. Could be all night and into tomorrow."

"You've got it."

"I'll see you there," said Dema.

Dema's next call was to the police precinct in that part of town.

"That's right," she said, "A protest rally at Karger. Animal rights activists. I'd like you to have a couple of units there if you can. If any of the demonstrators get too obnoxious you should talk to them, but these people should be okay. It's actually Karger I'm worried about. The FDA is going to do an unannounced inspection of their facility tomorrow. But we think Karger got wind of it and might be trying to clean house before they show up. So have your guys keep an eye on things, in case something out of the ordinary happens, like a cargo van pulling up to the gate, or an unusual amount of smoke coming from their incinerator. You got it. Thanks."