BEGINNING OF THE END For Brandon, chief of surgery at an Albuquerque hospital, it started, when patients were brought in with strange, bloodless incisions. There were top secret installations in New Mexico, so Brandon suspected that somehow the government was involved. His suspicion grew when his friend Temple, who nad noticed the same mutilations in animals, was killed on an Air Force base. Warned off by a sinister major, Brandon went ahead, only to find himself locked up in å mental hospital. At home, his wife had become paranoid, swearing that she had been visited by mysterious men in black. Brandon himself talked of a pact he had made with some unidentified race, one that he vowed to honor. Branded as a madman, only he could find the answers before it was too late.