A Japanese cargo ship cruises the eastern Atlantic near the Azores -- when it bursts into flames. A gang of pirates speeds to take advantage of the disaster -- but their boat explodes. What on Earth is happening? What does it have to do with the kidnapping of a top scientist from the streets of Geneva? With the defection sixty years ago of a mysterious Russian? With the discovery of an extraordinary underwater graveyard of ships and planes littered across the seafloor? As Austin and Zavala and the rest of the team rush to investigate, they find themselves drawn into the extraordinary ambitions of an African dictator, the creation of a weapon of almost mythical power, and an unimaginably audacious plan to extort the world's major nations.