I. McDowell

Half a century ago, an aberration was spotted by one of our earliest satellites, and summarily dismissed as a hardware malfunction. But it was no aberration. And no malfunction. It was an accidental glimpse of something extraordinary, and very old. Mocked for decades, the man who designed the satellite is now dead. With the system's original data firmly in the hands of former NTSB investigator Joe Rickards and anthropologist Angela Reed.

Derek Martell finds himself on a contract job in Iraq when the newly formed Islamic Caliphate unleashes a genetic weapon - to devastating effect. Eighty percent of the non-Arab global population is wiped out overnight. As Derek and his crew struggle to escape the Middle East ahead of an expected nuclear counterstrike, questions plague him. Why are military personnel seemingly unaffected? How far-reaching is the weapon? And is there still a United States to return to?