In this electrifying thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author James Rollins, Sigma Force races to crack ultimate mystery of the origin of life--a quest that will save mankind . . . or destroy it In Copenhagen, a suspicious bookstore fire propels Commander Gray Pierce on a relentless hunt across four continents - and into a terrifying mystery surrounding horrific experiments once performed in a now-abandoned laboratory buried in a hollowed-out mountain in Poland. In the mountains of Nepal, in a remote monastery, Buddhist monks inexplicably turn to cannibalism and torture - while Painter Crowe, director of Sigma Force, begins to show signs of the same baffling, mind-destroying malady...and Lisa Cummings, a dedicated American doctor, becomes the target of a brutal, clandestine assassin. Now only Gray Pierce and Sigma Force can save a world suddenly in terrible jeopardy. Because a new order is on the rise - an annihilating nightmare growing at the heart of the greatest mystery of all: the origin of life.