An Antarctic whaler stumbles upon an aged wreck, its frozen crew guarding crates of bizarre antiquities - and a black skull carved from solid obsidian... A team of experts gazes in awe at a wall covered in ancient inscriptions, moments before a dynamite blast seals them deep beneath the rocky ground of Colorado... A US research ship is attacked by an impossibility - a vessel from a war that ended over half a century ago... Dirk Pitt, Director of Special Projects for the US National Underwater and Marine Agency, knows that the incidents are connected - but how? As his investigation deepens an astonishing truth becomes clear and a terrible danger revealed. From the impossibly distant past has come a warning. And from an enemy thought long defeated comes a threat to the future of all mankind. Now the clock is ticking. And only one man stands in the way of global Armageddon...