Arson and murder reveal an insidious plot to steal a Bible that once belonged to Charles Darwin. As Commander Gray Pierce investigates, he is soon caught up in a mystery that dates back to Nazi Germany - and to horrific experiments performed in a now abandoned laboratory buried in a hollowed-out mountain in Poland. A continent away, madness ravages a remote monastery high in Nepal. As Lisa Cummings, a young American doctor, begins to investigate reported atrocities at the monastery, she is suddenly the target of an assassin. Her only ally is Painter Crowe, director of SIGMA Force, now undercover - and already showing signs of the baffling malady destroying the minds of the monks. Now it is up to Gray Pierce to save both Painter and Lisa - and a world in jeopardy...