September 1858: an Antarctic whaler stumbles upon an aged wreck carrying a mysterious cargo. March 2001: a team of anthropologists gazes in awe at a wall of strange inscriptions soon to be buried for ever. April 2001: Dirk Pitt and his crew are in a ship that is nearly sunk by an impossibility - a vessel that should have died fifty-six years previously. Pitt knows that somehow all these incidents are connected, and his investigations bring him up against a diabolical enemy: an enemy thatthreatens the future of the world itself. The trap is set. The clock is ticking. And only one man stands between earth and Armageddon.