ju·das strain, n. A scientific term for an organism that drives an entire species to extinction A master at combining historical and scientific intrigue with cutting-edge adventure, New York Times bestselling author of Map of Bones and Black Order James Rollins returns with his most relentless, high-octane thriller to date—a terrifying story of an ancient menace reborn to plague the modern world . . . and of an impossible hope that lies hidden in the most shocking place imaginable: within the language of angels. From the depths of the Indian Ocean, a horrific plague has arisen to devastate humankind—a disease that's unknown, unstoppable . . . and deadly. But it is merely a harbinger of the doom that is to follow. Aboard a cruise liner transformed into a makeshift hospital, Dr. Lisa Cummings and Monk Kokkalis—operatives of the shadowy covert organization SIGMA Force—search for answers to the bizarre affliction that has inexplicably washed ashore. But there are others with far less altruistic intentions. In a savage and sudden coup, terrorists hijack the vessel, turning a mercy ship into a floating bio-weapons lab. At a Fourth of July celebration a world away, SIGMA's commander Gray Pierce thwarts the murderous schemes of a beautiful assassin—a would-be killer who holds the first clue to the discovery of a possible cure. With the fate of every man, woman, and child on Earth hanging in the balance, Pierce joins forces with the woman who wanted him dead, and together they embark upon an astonishing quest—one that winds through Venetian tombs, Byzantine cathedrals, and jungle-encrusted ruins—following the trail of the most fabled explorer in history: Marco Polo. But time is an enemy as a worldwide pandemic grows rapidly out of control. And as a relentless madman dogs their every step, Pierce and his unlikely ally are being pulled into an astonishing mystery buried deep in antiquity and in humanity's genetic code. And as the seconds tick closer to doomsday, Pierce will realize he can truly trust no one—not the bewitching enigma who runs at his side or even those who are closest to him—for any one of them could be . . . a Judas.
"A page-turner...Chichton's writing is cinematic, with powerful visual images and nonstop action. This book should come with hot buttered popcorn." NEWSWEEK A group of American scientists are rushed to a huge vessel that has been discovered resting on the ocean floor in the middle of the South Pacific. What they find defines their imaginations and mocks their attempts at logical explanation. It is a spaceship of phenomenal dimensions, apparently, undamaged by its fall from the sky. And, most startling, it appears to be at least three hundred years old.... "The suspense is real." THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
Juan Cabrillo and his CIA-backed Oregon crew must beat opposing factions to a discovery that could prevent World War III in this novel in the #1 New York Times-bestselling series. In the remote wastes of Greenland, a young scientist has unearthed an artifact hidden in a cave for a millennium: a 50,000 year-old radioactive meteorite known as the Sacred Stone. But the astounding find places him in the crosshairs of two opposing groups who seek the stone for themselves. One is a group of Muslim extremists who have stolen a nuclear device. With the power of the meteorite, they could vaporize any city in the west. The other group is led by a megalomaniacal industrialist who seeks to carry out the utter annihilation of Islam itself. Caught between two militant factions bent on wholesale slaughter, Juan Cabrillo and his crew must fight to protect the scientist and the Sacred Stone—and prevent the outbreak of World War III...
The 1950 discovery of four bodies inside a sunken steam locomotive in a Montana lake gives way to the story of a murderous 1906 bank robber whose ruthlessness challenged Isaac Bell, a talented detective whose struggle to identify and capture the killer had been complicated by the great San Francisco earthquake. 750,000 first printing.
On a remote island in Lake Superior, scientists struggle to solve the problem of xenotransplantation: using animal tissue to replace failing human organs. Funded by the biotech firm Genada, Dr. Claus Rhumkorrf strives to recreate the ancestor of all mammals, and use it to genetically engineer a self-sustaining herd of organ-donor animals. The process will save millions of lives, and make billions for Genada. Rhumkorrf discovers this ancestor, but it's not the docile, harmless creature he envisions. His genius gives birth to a fast-growing evil that nature eradicated 250 million years ago. An evil now on the loose, and very...very...hungry.
Archaeologist Nathan Lee Swift is coaxed by his mentor to steal an ancient vial of blood from Golgotha in Jerusalem. When the relic is opened, a 2,000-year-old plague is unleashed. As the pestilence threatens to wipe out humanity, Nathan Lee must race with a desperate strategy to find a cure: the use of human lab rats cloned from blood from the year zero.