September 1858: An Antarctic whaler stumbles on an aged wreck, its grisly frozen crew guarding crates of odd antiquities - and a skull carved from black obsidian. March 2001: A team of anthropologists gazes in awe at a wall of strange inscriptions, moments before a blast seals them deep within the Colorado rock. April 2001: A research ship manned by Dirk Pitt and members of the U.S. National Underwater and Marine Agency is set upon and nearly sunk by an impossibility - a vessel that should have died fifty-six years before. Pitt knows that somehow all these incidents are connected, and his investigations soon land him deep in an ancient mystery with very modern consequences, up against a diabolical enemy unlike any he has ever known, and racing to save not only his own life - but the future of the world itself.