Penguin Books Australia

In the dark, final days of World War Two, two submarines set out from Japan bearing a deadly virus destined for US cities. But neither boat was heard of again . . .

1910, and America's first ever cross-country flying race has been sabotaged . . .

Newspaper magnate Preston Whiteway is offering a big prize for the first aviator to cross America in under fifty days. He wants Josephine Frost - the country's leading as well as most glamorous pilot - to win. Which is why he's hired Isaac Bell of the Van Dorn Detective Agency.

An ancient treasure stolen by Xerxes the Great . . .
Discovered by Napoleon Bonaparte . . .
The clues to its hidden location lost until now . . .

Adventurers and treasure hunters Sam and Remi Fargo are on a wild-goose chase. Up to their waists in the Great Pocomoke Swamp in Maryland, they're hunting for lost gold. What they find instead is a small Second World War German U-boat.

Whether it's lost treasure or missing persons, the Fargos find themselves in a heap of trouble every time . . .

When Texas oil baron Charlie King contacts Sam and Remi Fargo he has an unusual request. He hired an investigator - and good friend of the pair - to locate his missing father in the Far East. But now the investigator has vanished. Would Sam and Remi be willing to look for them both?

Though...

In the Micronesian Islands, a top-secret US undersea lab vanishes . . .

At the same time, off Bermuda, a bathysphere operated by NUMA and overseen by Kurt Austin is attacked and becomes stranded half a mile below the surface. Only quick thinking and bold action will save the crew - which includes the head of a certain, now-missing undersea lab - from a watery grave.

In the middle of the Indian Ocean, a NUMA research vessel is taking water samples at sunset, when a crew member spots a sheen of black oil ahead of them. But it is not oil. Like a horde of army ants, a swarm of black particles suddenly attacks the ship, killing everyone aboard, while the ship itself goes up in flames.

A Japanese cargo ship cruises the eastern Atlantic near the Azores - when it bursts into flames.

A gang of pirates speeds to take advantage of the disaster - when their boat explodes.

What is happening in that part of the world?

As Kurt Austin, Joe Zavala, and the rest of NUMA's Special Assignments Team rush to investigate, they find themselves drawn into the extraordinary ambitions of an African dictator...