It is the greatest advance in American defense technology in decades - an attack submarine capable of incredible underwater speeds. There is only one problem: A key element of the prototype is missing and the man who developed it is dead. At the same time, ships have started vanishing mid-ocean, usually never to be found again, but when they are, sometimes bodies are found aboard . . . burned to a crisp. What is going on? It is up to NUMA director Dirk Pitt and his team, aided by a beautiful NCIS agent and by Pitt's children, engineer Dirk and oceanographer Summer, to go on a desperate international chase to find the truth.