Robert Ludlum

"Jason Bourne must confront a nightmare version of himself--an amoral, heartless killer--in this new novel in Robert Ludlum's bestselling series"--Provided by publisher.

"What they're going to do, I never would have believed it. It's insanity!" They were the final words spoken by Yuri Danko, an officer in the medical division of Russia's security service, before his body was ripped apart by a spray of assassins' bullets. In possession of Danko's classified papers, Covert-One operative Jon Smith and CIA undercover agent Randi Russell have unearthed a terrifying global conspiracy that threatens to unleash a plague of immeasurable proportions. A Serb terrorist has been dispatched from Russia to spirit hazardous vials of deadly bacteria into the United States. His mission: deliver it to an unknown American government agent-- a shadowy figure whose own motives for acquiring the bioweapon are made all the more unfathomable when both men are found murdered, and the strain is stolen. Now Smith and Russell must track it down, find the madman who possesses it, and stop him before he holds a defenseless world hostage with the power to render the human race extinct.

"A homeless man in Boston, an Army Major in California, and a teenage girl in Atlanta all die suddenly and painfully - each a victim of an unknown doomsday virus. For three days, a team of scientists in a U.S. government laboratory has been frantically trying to unlock the virus's secrets. When the leading researcher from that lab, Lt. Col. Jonathan Smith, returns from overseas, he barely survives a series of well-orchestrated attempts made on his life. By the time Smith eludes his pursuers and makes it home, he discovers that the virus has claimed its fourth victim, Dr. Sophia Russell - Smith's fiancee. Devastated and enraged, Smith quickly uncovers evidence that his lover's death was no accident - that someone out there has the virus, and the pandemic that threatens hundreds of millions of lives is no accident. But wherever he turns, Smith finds that some unseen force has blocked his quest for information.". "Not knowing whom to trust, Smith assembles a private team to search for the truth behind the deadly virus. While the death toll mounts, their quest leads to the highest levels of power and the darkest corners of the earth, as they match wits with a determined genius - and as the fate of the world lies in the balance."--BOOK JACKET.

542 p. ; 18 cm