1942, the Cape of Good Hope. Returning from a secret mission a submarine is attacked and fatally damaged. Its precious cargo is believed to be lost along with the vessel ... Three quarters of a century later, NUMA Director Dirk Pitt saves a crowded cruise ship from being rammed by a runaway freighter. On board the rogue ship he finds the strangely burned remains of a single crewman. A continent away, the President is shown the prototype of the Poseidon's Arrow attack submarine, the top secret result of a programme so advanced it will secure US dominance at sea for decades to come. But the scientist responsible for its design has disappeared, along with the final plans to the technology. Pitt is assigned to investigate. But as the hunt leads him around the world, both his partner and Poseidon's Arrow revolutionary propulsion system also go missing. And soon the chilling connections between apparently disparate events begin to reveal themselves. Only Pitt can halt a shadowy conspiracy hellbent on using America's latest military technology to realize their terrifying ambitions.