A U.S.-educated Middle East terrorist leader and his Asleeper cell@ conspirators plot to unleash a biological Armageddon on the United States. Two U.S. forensic teaching pathologists are paid huge sums of money to help carry out the plan. An African-American star football player suddenly collapses on the practice field. Brought to the ER of a south Louisiana hospital, he unexpectedly suffers cardiac arrest and dies from a virulent form of pneumonia. That makes him the tenth such African-American athlete to die during the past year from similar medical problems. The ER=s chief resident, who treated the young athlete and assisted in his autopsy, meets an undercover narcotics agent and a sports reporter covering the athlete=s funeral. All have suspicions of foul play. After the sports reporter is brutally murdered, the agent and chief resident team up to investigate. They uncover a conspiracy and plot of biblical proportions.