In less than nine days, terror crosses the border . . .

Hiking in Arizona, biochemist Emma Caldridgeinadvertently interrupts the operations ofdangerous traffickers in human cargo—and ischased south into the arms of millionaire drugmerchants. Suddenly a prisoner of Mexico’s mostfeared cartel, Emma makes a shocking discoveryin the marijuana fields outside Ciudad Juarez: plants rotting with a flesh-eating toxin that causes a trulyhorrible death within nine days of exposure.And there is no antidote.

The cartel believes that U.S. agents contaminatedthe plants, and, determined to make theirenemy pay, they prepare to spread their lethalproduct across America. Emma Caldridge searches desperately for a cure, but time is running outmore quickly than she anticipated. For Emmaherself has been infected—and, barring a miracle, she will die before the terrible dawning of . . .