The Rand scientific expedition entered the lush wilderness of the Amazon and never returned. Years later, one of its members has stumbled out of the world’s most inhospitable rainforest: a former Special Forces soldier – scarred, mutilated, terrified, and mere hours from death – who went in with one arm missing… and came out with both intact.

Unable to comprehend this inexplicable event, the government sends Nathan Rand into this impenetrable secret world of undreamed-of perils to follow the trail of his vanished father… toward mysteries that must be solved at any cost. But the nightmare that is awaiting Nate and his team of scientists and seasoned U.S. Army Rangers dwarfs any danger they anticipated… an ancient, unspoken terror – a power beyond human imagining – that can forever alter the world beyond the dark, lethal confines of the Amazon rainforest for better… and for worse.

Four centuries ago, a precious idol was hidden in the jungles of Peru. To the Incan people, it is still the ultimate symbol of their spirit. To William Race, an American linguist enlisted by the U.S. Army to decipher the clues to its location, it's the ultimate symbol of the apocalypse.

Carved from a rare stone not found on Earth, the idol possesses elements more destructive than any nuclear bomb—a virtual planet killer. In the wrong hands, it could mean the end of mankind. And whoever possesses the idol, possesses the unfathomable—and cataclysmic—power of the gods.

Now, in the foothills of the Andes, Race's team has arrived—but they're not alone. And soon they'll discover that to penetrate the temple of the idol is to break the first rule of survival. Because some treasures are meant to stay buried and forces are ready to kill to keep it that way...