FBI Special Agent Robert Cavanaugh has been consigned to a backwater office in Southern Maryland where he can stay out of trouble. Yet trouble follows him as a special strain of malaria is discovered in Maryland that selectively kills African Americans with the sickle-cell trait.

Melanie Anderson is an epidemiologist who is travelling across the world trying to find the cause of this highly selective disease. But as evidence starts pointing toward a man-made cause and a possible government cover-up, she and Cavanaugh must work alone to try and uncover the truth and a cure.