Searching for biotech solutions to environmental problems, a senior researcher at Cumulus Biologicals creates a microbe that doesn't just break down oil spills but turns sweet crude into a tar-like solid. Applied to an oil-laden beach, it would cake the sand into asphalt and make removal impossible. The bacterial culture is a wrong turn for the company and is marked for disposal. However, a beautiful industrial spy and a ruthless arms dealer plot to divert the sample to an Arab buyer, who is under orders to discourage competition in the oil patch and raise the volume of petrodollars flowing into his country. He sees immediately that the bacterial byproduct would freeze oil fields, block wellheads, and clog pipelines—if it ever got near them. Only one thing stands in the way of their deal: a determined young economist named William Clive. He recently joined a consulting firm that covers for a national agency battling foreign theft of American industrial secrets, and he takes his job very seriously.
