Biochemist and marathon runner Emma Caldridge is halfway through South Africa's Comrades ultra-marathon when a roadside car bomb explodes. When she wakes up, dazed and disoriented, a stranger is injecting her with an unknown substance that leaves her stronger than before. Then the man vanishes.Emma wants answers, and turns to Edward Banner of the security company Darkview. But Banner's already got his hands full, thanks to the assault on a cruise ship by Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden—a ship that carries a weapon, possibly chemical in nature, that he needs Emma to identify. And among the hostages is special agent Cameron Sumner—a man to whom Emma owes her life. Emma knows this assignment is potential suicide. Still, nothing is going to prevent her from getting aboard the captured vessel. And this time, there'snowhere to run . . .