With U.S. intelligence agencies wracked by internal power struggles and paralyzed by bureaucracy, the President is forced to establish his own clandestine group - Covert-One - selected from the very best operators America has to offer. It is only activated as a last resort, when the threat is on a global scale and time is running out.

In Northern Uganda an American Special Forces team is wiped out by a group of normally peaceful farmers. Video of the attack shows even women and children possessing almost supernatural speed and strength, consumed with a rage that makes them immune to pain, fear, and all but the most devastating injuries.

Covert-One's top operative, Army microbiologist Colonel Jon Smith, is sent to investigate the attack and finds evidence of a parasitic infection that for centuries has been causing violent insanity and then going dormant. This time, though, it's different. The infection is purposely being kept alive and the director of Iranian Intelligence is in Uganda trying to make a deal for a biological weapon to unleash on the West.

As Smith and his team are cut off from all outside support, they begin to suspect that forces much more powerful than the Iranians are in play - forces that can be traced to Washington itself.