Stephen Coonts has earned an extraordinary worldwide reputation with his military thrillers featuring Jake Grafton, one of the most popular and recognizable characters in contemporary suspense fiction. In this exhilarating departure, Coonts takes readers on an imaginative journey into space that is as suspenseful as any of his other stories . . .

When Rip Cantrell, a seismic survey worker in the Sahara, spots a glint of reflected light in the distance, he investigates-and finds a piece of metal apparently entombed in the sandstone. Before long, Rip and his colleagues uncover a flying...