1942, the Cape of Good Hope. Returning from a secret mission to the Far East an Italian submarine is attacked by British aircraft and fatally damaged. On board, a mysterious scientist and his precious cargo are believed to be lost along with the vessel . . . Three quarters of a century later, while diving off the coast of Chile, NUMA Director Dirk Pitt saves a crowded cruise ship from being rammed by a runaway freighter. On board the rogue ship he finds the strangely burned remains of a single crewman. A continent away, in a secure Naval dry-dock, the President is shown the prototype of the Poseidon's Arrow attack submarine, the top secret result of a black programme so advanced it will secure US dominance at sea for decades to come. But there's one problem. The scientist responsible for its design has disappeared, along with the final plans to the technology. Pitt is assigned to investigate. But as the hunt leads him around the world, both his partner and Poseidon's Arrow revolutionary propulsion system also go missing. And soon the chilling connections between apparently disparate events begin to reveal themselves. Only Pitt can halt a shadowy conspiracy hellbent using America's latest military technology to realize their terrifying ambitions. And in a race against time that leads him from Washington to the impenetrable depths of the Panama jungle, Pitt realizes that unless he succeeds in stopping them, the world will become a very different place. With all the searing pace, wild imagination and heart-in-the-mouth thrills that are the Cussler hallmark, Poseidon's Arrow affirms once more that we are in the hands of the Grandmaster of Adventure