The fabled Elephant Graveyard has been discovered. It contains enough ivory to make Ethiopia a wealthy nation. But the cave contains more than physical riches--it also holds the means to control the world. Fifteen scientists enter the cave. Only one leaves.
Jack Sigler, Callsign: King (field leader of the covert, black ops Chess Team) receives a cryptic text from Sara Fogg, his girlfriend and CDC "disease detective". A catastrophic disease has been reported in Ethiopia's Great Rift Valley, but Fogg suspects something more is going on. Her suspicion is confirmed when King's arrival in Africa is met by a high speed assassination attempt.
As King fights against two competing, high-tech mercenary forces, each struggling for control of the deadly discovery, Fogg disappears. Working with the surviving member of the science team that made the discovery, King begins a search for Fogg and the source of the potential plague that takes him back to the Great Rift Valley, back to the Elephant Graveyard, and brings him face-to-face with modern man's origins.
1.
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Four men were sent to kill King.
Of course they didn’t think of him as “King.” They knew his name was Jack Sigler, but even that meant nothing to them. He was just the target. If they had known about his callsign, identifying him as part of the ultra-secret and ultra-lethal black ops group called Chess Team, they probably would have sent forty.