At Fermilab near Chicago, researchers use the world's largest particle accelerator to unlock the secrets of the subatomic universe. While working late one night, Dr. Georg Dumenico-candidate for the Nobel Prize in physics-is bombarded with a lethal exposure of radiation. He will die horribly within days. FBI Special Agent Craig Kreident knows it was no accident-but he has to prove it, and the clock is ticking. The nation's most valued research is at stake, and only Dumenico himself knows enough to track down his own murderer...if he survives long enough to do it.