The world had just exited the worst pandemic in a century when a small African village in the Olduvai region - the birthplace of human evolution - is consumed by death in a few hours. All indications point to a new infectious agent as death spreads rapidly across the continent. Mensa-minded Dr. Catherine Montoya, the CDC Director, calls Jack Cann, a 45-year-old virology Ivy League rock star, and now a professor at his Midwestern alma mater, to lead the team working to identify the cause. The NSA suspects it's a genetically-altered, weaponized virus created by the North Koreans, tested in Olduvai, now out of control. While the world prepares for war, Jack and Seal Team 2 covertly search for evidence in a remote North Korean biowarfare lab, but Jack's romantic partner, anthropologist Dr. Marla Qui, discovers the critical clue: the pattern of death follows man's evolutionary migratory path out of Africa, and is now headed toward India and Asia. The research team discovers something more terrifying than any virus: a genetic "kill switch" hiding dormant within the human genome since the dawn of evolution, threatening all civilization, leaving them racing against the clock to save their own lives.