A toxic presidential election is underway in an America already badly weakened by internal divisions. While politicians focus entirely on maintaining their own power and privilege, ISIS kidnaps a brilliant French microbiologist and forces him to begin manufacturing anthrax. Slickly produced videos chronicling his progress and threatening an imminent attack are posted to the internet, intensifying the hysteria gripping the United States. ISIS recruits a Mexican drug cartel to smuggle the bioweapon across the border, but it's really just a diversion. The terrorist organization needs to keep Mitch Rapp and the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency Irene Kennedy distracted long enough to weaponize a deadly virus they stumbled upon in Yemen. If ISIS succeeds, they'll trigger a pandemic which could rewrite the world order. Rapp embarks on a mission to infiltrate the Mexican cartels and track down the ISIS leader whom he failed to kill during their previous confrontation. But with Washington's political elite increasingly lined up against him, Rapp knows he'll be on his own.