Pilot
MARK MURPHY:
General Operations
KEVIN NIXON:
Magic Shop Specialist
TRACY PILSTON:
Pilot
SAM PRYOR:
Propulsion Engineer
GUNTHER REINHOLT:
Propulsion Engineer
TOM REYES:
General Operations
LINDA ROSS:
Security and Surveillance/General Operations
EDDIE SENG:
Director of Shore Operations/General Operations
ERIC STONE:
Control Room Operator/General Operations
THE OTHERS
LANGSTON OVERHOLT IV:
CIA officer who hires the Corporation
HALIFAX HICKMAN:
Billionaire industrialist
CHRIS HUNT:
U.S. Army officer killed in Afghanistan
MICHELLE HUNT:
Mother of Chris
ERIC THE RED:
Legendary explorer
THE EMIR OF QATAR:
Leader of the country of Qatar
JOHN ACKERMAN:
Archaeologist who locates the meteorite in Greenland
CLAY HUGHES:
Assassin hired to recover the Greenland meteorite
PIETER VANDERWALD:
South African death merchant
MIKE NEILSEN:
Pilot hired to fly Hughes to Mount Forel
WOODY CAMPBELL:
Drunk in Greenland who rents Cabrillo a snowcat
ALEIMEIN AL-KHALIFA:
Terrorist planning to bomb London
SCOTT THOMPSON:
Leader of the team on the
THOMAS “TD” DWYER:
CIA scientist who discovers the meteorite’s danger
MIKO “MIKE” NASUKI:
NOAA astronomer who assists Dwyer
SAUD AL-SHEIK:
Saudi procurement official for the hajj
JAMES BENNETT:
Pilot who transports the meteorite from the Faeroe Islands to England
NEBILE LABABITI:
Terrorist for London operation
MILOS COUSTAS:
Captain of the
the ship that delivers the bomb to England
BILLY JOE SHEA:
Owner of a 1947 MG TC Cabrillo borrows to chase the bomb
ROGER LASSITER:
Disgraced CIA agent who delivers the meteorite to Maidenhead
ELTON JOHN:
Legendary musician
AMAD:
Young Yemeni who will deliver the bomb
DEREK GOODLIN:
Whorehouse owner in London
JOHN FLEMING:
Head of MI5
DR. JACK BERG:
CIA doctor who forces Thompson to talk
WILLIAM SKUTTER:
Air Force captain who leads the team in Medina
PATRICK COLGAN:
Army warrant officer heading the team to recover prayer rugs in Riyadh
PROLOGUE
FIFTY THOUSAND YEARS ago, and millions of miles from Earth, a planet was twitching convulsively to herald her destruction. The planet was ancient but her eventual demise had been cast from the start. She was an unstable orb with poles that constantly shifted polarity.
The planet consisted of rock and magma with a metal core. Over the countless eons since it had formed and cooled, an atmosphere was born. The gaseous layers were comprised of argon, helium and some hydrogen. Life was born on the surface of the planet—a low, base form of microbe.
The planet never really had a chance to develop complicated life forms. The microbes consumed oxygen molecules to multiply, keeping the surface and atmosphere barren of cells that could evolve. The planet’s surface rock turned into superheated liquid mush as each revolution around its sun drew it closer toward the fiery furnace. The planet revolved not in a spin around her axis like Earth, but rather in an ever-increasing barrel roll as the poles
