Covert One (abridged)

In the first installment of an exciting new series from Robert Ludlum, a teenage girl in Atlanta, an Army major in California, and a homeless man in Boston all die a horrible and painful sudden death from the devastating effects of an unknown virus. Join the search for the truth behind the deadly virus in this heart-stopping listen!

When a sample of smallpox from Russia's cache of bioweapons is smuggled into the United States, Jon Smith and his colleagues must unravel the mystery of the Cassandra Compact and recover or destroy the virus - before the power of Armageddon falls into the hands of a madman.

An explosion in the middle of the night reduces part of Paris' esteemed Pasteur Institute to rubble. Among the missing is the world's top computer scientist, Emile Chambord. Even though a terrorist group claims responsibility for the bombing, many in the intelligence community suspect the scientist was actually kidnapped and the bomb set to divert attention. Chambord may have been close to devising a working molecular computer which, in the wrong hands, could be the most deadly weapon in the world.

On the dark waterside docks of Shanghai, a photographer is recording cargo being secretly loaded when he's brutally killed and his camera destroyed. Shortly thereafter Covert-One director Fred Klein brings the word to the President that there's a Chinese cargo ship rumored to be carrying tons of chemicals to be used by a rogue nation to create new biological weapons. Klein is ordered to get the President solid proof of what the Chinese ship is ferrying.

The Lazarus Movement, the dominant force in the eco-conscious, "anti-technology" protest movement, has sent rumblings down the halls of the world's intelligence agencies. Led by a mysterious, never-seen figure known only as Lazarus, this increasingly prominent group is believed by some to be preparing a bold strike.

At an international medical conference in Prague, Dr. Fiona Devin, an American scientist attached to the Department of Defense, is contacted by one of her Russian colleagues. Dr. Valentin Petrenko, a specialist in rare diseases, is concerned about a small cluster of deaths in Moscow but even more concerned by the Russian government's refusal to publicly release any information or data on the outbreak. When he meets with Devin to pass on his case notes and samples, the two are attacked.