Deep in the heart of the darkest region of the Congo, an eight-person field expedition dies mysteriously and brutally in a matter of minutes...Ten thousand miles away, at the Houston-based Earth Resources Technology Services, Inc., supervisor Karen Ross watches a gruesome video transmission of that ill-fated team: a camp destroyed, tents crushed and torn, equipment scattered in the mud alongside bodies - and the grainy, moving image of a dark, blurred shape...
In San Francisco, primatologist Peter Elliot works with Amy, a gorilla with a 620 "sign" vocabulary and a fondness for finger painting. Her recent drawing matches, with stunning accuracy, the frayed, bitter pages of a Portuguese print dating back to 1642 - a drawing of an ancient lost city. Immediately, a new expedition is sent into the Congo, descending into a secret world where the only way out may be through the grisliest death...
