A year has passed since the Sutter Buttes incident. Jack Dawson and Naomi Perrault, having failed to find the elusive bag of lethal New Horizons seed, are fired and the secret agency established under President Curtis to study the harvesters is shut down. As the harsh controls on biotechnology and genetics research imposed under President Curtis are rescinded by the new President, Naomi is recruited by a self-made billionaire in the pharmaceuticals industry who wants her to continue her original work in developing a food-based delivery system for vaccines. She is thrilled until she discovers that her new colleagues have made far more progress than should have been possible, unless they had samples of the seed from New Horizons to reverse engineer. While Naomi confronts a horrifying revelation in Los Angeles, Jack heads to India to discover what happened to Dr. Vijay Chidambaram, one of the Earth Defense Society scientists who returned to his homeland after the organization was disbanded. Left in critical condition after a hit and run accident that killed one of his colleagues, Vijay sends Jack to a remote village where he uncovers a terrifying secret. And in Russia, Army Captain Sergei Mikhailov and his men are sent on a mission into the heart of the country's grain belt to find out what happened at a shadowy facility where everyone has mysteriously disappeared. None of them understand the true extent of the horror that is about to be unleashed across the globe, a nightmare they may not be able to stop.