At the dawn of civilization ... An exotic stranger appears in a Mesopotamian village and is venerated as a goddess ... until she unleashes a horror beyond anything humankind has ever known. At the sunset of civilization ... A mercenary unit in northern Iraq, led by Sergeant Jason Yaeger, has trapped radical Islam's most wanted target in a mysterious cave that sits at the heart of the Genesis story. When a Marine platoon seeks to control the extraction mission, a threat far more ominous is found lurking beneath the mountains. Meanwhile in Boston, Massachusetts, Agent Thomas Flaherty helps archaeologist Brooke Thompson escape assassination by a Las Vegas televangelist intent on using the cave's deepest secret to bring the Middle East to its knees.