The sum of this complex tale is more than its parts of medical thriller, archeological fiction, action/adventure and doomsday scenario, as Long (The Descent) thrills with an intricate puzzle. A Greek collector of religious relics searching for artifacts from Christ's crucifixion sends samples of a powder dated to Year Zero to three foreign labs, thereby unwittingly unleashing a plague organism that races through the world's populations. Young archeologist Nathan Lee survives a murderous attack by his crooked professor, David Ochs, but lands in a Tibetan jail as the plague spreads. When the guards open the prison, Nathan makes his way through abandoned territories to Siberia and across to Alaska just ahead of the plague, heading for his daughter and divorced wife in D.C. He finds them gone and is mistaken by his old employer, the Smithsonian, as the messenger expected to take Year Zero bones from a Golgotha dig to the now fortified Los Alamos labs, where scientists are cloning humans who were crucified in the same time as Christ in hopes of finding an antibody from those who had natural resistance. Parlaying the bones for a spot in the restricted compound, Nathan is put in charge of the Golgotha clones by genius young scientist Miranda Abbot. She and Nathan become lovers and the nemeses of a mad scientist, who, along with Ochs, does fiendish things to clones and plague victims while disrupting the researchers. Long mounts one nearly impossible escape scene after another and doesn't miss a step as he builds a no-win scenario, then pulls it out. The shifting terrain is vibrantly portrayed, the religious fallout is deftly handled and the characters engage completely as they face a gruesome end to civilization in this dashing, exciting thriller. (Apr.)
