Search Worlds Without End

From his corner office on the forty-fourth floor of the Bank of the Americas tower on Wall Street, Tom Smith, global managing director for security, could see the Statue of Liberty, Battery Park--and a ravening zombie horde.

Officially, Smith was paid to preserve the lives and fortunes of employees, billionaires, and other clients. And with an implacable virus that turned the infected into ravenous zombies tearing through the city, the country, and the world, his job just got a lot harder.

Good thing Smith, late of the Australian special forces, isn't a man to give up easily. But saving civilization is going to take more than the traditional banking toolbox of lawyers, guns, and money. Smith needs infected human spinal tissue to formulate a vaccine--and he needs it by the truckload. To get it, he will have to forge a shady alliance with both the politicians of the City of New York and some of its less savory entrepreneurs.

But all of his back-alley dealing may amount to nothing if he can't stave off the fast-moving disease as it sweeps across the planet, leaving billions dead in its wake. And if he fails, his only fallback is an incomplete plan to move enough personnel to safe havens and prepare to restart civilization.

What's more, there are others who have similar plans--and believe it or not, they're even less charitable than a Wall Street investment banker. Sooner or later Smith will have to deal with them.

But first he has to survive the Fall.

THROUGH THE RAGING PLAGUE

At Tom Smith's previous gig, he was the global managing director for security of an international bank. Then the zombies emerged. And New York burned. His plan to save the city long enough to find a cure for the zombie virus didn't survive a bloody scrimmage between angry cops, cunning gangsters, and rapacious officials.

Tom and a few trusted allies were able to stay one step ahead and barely escape. Now they seek refuge in the bank's prepared evacuation retreat in the Cumberland Valley of Tennessee. But between Tom's people and relative safety are hundreds of miles of clogged roads, burnt-out towns and howling mobs of infected humans who know only hunger. Plus there are gangs of the non-infected who would like nothing more than to defeat and enslave any weary travelers who happen their way.

And finally, if Tom does pull off the journey, no one is sure how they are going to restart civilization. But even for that, Tom Smith has the spark of an idea. And, as always, the beginnings of a plan. Which he is certain will change completely when the enemy strikes.