An alarming rise in the world's sea levels - much larger than could be accounted for by glacier melt - sends Kurt Austin, Joe Zavala, and the rest of the NUMA scientific team rocketing around the globe in search of answers. What they find at the bottom of the East China Sea, however, is even worse than they imagined: a diabolical plan to upset the Pacific balance of power - and in the process displace as many as a billion people.