* FACT: Our chromosomes contain billions of so-called junk DNA sequences. Some of them are the intact genetic blueprints of ancient gene-altering pathogens. * FACT: Bioweapons designers are developing deadly, genetically engineered, killer life-forms that are triggered by race-and ethnic-related genes. * FACT: DNA analysis shows that the human race has come extremely close to extinction in the past. One cause of this could have been a slatewiper-a lethal pestilence that nearly wiped the human slate clean. * FACT: By the end of World War II, Japan's biowarfare arsenal was the most advanced in the world thanks to its inhumane medical experiments that equaled those of the Third Reich. The time has come for . . . Slatewiper. Lara Blackwood, genetic engineering entrepreneur and presidential advisor, receives a call from an old college friend who asks her help in solving a ghastly epidemic in Tokyo. She agrees to help and, with a single phone call, sets in motion a chain of death and mayhem stretching from San Francisco to Washington, D.C., Amsterdam, and Japan. To her horror, she discovers her life's work has been perverted to produce a revolutionary new genetic weapon that kills by turning people's own chromosomes against them. Now Lara must risk assassination to expose the conspiracy behind Slatewiper-before a nightmarish terrorist scheme threatens the entire human race with extinction!