For over a half century, the nation's largest stockpile of radioactive waste-some 53 million gallons-lurked in captivity beneath the 560 square miles of southeastern Washington's Hanford Nuclear Reservation-until one Saturday morning when nearby Rattlesnake Mountain becomes the epicenter of a rare and violent earthquake that unleashes the perils of Hanford's toxic legacy. Insidious poisons, freed from their confines, rush silently through underground waterways toward the Columbia River posing an imminent threat to the region's civilian population. Using their company's genetically engineered microbes to combat the deadly advance, biotechnology gurus Marcus Steele and Leigh Richards lead their scientific team in the race of and for their lives.