Prologue
“Where am I?”
Dr. Ravi Kumar, a world-renowned aerospace engineer and the director of a prestigious aviation institute in Ithaca, New York, woke up in the middle of the night, sweaty and completely disoriented. He had no idea where he was except that he was on the run with his wife, Caitlyn. He turned over and felt Caitlyn—she was there in bed next to him. He let out a big sigh of relief and then slowly it all began to come back.
He was in a Riad in Casablanca, Morocco, which belonged to Dr. Larabi Hasan, his friend and old colleague from the Materials Research Institute in Ithaca, New York. Ravi had called him yesterday from Marseille, France, to ask for a place to stay for a few days where he and Caitlyn could keep a low profile and sort things out. At least two teams of professional hit men were after them, trying to bring them back to the States—willingly or otherwise.
So far, they had managed to stay just a step ahead. But Ravi had no illusion that it was only a matter of time before their luck ran out. They had been on the run for the last six weeks and it just could not go on. He needed a place where they could stay while he came up with a survival plan. He still could not believe that a person like him—that many would call colorless and nerdy—was involved in an international manhunt, running for his life. It did not make any sense.
It all seemed to have started six months ago when Ravi came up with the secret ingredient to a substance that had the power to change the future of the aviation industry—and the future of the planet itself.