TIME ZONES

Maggie O'Doul is working her paleontological diggings in a remote desert region of New Mexico when she encounters weird happenings. She meets a very strange man named Jack who tries to help her; an elite military assault team that kidnaps her; a top secret research base not even the government knows about; a pair of psychologists who play with her mind; a security chief who tries to kill her; and a puzzle so mystifying she doesn't even know how to begin to understand it, let alone solve it.

And when she disappears, every trace of her existence is wiped clean. Maggie reappears in the desert days later and hundreds of miles from her site with no memory of anything and only moments to live. Rescued by a bedraggled hermit who is hardly what he seems, she is given pellets of refined rhodium worth a King's ransom, a new identity, and an escape route to freedom.

And that's when the puzzle really becomes confused. Recovering some bones and an odd piece of metal from her cache, she sends them to a friend at the University that excites the world's top scientists and brings a violent government reaction. Police, state troopers, the FBI, the CIA, Army Intelligence, and the National Security Agency are suddenly after Maggie. And Jack again intervenes to save her, but this time he arrives too late. Forces called the Cypol that even he can't control are at work to stop him and his research, and they combine to delay him while Maggie is trapped in an alley by enough firepower to arm a third world country.

Fleeing for her life, Maggie falls from a building and is completely paralyzed. Using unheard of technology developed at the research base, Jack heals the unhealable, performs the impossible, and startles the medical profession by reactivating Maggie's bones, spine and reticular activating system. All the while unseen Cypol terrorists are out to kill both of them as Maggie awakens from the nightmarish world of a coma to find herself a whole woman--but the nightmare is just beginning. She is suddenly caught in the midst of antagonists she can't see, fighting a war she can't understand, and facing an outcome she could never have expected.

And Maggie demands some answers! For a moment old memories are stirred and nightmarish images of a fiery crash that killed her parents sweep back over her. But there is no time to wonder for the Cypol are after them and Jack employs electromagnetic gravitational technology and quantum physics coupled with Einstein's unsolved Unified Field Theory to affect their escape. Astounded by sights and sounds she cannot understand, Maggie allows Jack to lead her through a maze of intrigue, daring, and subterfuge to thwart the advances of the unseen forces that pursue them. Running from the police, the government, and the fiercest fighting force the world has ever known, they find momentary refuge in a remote mountain cabin where Maggie has a moment to collect her thoughts. And what thoughts!

Just who is this man who calls himself Jack, and why is he so interested in her? While Jack disappears for a time she contacts her friend at the University who tells her Jack isn't who he claims to be and that he is really out to kill her. Frightened and defenseless, Maggie manages to escape down the mountain to meet her friend and runs headlong into a double-cross. She is cornered by the Cypol and unknowingly used as bait to lure Jack into an unseen trap. And like clockwork, Jack appears beside her, ready to do battle for her.

And Maggie wants to know why he would risk his life to try and save her! Using grid-jumping gravitators and a psychological understanding of the enemy, Jack manages a daring attempt to avoid capture by far superior forces that appear almost as knowledgeable as he. Setting up an ambush, Maggie finds herself fighting for her life and is amazed at her emerging survival instincts. Fighting off Cypol assassins, a maverick bear, and a mounting terror that threatens to engulf her, she allows Jack to lead her into the underground hydro exchange system of a power plant that provides electricity to the valley far below. Driven by tremendous water forces through the pipes, they barely miss being chewed to pieces by powerful rotary blades, nearly drowned in a holding pool, and almost torn apart as they are spewed out through the causeways.

And the Cypol are doggedly right behind them! Hiding in an underground grotto formed into the mountain in eons past, Maggie learns some of the strange truths about Jack and moves a step closer to putting the puzzle together. But their respite is short lived and with all Jack's secret hideouts exposed, he is forced to take her to the super-secret research base where Maggie learns more about the strange technologies being developed there under Jack's supervision. But instead of finding answers to her questions, Maggie finds more questions without answers and the puzzle of Jack grows proportionally. Who is he and why has he risked his life several times over to protect her?

And where did the primeval instinct of survival she feels come from and the unchecked blood lust that now drives her every move? What happened to the gentle, peace-loving paleontologist who had only been interested in finding a dinosaur bone from the distant past to solidify her professorship tenure? What was happening to Maggie O'Doul? Without explanation, Jack leaves her at the secret base to attend an ultra high-level meeting of a Cabal of a dozen major heads of state where he unveils his strange secret, and why he has promised unheard of technology to the world's super powers in exchange for their wealth to further his research. At the same time, Maggie clandestinely does some research of her own and triggers a series of security alarms that alerts the entire base. And while hiding from those who once tried to rob her memory and leave her in the desert to die, Maggie makes yet another fearful discovery.

A discovery that will change her life forever! Suddenly she understands Jack and what is really happening at the research base. She understands what is behind the Cypol's vengeful and irrational hatred. And in learning Jack's real identity, she discovers things about him she loathes. In the process, Maggie comes to understand who she really is and why she's had all those nightmares.

Maggie O'Doul, after all, is not really Maggie O'Doul at all! Before she can put the last pieces of the puzzle together she is attacked by a Cypol spy planted in the high-security base. More alone than she has ever been, Maggie must use every ounce of her ingenuity and new-found confidence in her survival capabilities for she has come to understand that if she is to survive, she must do so alone. And in the process, Maggie comes face to face with the strangest and most startling secret of all. But Jack's sudden reappearance complicates the equation and Maggie is torn between the past and the present, between a horrible memory of fear and treachery, and a current feeling of love and compassion.

But can Jack live down his reputation and live up to Maggie's new expectations? The climatic finale finds Jack setting a highly complicated trap involving a maze of cubicle combinations, a complex series of gravitational jumps through time and space, and a harrowing penetration of the enemy's stronghold within the Brazilian Matto Grosso. Far from outside intervention and assistance, Jack and Maggie battle a foe more terrible, more threatening, and more savage than they had ever imagined, and in the balance the entire world holds its breath.

For the Cypol have developed the ultimate gravitator and hold the key to Earth's very survival! Alone and without hope, Jack and Maggie must battle thousands of entities that operate with a single mind, stop a gravitational flux so powerful it can reach a distant galaxy, and find a way to get home before the disruption shuts down all means of escape from the underground hive. Yet when they finally battle back to the desert base they are confronted with choices that sweep them along to the ultimate conclusion. You see, Jack and Maggie had been married in the distant past, fallen out of love and now back into it. But they can't stay to bask in their success for home is light years away and a government eagerly awaits their report!

But out there in space is the Cypol Mother Ship and the real adventure is about to begin!