A new assignment from the command sends Colonel Verbov’s group to the Pacific Ocean. The goal is to investigate the mysterious disappearance of the combat deep-sea station of the Perimeter system and the submarine Kamchatka sent to search for it. The situation is complicated by Russia’s eternal “strategic friends”—the Americans, who have declared this part of the ocean a zone of their interests regardless of what happens in the depths. And what’s happening there is truly grand—events that could push Earth to the brink of apocalypse. Only the will and reason of people can stop this deadly slide into the abyss. If only they manage to hurry, if only they can hear, if only they can understand…