THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER NUMA crew leaders Kurt Austin and Joe Zavala must beat the clock to stop the world’s most dazzling new technological advance from becoming mankind’s last in this action-packed thriller from the #1 New York Times –bestselling grand master of adventure. When the most advanced aircraft ever designed vanishes over the South Pacific, Kurt Austin and Joe Zavala are drawn into a deadly contest to locate the fallen machine. Russia and China covet the radical technology, but the United States worries about a darker problem. They know what others don’t—that the X-37 is carrying a dangerous secret, a payload of exotic matter, extracted from the upper reaches of the atmosphere and stored at a temperature near absolute zero. As long as it remains frozen, the cargo is inert, but if it thaws, it will unleash a catastrophe of nearly unthinkable proportions. From the Galapagos Islands to the jungles of South America to an icy mountain lake many believe to be the birthplace of the Inca, the entire NUMA team will risk everything in an effort to avert disaster...but they may be caught in a race that no one can win. Praise for the NUMA Files Novels “Cussler’s latest is the most breathtakingly suspenseful, wildly inventive, enjoyable thriller in the NUMA Files series to date! Hard-core fans will snap it up.”— Library Journal “Cussler’s action-packed, fun-filled 11th NUMA Files adventure provides a deserted volcanic-island lair, tricked-out ships, diving exploits, and plenty of thugs and minions to give Kurt Austin a few problems, to say nothing of a beautiful woman scientist.”— Kirkus Reviews “Electrifying...Cussler delivers all the usual twists and turns on the way to the explosive climax.”— Publishers Weekly “ Ghost Ship is the closest yet to a flat-out James Bond adventure. The best Cussler stories are the ones that are the most personal to the hero, and for Kurt Austin, a failed rescue attempt still causes nightmares. Another solid entry in the NUMA Files series.”—Associated Press Clive Cussler  is the author or coauthor of more than 50 previous books in five best-selling series, including Dirk Pitt, NUMA Files, Oregon Files, Isaac Bell, and Sam and Remi Fargo. His nonfiction works include  Built for Adventure :  The Classic Automobiles of Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt , plus  The Sea Hunters  and  The Sea Hunters II. They describe the true adventures of the real NUMA, which, led by Cussler, searches for lost ships of historic significance. With his crew of volunteers, Cussler has discovered more than 60 ships, including the long lost Confederate ship  Hunley . He lives in Arizona. Graham Brown grew up in Illinois, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania, moving often with his family. As far as he knows they weren't in the witness protection program or part of any top secret government agency, but then, would they really tell him? A former pilot and lawyer, and later part of a start up health care firm, Brown decided he hadn't had enough different careers yet and decided to become a writer. A huge fan of Clive Cussler, Michael Crichton, Stephen King, and television shows like The X-Files and Lost , Graham's first novel,  Black Rain,  debuted in January 2010. He now cowrites the NUMA Files series with Clive Cussler. Their second collaboration,  The Storm , debuted at #1 on the  New York Times  Bestseller List. 1 Vandenberg Air Force Base, California Present day Steve Gowdy sat in a comfortable chair on the top level of a darkened control room in the heart of Vandenberg Air Force Base. The setting resembled the NASA command centers in Houston and at Cape Canaveral, but was smaller and stocked with military personnel instead of civilians. Gowdy was in his late forties. He wore a gray polo shirt and black slacks, his thin covering of sandy brown hair perfectly coiffed but too thin to conceal his scalp beneath. He looked like a golfer ready to play eighteen holes at the local country club, a visitor on a day tour or a bored middle manager stuck in another endless meeting. Only the tightly bunched wrinkles around his eyes and the unconscious drumming of his finger on the arm of the chair suggested he was paying close attention. Gowdy hadn’t come to Vandenberg for a tour of the place, or to marvel at the technology, but to oversee the final stage of a mission so secret only forty people in the entire world knew of its existence. The project was called Ruby Snow , which meant nothing, of course, but had a poetic ring to it that Gowdy appreciated. It involved an aircraft funded by the National Security Agency and operated by the Air Force and other members of the Defense ­Department. Aircraft was the wrong word, he reminded himself. The Nighthawk was a hybrid vehicle, part aircraft, part spacecraft. The latest in a long line of platforms descended from the space shuttle. It was the most advanced machine ever flown and was finally returning to Earth after three long years in orbit. A