Phrase Seven

Pierce Reston works for a small team of specialists in extreme persuasion. When ordinary people across the country start describing lost hours they cannot account for, alongside a run of strange, frightening coincidences, he is handed the case. Reports of women vanishing in Prague and a sudden spread of amnesia cases prompt a large-scale manhunt. Pierce comes to believe that someone intends to deploy a hidden "key" capable of stripping away a person's mental control, setting off an epidemic that could alter the course of history.

His partner on the case is Kelly Kennedy, a newly recruited operative. Their inquiry turns up a missing video, which they come to regard as the most perilous recording in the world. Tracing a connection between the atrocities and the coincidences around the globe leads them to a neuroscience laboratory hiding disturbing secrets. Identifying the person behind the plot may prove nearly impossible, since powerful interests are prepared to go to any lengths to halt them.

To get anywhere, Pierce and Kelly must probe the darkest corners of human psychology. All the while, the person they are hunting is keeping watch on them.