The word pandemic tends to cause fear, based mainly on experience with COVID ? a highly transmissive but relatively mild disease compared to others such as Ebola and Black Plague. Although further natural pandemics will certainly emerge in the future, the impacts of tailored diseases produced by genetic engineering could be very much worse and, if that is their aim, these have the potential to depopulate much of the planet and could cause the collapse of civilisation as we know it.

In the middle of this century, the impacts of uncontrolled climate change have turned the few countries with the resources to weather them into virtual fortresses, with barricaded frontiers guarded to avoid being swamped by those escaping from less fortunate lands. Switzerland, in particular, has become a refuge for the mega-rich, many of whom can be accused of contributing to the global warming catastrophe. It is thus under constant attack by terrorists who are offended by this blatant injustice.

A perfect storm emerges when, under such conditions, a plot to create a population-control pandemic emerges. When this plot is serendipitously uncovered by a small Swiss counter-terrorist unit, they must find a way to combat it alone, neutralising threats in Europe and Asia, while keeping their actions secret to avoiding the inevitable global panic that would result if such a threat became known.

Presented from the perspective of the unit leader, the challenges of following a trail of evidence around the world and avoiding the deadly traps set for them are complicated by developing emotional relationships with his team members. Although social acceptance of such physical relationships is not a problem in the mid-21st century, controlling them to avoid risks to the operation is tricky, especially when it transpires that the vector that provides immunity to the pandemic is an engineered sexually-transmitted virus.