A midwestern policewoman investigates a series of brutal and interconnected crimes. Steadily, she tightens the net on the killers and their accomplices in a kidnapping scheme gone wildly wrong.

Due to a shuttle's unfortunate demise in outer space, NASA becomes aware of a doomsday asteroid that is on a collision course with Earth. It seems that the only way to knock it off course is to drill into its surface and detonate a nuclear weapon. But as NASA's under-funded yet resourceful team train the world's best drillers for the job, the social order of the world begins to break down as the information reaches the public and hysteria results....