After the riveting events of Once Dead, Jack “Ripper” Gregory remains host to a homicidal alien bound to his soul. Now Jack has been hired for a suicide mission: journey to South America and rescue an imprisoned shaman. One problem…both the National Security Agency and a gang of neo-fascists are hot on his trail.

Neither group plans to let Jack live.

At stake is the immeasurably powerful Sun Staff, an ancient alien artifact that in the wrong hands will alter the course of human history. With the clock ticking, Jack must find and rescue the shaman before sinister forces get to him first. When Jack comes face-to-face with his equal—a stunningly beautiful NSA agent—he wonders if he can still pull the trigger and save his mission...even if the decision costs him his very soul.

From bestselling author Richard Phillips comes a globe-spanning sci-fi thriller series with a twist…culminating in the cataclysmic events that set the stage for the Rho Agenda.

Richard Phillips was born in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1956. In 1979, he graduated from West Point as an army ranger and served for several years as an officer in the United States Army. In 1989, he graduated with a master of science in physics from the Naval Post Graduate School, completing his thesis work at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Phillips then spent three years as a research associate at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory before completing his tour of duty as an army officer. He previously released the popular sci-fi conspiracy epic the Rho Agenda trilogy. Phillips was hailed by bestselling author Orson Scott Card as someone who “is very quickly going to be very well known as one of the best and most popular writers of near-future sci-fi.” Phillips lives in Phoenix with his lovely wife, Carol.