Several Archaeologists, Physicists, and Astronomers have theorized that a highly intelligent species came to our planet thousands of years ago, manipulated our genes to jump-start our civilization, and encoded the history of the universe in our DNA.
Recent successes with gene splicing and DNA encoding by research teams around the world have given new credibility to these theories. Graduate students in this novel, having curious minds, set out to decode that history using nano-technology and the help of a super computer at their university.
Islamic fanatics learn of this effort and realize the potential problems this research could create for their political control over millions of followers. They resolve to murder these researchers before they succeed in their ground breaking effort. In spite of the FBI and the NSA, the international alliance assassinates some of the participants in "The Secret DNA Code."