A weak voice, gasping with pain, came on the line. "That thing...you asked me to look into...It's more than you thought...worse. I...think...th-they...killed...me..." There was only silence on the line---then the sound of a body collapsing. With this, Mark Hardin is on the trail of his most seductive enemy--Linda King, the Colonel. Supposedly a wealthy social worker rehabilitating juvenile court cases, she is training her charges to commit terror by contract. With the Penetrator closing in she takes hostages, threatens to blow up a TVA dam, flooding the surrounding towns, and demands a cool five million in ransom.