On a remote indian reservation near the Canadian border, an ancient tribal clan has guarded for time out of mind a secret that has become the most valuable thing in the world-an energy source of unimagined richness. In a near future when overdevelopment and population growth have driven an energy-starved planet back into a second Age of Coal, alarmed American researchers using a new supercomputer discover clear signs that the thousands of power plants burning coal now are killing people, for reasons unknown. Informed by a spy, this is all that the shadowy criminal syndicate known as Black Dragon needs to hear. It moves to seize effective control of the only feasible energy alternative still available-nuclear fuels, long abandoned as a civilian power source after a string of horrific accidents. In this international crime thriller, Kaliman, the lethal chief operative of Black Dragon and the warped creature of its secret founder and head, Henry Wu Lin, the richest man in Asia, together conduct a hidden but violent struggle with the Americans, led by President Jacob Weldon Hammer, for this control-not yet knowing that success or failure for either side depends entirely on a single lode of uranium with characteristics never seen before, a treasure guarded by a handful of old men whose religion forbids them any conventional weapons to guard it with. But Kaliman and Wu Lin discover that the clan and Massine, its leader, have other resources to draw upon…