The nation is sliding into chaos, but this time it is not foreign aliens or domestic radicals driving the collapse. The FBI is baffled by a wave of bizarre inefficiencies, sudden resignations, and ruined communications that paralyze the government and criminal underworld alike. Agent Kenneth J. Malone is pulled into a bizarre assignment that defies all bureaucratic logic. He discovers that the conventional explanations—sabotage, psychodrugs, and ordinary spies—fail to account for the systematic breakdowns crippling the country.
Teaming up with an eccentric cast including a brilliant but icy psionic expert and a woman who firmly believes she is Queen Elizabeth I, Malone pursues a radically unconventional theory. He begins to track the invisible pulses of telepathic static that precede every major failure of human judgment. As he pieces together the fragments, he realizes that someone is using mass telepathic projection to steer human decisions without detection.
The trail leads through the seedy underbelly of Las Vegas and the headquarters of corrupt labor unions, uncovering a hidden network where control is exercised directly over the mind. The investigation forces Malone to confront the limits of scientific orthodoxy and his own precognitive talents. As the invisible manipulators tighten their grip, he must find a way to shield his thoughts and trace the energy back to its source before the entire institutional structure collapses entirely.
