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Set in 1996, the story follows Pitt as he embarks on a treacherous journey to uncover the truth behind a devastating disease plaguing North Africans.
The plot begins with a Confederate ironclad, the Texas, outrunning a Union blockade while carrying on board not only the South's treasury but also the North's kidnapped president. Then, in 1931, world-famed aviatrix Kitty Mannock (an Amelia Earhart clone) vanishes on a flight over the Sahara, her plane or body never seen again. Then comes Pitt's 1996 search through the Nile bottom (via image-making computerised sonar) for the lost barge of a pharaoh dead some 2,500 years ago. Dirk locates the barge under many metres of silt; but before he can inform the Egyptian authorities of the find, he's reassigned by the National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA) to investigate the source of poisons that are killing coral and creating a red tide on such a massive scale that the world's oxygen supply will soon shrink to an unlivable level if the disaster is not reversed.
As Pitt discovers, the country of Mali - backed by a ruthless French industrialist - is in the solar nuclear waste disposal business, but the bad guys have poisoned the water table with their inept methods and befouling the Niger. And they are hiding this from the public. How does this tie in with Kitty Mannock's desert crash and her discovery of Texas buried in the Sahara sands?
The author masterfully weaves elements of intrigue, danger, and environmental catastrophe, to make Sahara a captivating read.