Our top-secret weapon is missing. And America’s top test pilot is missing too. Full of a fierce, obsessive will to live, Tom Darby is about to test-fire the USA’s ultimate weapon—when something goes tragically wrong. His F-15 fighter explodes in a ball of fire. He ejects into the killing heat of Death Valley. Crazed by injuries, he becomes a wild beast running for his life from unseen enemies—and from his rescuers. Even from his beautiful wife. American teams want him. So do sinister East German agents, headed by an ex-Nazi. Because they believe he possesses . . . The Marcus Device
Ib Melchior was born and raised in Denmark, receiving the post-graduate degree of Cand. Phil from the University of Copenhagen. Arriving in the United States in 1938, he worked as a stage manager at the Radio City Music Hall in New York City and began his writing career, penning short pieces for national magazines. When the attack on Pearl Harbor plunged the country into war, he volunteered his service to the US Armed Forces, and served four years, two of them in the ETO working as a counterintelligence agent. His work earned him decorations from three countries, including the US, and he was subsequently knighted and awarded the Knight Commander Cross by the Militant Order of Sct Brigitte of Sweden. After the war, he moved to Hollywood in 1957 to write and direct motion pictures. In addition to twelve screenplays, including The Time Travelers, which is one of the films he also directed, he has written seventeen books, most of them bestsellers. Best known for his WWII novels that explored his own exploits as a CIC agent, such as Sleeper Agent and Order of Battle, his books are published in translations in twenty-five countries. For his work, he has been honored with the Golden Scroll for his body of work by the Science Fiction Academy and the Hamlet Award for best legitimate play by the Shakespeare Society of America.