"'Above them the wood cover was slid into place. The space they stood in seemed to shrink. They were sealed into a pit with the smell of rotting earth...'

For forty-six days, bus driver Walter Demming and eleven schoolchildren have been buried underground, held captive in the fortified compound of a fundamentalist cult. Deprived of daylight, fresh air and contact with the outside world, they endure the terrifying rants of the cult's leader, the charismatic Samuel Mordecai. He joyfully predicts the arrival of Armageddon- in exactly five days' time.

All attempts at negotiations have failed. Enter tenacious crime reporter Molly Cates, the only journalist ever to have interviewed Mordecai. It was the worst assignment of her life- until this one. She has gained his trust before, and she must try again. BUt this time the stakes are impossibly high.
And she has just five days...

'Nail-biting suspense from the first page, masterjully extended to the last' Kirkus Reviews. "