Deep Zone, James Tabor

Soldiers are getting sick in Afghanistan, normally treatable bullet wounds are somehow becoming infected by a virulent mutation of the ACE virus. It has a 90% kill rate and it’s spreading. Desperate to keep a lid on the virus and the story the White House puts together a team of scientists to pursue the only known cure, but there’s a catch. First off the cure only grows at the bottom of the Cueva de Luz-a supercave, deep in the Mexican jungle. Secondly the ‘sickness’ was man-made to make some people a lot of money and those people don’t want their potential profits to go to waste. Deep Zone is part medical mystery, part Washington power struggle and part race against time in a cave where it’s not only the sudden drops that could kill you.