Buried deep in the earth's polar ice cap - carved into a moving island of ice twice the size of the United States - is a secret place, the site of a remarkable abandoned experiment that could have frightening ramifications for the planet. The brain trust of the former Soviet Union who created the seventy-year-old Ice Station Grendel would like it simply to melt from human memory. But that becomes impossible when an American undersea research vessel, the Polar Sentinel, inadvertently pulls too close to the hollowed-out iceberg... and one of the crew sees something alive inside. Something that never should have survived. It is a discovery that sends shock waves through the intelligence communities of two powerful nations, as American and Russian scientists, soldiers, and unsuspecting civilians are pulled into Grendel's lethal vortex of secrets, violence, and betrayal. To preserve the silence - to prevent others from uncovering the terrible mysteries locked behind submerged walls of ice and steel - no measures will be too extreme. For within the station, experiments have blurred the line between life and death. It was a place never meant to be found.