J. Middleton Little never intended to listen to the conversation between his hospital roommate and his mysterious visitor. Actually he didn't understand what they were talking about anyway. But they didn't know that. From the moment he was released from the hospital (where he was recovering from encounter with a speeding auto) J. Middleton Little -- citizen, husband, and father -- became the unwitting carrier of a lethal timetable, key to a deadly secret in a macabre drama of terror and destruction.