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When a military satellite returns to Earth, a recovery team is dispatched to retrieve it; during a live radio communication with their base, the team members suddenly die. Aerial surveillance reveals that everyone in Piedmont, Arizona, the town near the satellite's landing site, is apparently dead. The base commander suspects the satellite returned with an extraterrestrial organism and recommends activating Wildfire, the government-sponsored team that counters extraterrestrial biological infestation.
The Wildfire scientific team studying the unknown strain is comprised of Dr. Jeremy Stone, molecular biology specialist; Dr. Peter Leavitt, disease pathology; Dr. Charles Burton, infection vectors specialist; and Dr. Mark Hall, M.D., Surgeon, biochemistry and pH specialist. A fifth scientist, Dr. Christian Kirke, electrolytes specialist, was unavailable for duty because of appendicitis.
The scientists believe the satellite, which was actually designed to capture upper-atmosphere microorganisms for bio-weapon exploitation, returned with a deadly microorganism that kills by disseminated intravascular coagulation. On investigating the town, the Wildfire team discovered that the residents either died in mid-stride or go "quietly nuts" and commit bizarre suicide. Two Piedmont inhabitants, the sick, Sterno-addicted, geriatric, Peter Jackson, and the constantly-bawling infant, Jamie Ritter, are biologic opposites who somehow survived the organism.
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