They are twelve men who shouldn't be alive. They have survived the sudden blinding sandstorm that crippled their air freighter. Survived a desperate crash landing in the Sahara of Central Libya. Survived to face the slow, dry, agonizing death of the desert. Twelve men with one hope: to build a new plane from the wreckage of their Skytruck and make a flight out of hell.

Only one man could build such a plane: Stringer, the brilliant and obsessed engineer. Only one man could fly it: Towns, the arrogant and tormented pilot. Both had been aboard the Skytruck, but both are mortal enemies whose consuming hatred for each other is a danger greater than the desert itself.