In the Saharan depths, a man tries to survive. Amjad claims to belong to no other community than the Kel Essuf, the people of solitude. His pickup truck loaded with fuel drums, he and Akawel are preparing to smuggle across the Algerian-Malian border. A little further north in the Tassili of the Immidir, a team of palaeontologists is trying to exhume the fossilised remains of the first representative of the human species. Professor Noun of the University of Algiers and Artemis, a Greek palaeontologist, are convinced that Homo ergaster has occupied sites in the Central Sahara.

Already exhausted, there is Faune, a former French intelligence officer recruited by a multinational company to free one of its employees, kidnapped by jihadists. He leaves Bamako, hoping for contact with the kidnappers. Amjad thought he could escape everyone, run into the night and reach his destination. He won’t succeed, caught at dawn by armed men who will steal his truck and kill Akawel. For him, a manhunt begins. Artemis will not complete her search for the first human. A sandstorm during the dig, a stray in the rocky stretch, men on motorcycles, the huntress becomes prey. Now a captive of an Islamist group, Artemis will grasp, in the land of tracks, signs and traces, the meaning of the essuf, namely loneliness and terror.