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Margaret Rittenhouse, ego-driven TV news personality who’s lost her prime-time show, gets a tip on a story that promises to return her to the spotlight. She embeds in Iraq during the war’s draw-down in 2011 to investigate the disappearance of a private contractor.

Assigned a squad led by Sergeant Gary Homer, she vows to uncover a major story to impress her old network. When half his squad is killed by an IED, Homer abandons Margaret’s mission to her utter dismay. Stranded by a sandstorm, Margaret and the squad find a remote structure. Margaret and her cameraman, Steve, defy Homer to investigate the structure while the quad sleeps. They find a trap door that descends into a bunker.

Within the shadowy corridors, Steve is bitten by a savage assailant before Margaret guns the attacker down. They find evidence the bunker is an Al Qaeda hideout containing bio-weapons. Believing she’s found the major story she needs, Margaret insists on going deeper as Steve protests. They go deeper and encounter eyeless cannibal mutants who immediately attack.

Running for their lives, Margaret and Steve collide with the squad, there to extract them, and must barricade themselves in. Steve falls sick from the bite. They find Asrar, the sole survivor who insists they euthanize Steve. Steve turns into a mutant and bites a soldier, who soon turns and must be dispatched. As the squad attempts to escape, Asrar convinces Margaret to abandon them for a bigger story hidden a level below.

The soldiers are overwhelmed and must retreat. They all fight their way to the main lab a level down. There, Asrar reveals she is the parasite’s creator, forced to make it by an American company, not Al Qaeda. She releases her mutated husband and son and escapes vowing revenge. Margaret and Homer kill the mutant family and euthanize the last squad member after he is bitten.

Delving even deeper, Homer and Margaret discover a plot to sell the parasite, then the antidote, by a powerful American company. Homer vows to bring the company to justice, but, unwilling to abandon her ties, Margaret incapacitates him. She fights her way to the deepest part of the bunker to find the truth. She finds the missing contractor, inflicted by the parasite yet alive because of the antidote. With the debilitated contractor ensuring Margaret that the company and its CEO are truly responsible, Margaret vows to bring the company to justice.

Homer rescues a contrite Margaret and they escape, making a mad dash to the surface, dispatching the remainder of the mutants. Homer is trapped seemingly sacrificing himself, allowing Margaret to get out. Once in the desert, Margaret is approached by the American company’s security and offered not only a new show, but the head of the network, if she will lie and blame the parasite on Al Qaeda. Margaret vehemently refuses.

About to be gunned down, Margaret is saved by Homer, having survived, and they journey back to base. After sharing their findings with the base’s command, Margaret sneaks away and sends all her footage to every news outlet and her social media, sharing it with the world.