A brazen and violent crime occurs at the crossroads of the Christian, Islamic, and Jewish faiths--the shocking theft of ancient artifacts hidden for many centuries in a secret vault beneath Jerusalem's Temple Mount. In its wake, thirteen Israeli policemen and soldiers are dead--and the fuse is lit on a volatile Mideast powder keg, threatening an explosion that could devastate the world. In Italy, American forensic scientist Charlotte Hennesey has answered a Vatican summons asking for help. Joining with Italian anthropologist Giovanni Bersei, she embarks upon a perilous journey down a twisted path of revelations prowled by sinister zealots and relentless cold killers. For they must expose the astonishing secrets locked in the ancient bones resting in a newly unearthed burial box--the skeleton of a man who lived and died in the first century; a man who was scourged and stabbed . . . and crucified.