The ancient order of the Knights Templar possessed untold wealth and absolute power over kings and popes ... until the Inquisition, when they were wiped from the face of the earth, their hidden riches lost. But now two forces, the U.S. Justice Department and a shadowy zealot, vying for the treasure have learned that it is not at all what they thought it was and its true nature could change the modern world.

In the fourteenth century, Templar knight Jean de Saint-Clair was tasked with piloting the order's treasure-laden fleets off the coast of France. To this end, he used a Jacob's Staff, a world-changing nautical instrument supposedly developed in his own time. Retired Army Ranger John Holliday knows better, for he possesses a similar instrument -- one found in the hands of a four-thousand-year-old Egyptian mummy. Holliday suspects that Saint-Clair might...