In 323 BC, having conquered Persia, Alexander the Great sets his sights on Arabia, then suddenly succummbed to a strange fever. Locating his final resting place - unmnown to this day - remains a tantilizing goal for archaeologists and treasure hunters. And cotton Malone, former US Justice Department agent turned rare book collector, will be drawn into an interse political chess game.
Cotton learns from his friend Cassiopeia Vitt that as part of a campgain of arson intending to mask a far more diabolical design, buildings across Europe are being devoured by infernos of unnatural strength.
A new nation has risen from the ashes of the USSR. Its leader, the Supreme Leader Irina Zovastina, has the single minded desire to surpass Alexander the Great as history's ultimate conqueror. Backed by a secret cabal of power brokers, the Federation has amassed a huge cache of biological weapons. The only thing that stops Zovastina from her hellish power to decimate other nations at will, is a miraculous healing serum, kept secret by an ancient puzzle and buried with the mummified remains of Alexander the Great.
Together cotton and Cassiopeia must outrun and outthink the forces aligned against them. Their quest will take them to the shores of Denmark, deep into the venerated momuments of Venice, and finally high into the desolate Pamir Mountains of Central Asia to unravel a riddle whose solution can destroy or save millions of people, depending on who finds the lost tomb first.