It is an astonishing discovery: a bloodstained burial shroud, entombed in the crumbling walls of an historic French Monastery. Carbon dating concludes the fabric is from the time of Christ. A molecular biologist conducts a daring experiment: the cloning of genetic material recovered from the cloth. Now two men-father Laurent Carriere and scientist Josh Francis-are plunged into he center of a worldwide religious and political power struggle. But even as Washington and the Vatican vie for control of the relic, members of a secret society take steps to reclaim the holy artifact they have sworn to protect-by any means necessary.