A Montreal pharmaceutical company has been infiltrated by a mysterious hacker named Komodo. Rather than steal information, Komodo leaves encrypted files for Thomas Faraday, a network security professional hired to safeguard the company's data.At the same time, somewhere deep in the Zagros Mountains, a secret Christian league excavates an ancient Persian stela that contains a coded message. When the league learns that Thomas holds the secret to interpreting the stela, he is recruited. As Thomas labors at deciphering the Persian stela, he soon discovers that Komodo is part of the puzzle. To understand the connection, he must accept the league's unusual venture to the Persian Empire of 473 BC. His mission is to witness and document the rich history associated with the book of Esther, but the conflict that awaits him will prove impossible to ignore.Soon after Thomas and his time traveling companions arrive in Persia, they discover the league has been hiding a secret of its own. Now, trapped in an ancient nation at war and with time running out, Thomas must decipher both the Komodo files and the Persian stela if he ever hopes to return to the twenty-first century.