Two thousand years ago, an ingenious but dead-broke Roman intelligence officer is coerced into accepting a secret assignment to investigate what's going on in faraway Judea with a political "troublemaker" called Yeshua. At least that's what he's told! Boarding a rebellious little ship, surviving a shipwreck, an assassin's knife and a desert caravan attack south of Caesarea, he arrives in Jerusalem to find that Yeshua has been crucified on the hill of Golgotha between two common criminals. Fascinated, knee-deep already in intrigue, his life hanging in the balance by a thread, he begins his own investigation of the crucifixion and its aftermath. Mission over, escaping to the sea barely ahead of Governor Pontius Pilate's soldiers, he is told the truth about who he really is, why he is still alive, and the real reason he was sent on this strange and perilous task and the Shroud of Turin is on its way to Rome with the secret help of Pontius Pilate's wife.