It is a secret that has been hidden for more than a half-century. The clues have been scattered across the globe. Now someone has begun to piece them together. And the future of the world depends on their being stopped in time. In Maryland, a vicious gang breaks into the National Cryptologic Museum and steals a Nazi Enigma machine. In a London hospital, an Auschwitz survivor is murdered in his bed, his killers making off with a macabre trophy: the old man's severed left arm. In Prague, a seemingly worthless painting is stolen from a synagogue. Three cities. Three thefts. Could there possibly be a connection? Former art thief Tom Kirk certainly sees no reason to link the crimes when he is first asked to investigate. But when the stolen painting turns up alongside the amputated arm, he realizes that he has uncovered an elaborate trail of clues laid down in the dying days of the Third Reich by a secret order of SS knights. Clues leading to a fabled treasure lost in the ashes of war that is the key to a deadly game where the ultimate prize is life itself—Tom's included.