In a cleft of rock near Qumran in the Holy Land, Professor John Potts discovers a gold box among some bones.

The box belonged to a Roman centurion Marcus Drusus Scipio. Who was he, and how did he meet his death?

Its inscrutable smile promised many things to many men - but for 700 years none had dared to take the A plane crash, a near fatal disease - and everything that Bernard Miller cares for in his life is suddenly destroyed. £5 million in gold would solve a lot of problems. Except when it had to be lifted from underneath the noses of the Thai police, a powerful criminal mastermind, and a nation that reveres the Buddha as the symbol of its spiritual salvation. And when even his closest friends become his enemies...