An travels to Izmir as part of a disaster relief team. A oversees extraction of plutonium from aging nuclear warheads. is asked to cure the incurable. A young works to restore the caliphate. In 1938, after a Turkish colonel hears a baby's cry and rushes into a burning mosque, four present-day storylines become entwined. Parts political thriller and medical mystery, tells the stories of four men swept up in a conspiracy that extends throughout the Middle East and back in time to the most elite practitioners of the art of war-the Janissaries.