1978, Vatican City: On September 29, the world awakens to news of the shocking, sudden death of Albino Luciani, elected only 33 days earlier to become the Holy Roman Pontiff—Pope John Paul I.  The Vatican’s official  response: His Holiness died of unknown causes, “possibly associated with a heart attack.”  The pope’s body is embalmed within twenty-four hours, preventing any possibility of an autopsy.   
 

2006, London: Journalist Sarah Monteiro, a correspondent with one of the largest international news agencies, returns from vacation to find a mysterious envelope stuffed in her mailbox.  Inside it is a small key—perhaps from  luggage or an attaché case—a coded message, and a typewritten list of mostly unfamiliar names.  (The sole exception is that of her father, a retired captain in the Portuguese army.)  At first she’s merely puzzled by the strange, antiquated handwriting, the odd brownish-red smear on the paper and the inclusion of her father’s name on the list.  But when an armed intruder breaks into her home, Sarah knows that the items from the mysterious envelope have put her in danger—grave danger—and she soon finds herself on the run, inescapably drawn into a vortex of terror and double cross.