Young archaeologist Jack Hunter planned only to take a picture of a cuneiform tablet from once unsurpassed Mesopotmian metropolis Ugarit in present Syria, but is caught and has to steal it from a private museum in France. He refuses to join his mentor, professor Frederic 'Freddie' Shaffer, who believes the poem is a coded treasure map, on a relic hunt, until his friend is murdered to steal it. Obvious suspect is Syrian artifact trader Ali, so Jack flies to Damascas. There he must accept working with local, US-educated colleague Nadia and her driver Tariq. Their lives are threatened during the long relic quest, for one by common nemesis Albert Littman, but another secret lurks too.

Jack Hunter is abducted blindfolded to a Turkish US base to be recruited by the NSA, told his mentor was killed because Albert Littmann's Russian mob employer Doridanov want the ancient Osiris-weapon. He accepts to go look for the other part in Gizeh, where archaeologist Lena Halstrom has dug up a lead on a site which was attacked by mysterious, mythologically cloaked men, hence the Egyptian in charge, Said, shut it down till further notice. In fact it's the doing of a Midianite (Sinai desert) sect of Akhenaton-worshipers, who try to steal the obelisk from the museum after Jack deciphers its Ugarritian cuneiform text, which contains clues for a treasure-hunt to the pharaoh's tomb-treasure. Said assumes their flight criminal and mobilizes an army colonel, whose unbridled ambition proves even more dangerous for Jack's party, which includes his Syrian friends from the first.

Jack Hunter realizes the pharaoh's tomb being empty except for a Roman coin means the treasure was looted to Rome but later probably transferred the the new, Byzantine capital, Constantinople. There the NSA reunites him with Nadia and Tariq, mainly as cover, to prevent the mighty combined weapon falling into criminal hands. Russian mob king Petrvosky increases the pressure on Littman. each side count on Nadia's lover, Fuad Antaki, son of the Turkish antiquarian Armen Antaki, who once sold the Star of Osiris, which now traces to a Konya convent.