The Lights of God

In 31 B.C., the Jewish High Priest, Amariah, flees to the ancient Essene fortification at Qumram, on the shore of the Dead Sea, to avoid Roman persecution. Secretly hidden in his saddle bags is the Urim and Thummim, the revelatory device used to ask and receive answers from God, which hasn't been seen since the Babylonian captivity in 586 B.C.

When Amariah is murdered, the Urim and Thummim are buried with his body in a cave-vault, later sealed by an earthquake that strikes Judea in 32 B.C. There they remain until they are discovered in the present day by Ishmael, a treasure-hunting young Arab Bedouin, then are passed to Rehavam Krasnoff, an unscrupulous chief investigator for the Israeli Antiquities Authority.

When two masterminds in Athens, Gregory Kavidas and Mortimer Stein (who've developed the global financial network Masterlink-the precursor to a cashless world economy) become alerted of the stones' discovery, they set out to seize the stones for themselves...before their evil agenda is exposed.