As a child, former Justice Department agent Cotton Malone was told his father died in a submarine disaster in the North Atlantic, but now he wants the full story and asks his ex-boss, Stephanie Nelle, to secure the military files. What he learns stuns him: His fatherβs sub was a secret nuclear vessel lost on a highly classified mission beneath the ice shelves of Antarctica.
But Malone isnβt the only one after the truth.
Twin sisters Dorothea Lindauer and Christl Falk are fighting for the fortune their mother has promised to whichever of them discovers what really became of their fatherβwho died on the same submarine that Maloneβs father captained.
The sisters know something Malone doesnβt: Inspired by strange clues discovered in Charlemagneβs tomb, the Nazis explored Antarctica before the Americans, as long ago as 1938. Now Malone discovers that cryptic journals penned in βthe language of heaven,β inscrutable conundrums posed by an ancient historian, and the ill-fated voyage of his father are all tied to a revelation of immense consequence for humankind.
In an effort to ensure that this explosive information never rises to the surface, Langford Ramsey, an ambitious navy admiral, has begun a brutal game of treachery, blackmail, and assassination. As Malone embarks on a dangerous quest with the sistersβone that leads them from an ancient German cathedral to a snowy French citadel to the unforgiving ice of Antarcticaβhe will finally confront the shocking truth of his fatherβs death and the distinct possibility of his own.
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