The novel begins with the murder of Paul Feiler, an academic specialist in Abrahamic theology who works at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, by Charles Hogue, a CIA agent, shortly before Feiler is due to give a revelatory lecture at an academic conference in New York.
The novel focuses on Donnelly wringing a convoluted series of clues from Feiler's message: these lead him to discover that Feiler had got hold of the legendary Book of Abraham, supposedly acquired by the CIA shortly after its discovery among the Dead Sea Scrolls, and supposedly providing unusually early and authoritative evidence that the Binding of Isaac was actually, as held in many Islamic traditions, a binding of Ishmael.
They proceed to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine seeking a quiet place to work on Feiler's clues and, when they realise that they are about to be found by the police, to the Morgan Library & Museum, where they expect to find the book.
Back in New York, Hogue requests the book, which is held at an institution called Strategic Business Alliance Inc., with the intention of destroying it; but he finds it missing and realises that Feiler has stolen and hidden it.
A mysterious, high-ranking government official called Richard Hourani, on hearing of his old friend Feiler's death, flies from Washington to New York.
Fraser hears about the disturbance at Morgan's flat and tips off Rottenberg and Kerver, who have already realised the connection of Hourani, Hogue, and Russell to the New American Century.
Together, Rottenberg, Kerver, and Russell kill Hogue and apprehend Hourani, foiling Franklin's terrorist plot in Paris.