In the Month of Muharram

Despite the Popes denial, the Ayatollahs are convinced that the Third Secret of Fatima is a blueprint for a renewed Crusade by the oil-thirsty West, intended to wipe out Islam. Kerne is hired by a wealthy businesswoman who is interested in successive apparitions of the Virgin Mary at sites that were sacred to the ancient Mother Goddess, but her attempts to obtain the full text of the Fatima prophecy from the Vatican Archives result in the kidnaping of her daughter Tess by the Iranians. Kerne tracks Tess to the Castle of Alamut, high in the Elburz Mountains, and plans a rescue with the aid of Soviet veterans of the Afghan war.