On the eve of the Second World War, as German armies gather to invade Poland, Hitler has hit upon a master plan to distract the British while the blitzkrieg takes place. A German archeologist from Dahrein, Otto Muller, who has just made a sensational discovery, is summoned to Berlin. In Dahrein, the Spanish-held port on the gulf, Gavin Kane, an American trader, and Ruth Cunningham embark on a search to find Ruth’s husband, an archeologist who has disappeared in the desert while on a quest to find the long-lost temple of Sheba. With little to go on but the ancient testament of a Greek adventurer, Alexias, the only survivor of a Roman expedition of 24 BC, Kane and Cunningham venture into the inhospitable Empty Quarter, the Rubh al Khali, a region of outlaws, treachery and death.