For five hundred years a despotic order of the supremely rich and powerful has kept a little known manuscript by the political thinker Niccolo Machiavelli hidden away under heavy guard: THE COVENANT, a terrifying blueprint for the gaining and keeping of true political power. Bonded by complicity in ritual murder and dedicated to a singular vision of global domination, the group, guided by Machiavelli's document, has prospered far beyond any dreams of power and avarice.In Washington, D.C., former LAPD detective Nicholas Marten comes out of hiding when he learns his former girlfriend, her child and husband, a U.S. congressman, have been mysteriously murdered. Marten discovers her husband had just uncovered a top-secret and illegal bioweapons program, and when the feds fail to investigate, Marten resolves to go after the killers himself.Meanwhile, on his way to a NATO summit in Warsaw, President John Henry Harris is confronted by a secret cabal inside his own White House who demand he authorize the assassinations of the Chancellor of Germany and the President of France at the NATO meeting. He angrily refuses, knowing full well that in doing so he has put his own life and the fate of the country in jeopardy.Fleeing for his life, Harris joins forces with Marten and the beautiful but enigmatic French photo-journalist Demi Picard. Together they uncover the truth about the most devastating and powerful group the world has ever known. Swept from Washington to Paris, from Berlin to Malta, Madrid to Barcelona they flee a ruthless circle of the president's here-to-fore most trusted advisors, military leaders and transnational corporate chieftains all of whom want them dead. Out manned, outnumbered and outgunned, these three stand alone against the age-old secrets of THE COVENANT.