An hour north of Los Angeles, a gruesome discovery is made. Displayed in a very unusual manner is the body of a young promising assistant US attorney. Left next to her corpse is a cryptic note, "Find Des Cook, University of Georgia. He has the answers."

Two thousand miles away, unassuming graduate student Desmond Cook receives an unexpected visit from the FBI. They pepper him with questions. Bewildered, he has no answers.

Soon afterward, the killer contacts him with a task-figure out a series of historical riddles and get to the locations they designate. Failure to do so will result in more victims. Demanding to know why he is made the focus of such a game, the killer has just one response: "You have the answers. It's all in the presentation."

Thus begins a deadly chase, as Des teams with FBI profiler Amanda Hertzel in a desperate attempt to solve the baffling clues and put a halt to the carnage. And in this race against time, as each layer of the mystery is peeled away, the killer's motivation becomes clearer, finally exposing a far more deadly conspiracy than they could have ever imagined.