An eccentric billionaire with a penchant for antiquities asks an unsuspecting university professor who lectures on Central Asian history to convince a group of Mongolian shamans to sanction a search for Genghis Khan's tomb. The professor agrees, but soon discovers the medicine men are not her only obstacle.

Not only must she circumvent a maze of deadly traps in a subterranean tunnel, but she must also confront a renegade group of Buddhists who are hell-bent on killing her.

Things become even more complicated once she discovers a connection exists between an ancient gold medallion and a slain Mongolian archeologist. Little does she realize that once she decodes the medallion's inscriptions, she will unleash an unprecedented chain of events: the FBI becomes involved in an unsolved murder investigation, the CIA and the KGB enter the picture, and once a horrific conspiracy becomes exposed it causes an international incident.