A team of archaeologists led by three Jesuits and an Israeli rabbi discover a sealed cave in the Sinai Desert. Hidden and unopened for millennia, the cave contains pre-Christian-era treasures, including a stone inscribed with the Prayer of Moses, offering a unique power to a priest who utters it with a request. The rabbi finds and conceals the stone, and later recites the prayer while requesting that modern Israel be transported in time to 1939 to deal as a nuclear power with the Nazi threat. The temporal transformation occurs, and the story recounts the impact on the government and citizens of Israel, the crew of the US Navy cruiser docked in Haifa at the fateful moment, and many others in Europe and the Middle East. The effects on people in 1939 who encounter visitors from the future, with all their technology, are engrossing, and are reported in a fashion that transports the reader to the center of events.A unifying theme revolves around the efforts of the Jesuits and the US naval command staff to find a way to undo the time-shift. The dramatic events leading to a startling climax will be etched in the readers memory.
