In Mexico the race is on for the ultimate end-of-the-world codex - the 1000-year-old prophecy of the god-king, Quetzalcoatl. Rita Critchlow and Cooper Jones hunt for the sacred codex in scorching desert canyons, while 500 years earlier, Pacal, a young slave-scholar, sets out on the same deadly quest. For Pacal, the End-Time is at hand. Montezuma has built a vast empire based in what will one day be Mexico City. Now he faces war; disastrous drought; death-cult priests who rip the hearts out of thousands of people atop their pyramids...and the arrival of red-bearded horse-borne conquistadors, bearing preternaturally powerful weapons and catastrophic plagues, sowing pandemic death wherever they go. America's leaders are also staring into an apocalyptic abyss. Convinced that Quetzalcoatl's codex holds the key to humanity's survival - that he is warning them of a global, planet-killing threat - the two women battle broiling desert canyons and drug-cartel warlords to track it down and decipher it. Earlier glimpses of the prophecy reveal uncanny similarities to those of the "Book of Revelation". Are Quetzalcoatl's and Revelation's prophecies one and the same? Can they crack the 2012 code and save the world from their deadly fate? The countdown is on.