Plague of Coins // Immortal Plague — Aiden James

William Barrow carries a dark secret. A very dark secret. An archivist for the Smithsonian Institute and also a part-time operative for the CIA, no one would ever suspect the handsome ‘thirty-ish' William is in fact the most reviled human being to ever walk the earth. His infectious warmth and sense of humor make such an assertion especially hard to believe. But long ago, William Barrow had another name…one that is synonymous with shame and betrayal: Judas Iscariot. Forced to walk the earth as a cursed immortal, William/Judas is on a quest to reclaim the thirty silver shekels paid to him in exchange for Jesus Christ. Twenty-one coins have now been recovered -- thanks in large part to the help from his latest son, the esteemed Georgetown University history professor, Alistair Barrow. Ever hopeful the complete coin collection will buy him a full pardon from God and end his banishment from heaven, William plans a visit to a remote village deep within Iran's Alborz Mountains to retrieve ‘silver coin number twenty-two'. But the CIA has a different objective for this trip, one that pits both father and son against an unscrupulous Russian billionaire searching for something else that's just as precious within the ancient mountains of Iran…something that threatens peace in the modern world if William and Alistair fail to reach it first.