An American doctor travels to Izmir as part of a disaster relief team. A Russian major oversees extraction of plutonium from aging nuclear warheads. A Turkish researcher is asked to cure the incurable. A young jihadist works to restore the caliphate. In 1938, after a Turkish colonel hears a baby's cry and rushes into a burning mosque, four present-day storylines become entwined. Part political thriller and part medical mystery, The Ottoman Excursion tells the story of four men swept up in a conspiracy that extends throughout the Middle East and back in time to the most elite practitioners of the art of war--the Janissaries.