Baden-Powell's Beads - Paul D Parsons

In 1888, Captain Baden-Powell of the British army discovers a strand of Zulu beads on the battlefield of South Africa. Thirty years later in England, he founds the Boy Scout movement and gives one bead to each of his newly trained Scoutmasters; the origin of the Wood Badge, a coveted award still today. In 2005, a young orthopedic resident in Memphis is given one of these beads by a dying patient with the admonition to "find the others." Soon, the doctor is pursued through the city by a band of zealous Zulus intent on recapturing the bead and beheading the doctor in the process. Homeland Security Agents, Patrick Dartson and Adnan Fazeph hatch a scheme to rescue the doctor and his girlfriend and get to the bottom of the Zulu's fascination with the ancient talisman. This is the first book in the series of four that follows the beads through time and around the globe. Though the tale is fiction, the beads are not, and enough fact is woven into the story to make the reader wonder.