Race the Pale Horse - Dan Brown

When a contented youth living in an overseas British military base is told that his parents' car has tumbled over a coastal bluff on a fatal accident, he is struck with a blow from which he will never recover. Years later, as a degenerate guard at a London tourist attraction, he is met by an impassioned Interpol agent who informs him that his parents' caskets are empty and that the funeral was a hoax.
The two find themselves on a common quest for answers and it becomes clear that the only man who can solve the riddle is the guard's own godfather - a scientist, ex-colonel and current fugitive who was last seen ten years ago. With a couple tricks up his sleeve and an agenda of his own, the guard vanishes to follow the trail alone. Meanwhile the agent deciphers clues a decade old on his own hunt for the retired colonel, learning as he goes the very unique circumstances of the colonel's past and the catastrophic consequences that could occur if he should fail.