A debt of gratitude to Emily Bestler, Jason Kaufman, Ben Kaplan, and everyone at
o my dear friend Irv Sittler, for facilitating my audience with the Pope, secreting me
antly
one
,
and
Dave
ilas) Arnold and Andra Crawford, the GlobalFraternal Network, the Phillips Exeter
ademy Library, Jim Barrington, John Maier, the exceptionally keen eye of Margie
l, alt.masonic.members, Alan Wooley, the Library of Congress Vatican Codices
ibit, Lisa Callamaro and the Callamaro Agency, Jon A. Stowell, Musei Vaticani,
ional
posed of
Pocket Books for their belief in this project.
To my friend and agent, Jake Elwell, for his enthusiasm and unflagging effort.
To the legendary George Wieser, for convincing me to write novels.
T
into parts of Vatican City few ever see, and making my time in Rome unforgettable.
To one of the most ingenious and gifted artists alive, John Langdon, who rose brilli
to my impossible challenge and created the ambigrams for this novel.
To Stan Planton, head librarian, Ohio University-Chillicothe, for being my number
source of information on countless topics.
To Sylvia Cavazzini, for her gracious tour through the secret Passetto.
And to the best parents a kid could hope for, Dick and Connie Brown . . . for everything.
Thanks also to CERN, Henry Beckett, Brett Trotter, the Pontifical Academy of Science
Brookhaven Institute, FermiLab Library, Olga Wieser, Don Ulsch of the National
Security Institute, Caroline H. Thompson at University of Wales, Kathryn Gerhard
Omar Al Kindi, John Pike and the Federation of American Scientists, Heimlich
Viserholder, Corinna and Davis Hammond, Aizaz Ali, the Galileo Project of Rice
University, Julie Lynn and Charlie Ryan at Mockingbird Pictures, Gary Goldstein,
(V
Ac
Wachte
Exh
Aldo Baggia, Noah Alireza, Harriet Walker, Charles Terry, Micron Electronics, Mindy
Homan, Nancy andDick Curtin, Thomas D. Nadeau, NuvoMedia andRocket E-books,
Frank and Sylvia Kennedy, Rome Board of Tourism, Maestro GregoryBrown, Val
Brown, Werner Brandes, Paul Krupin at Direct Contact, Paul Stark, Tom King at
Computalk Network, Sandy and Jerry Nolan, Web guru Linda George, the Nat
Academy of Art in Rome, physicist and fellow scribe Steve Howe, Robert Weston, the
Water Street Bookstore in Exeter, New Hampshire, and the Vatican Observatory.
FACT
T he world’s largest scientific research facility-Switzerland’s Conseil Européen pour la
Recherche Nucléaire (CERN)-recently succeeded in producing the first particles of
antimatter. Antimatter is identical to physical matter except that it is com
particles whose electric charges are opposite to those found in normal matter.
