"A lot of what I'm doing was first suggested by Walter McCrone, the scientist on the 1978 Shroud of Turin Research Project who claimed the Shroud showed signs of iron oxide that proved it was painted. Others have suggested that a mixture of egg white and bichromate produces a photosensitive mixture that works when painted on the linen."

Castle filed away that information, pleased to know Father Middagh was not the only person who could cite the 1978 Shroud of Turin Research Project to suit the needs of his argument.

"Besides, it doesn't make any difference if the Shroud was created by the methods I am using," Gabrielli said. "All I need to prove is that I can produce today something that looks very much like the Shroud of Turin by using only materials that were known to exist when the carbon-14 tests show the Shroud was created, around 1260 to 1390 A.D. A.D."

The comment caused Castle to challenge Gabrielli on the carbon-14 tests. "I've been show evidence by the Vatican that the samples for the carbon-14 tests were taken from a corner of the Shroud that had been rewoven with cotton after the 1352 fire that damaged the Shroud."

Gabrielli shot back derisively. "The Church has gone to great lengths to discredit the carbon-14 tests. First the Shroud defenders attacked the carbon-14 process itself, claiming it could be inaccurate. But three different labs, all very credible, came up with about the same result. The problem is that carbon-14 dating is a very accurate scientific process. Then the believers claimed the samples were contaminated with biological debris from the Middle Ages. Now the argument is that the carbon-14 dating samples were from a rewoven part of the Shroud. Once we show that argument to be false, the Shroud defenders will come up with another one. The truth is that the carbon-14 tests were done correctly and the Catholic Church just can't stand it."

"How about the blood on the Shroud?" Castle asked. "Will your Shroud contain blood?"

"That's easy, especially since the Shroud of Turin Research Project proved a lot of blood on the Shroud came from direct contact. I could easily saturate parts of the linen with blood to look just like the Shroud. All I would have to do is get some blood samples. If you want, I can even get some samples from fresh corpses, to make sure I include the serum alb.u.min on the Shroud, evidence the Shroud believers say proves Christ's dead body rested in the Shroud."

"Are you confident your Shroud will get world attention?"

"Most of my work does," Gabrielli said boastfully. "I have an international audience that follows my work debunking miracles, just as you are followed worldwide for the books you write attacking religion. When my duplicate shroud is ready, I plan to hold a press conference here at the university. I'm sure it will draw a crowd, especially with your Father Bartholomew drawing global attention on television and on the Internet. Here in Italy, I saw the report on RAI last night. It even included a clip of you at the press conference with the archbishop."

Castle was not surprised. "How did I look?" he asked jokingly.

"Good," Gabrielli said, "but I think you've gained about ten pounds since I saw you last. You need to come over here to Italy and do some walking around Rome and Florence."

Castle laughed, appreciating that Gabrielli probably had a point. Castle thought a trip to Europe would be a welcome idea right about now. "When are you going to show your shroud handiwork to the world?"

"That's what I called to ask," Gabrielli answered. "When would you like me to show it?"

"How about next week? I'm planning a trip to Princeton tomorrow to meet one of Father Bartholomew's advisors from when he was a physicist. Then comes the weekend. You'll get more attention if you wait until the middle of next week. How about next Thursday? We will get coverage on Friday that will carry us through the weekend news cycle. That should give us the chance to get maximum news coverage worldwide."

Gabrielli thought for a minute. "Sounds good to me," he agreed. "Next Thursday it is. I will start preparing the press release right away."

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

Friday morning Trip to Princeton University Day 16 Dr. Castle had his limo swing by the Waldorf Towers to pick up Anne Ca.s.sidy. It was a beautiful fall day and Castle looked forward to the trip to see Dr. Horton Silver at Princeton University. He thought the ride would give him time to find out more about Anne and he looked forward to whatever insight Silver could give him about Paul Bartholomew's career as a physicist.

Castle wore a camel-hair sport coat he particularly liked and a blue b.u.t.ton-down oxford shirt with no tie. In the pocket of the sport coat he had neatly arranged his trademark four-point linen handkerchief. Anne looked fresh in a light blue linen dress suit, highlighted by an Italian designer scarf she tied around the open collar of her tweed dress jacket. Under the jacket she wore an attractive black silk shirt. Castle noted how well Anne's outfit set off her blond hair and deep brown eyes. Once Anne was comfortably in the backseat of the car next to Castle, the driver set out for the Lincoln Tunnel and New Jersey.

"What did Paul have to say when you introduced yourself to him?" Castle finally asked as they headed down the New Jersey Turnpike.

"At first, he couldn't believe it," Anne said. "He thought I was his mother come back to life. He said I looked exactly like she did when she was my age."

"Was he right?" Castle asked.

"I don't know for sure," Anne said with some hesitation. "When I was growing up, I never really knew much of anything about my real mother. I would ask my father to tell me about my mother, but he always put me off, saying something like 'That was a long time ago.' My father was not the most talkative man, especially when it came to personal matters."

Castle probed. "Certainly you must have wanted to see photos of your mother. You must have had some idea about who she was."

"Like I said, my father told me that my mother had died giving birth to me. He had one or two photos of them together that I remember seeing, but over the years even those photos got lost, probably in one of our many moves."

"So you didn't always live in Montreal?" Castle asked.

"No," Anne said. "My father was a lawyer and he worked for the Canadian Pacific Railway. I grew up in western Canada, in Calgary, where the Canadian Pacific is headquartered. It wasn't until I was a teenager that my father got a promotion by switching to the Canadian National Railway. That's when we moved to Montreal, when I was in high school. The Canadian National is headquartered in Montreal."

"Your father never remarried?"

"No, I think he was always very much in love with my mother. I can't remember him even dating when I was a child. He was always there at home for me, playing the role of both mom and dad as I was growing up."

Castle began to see strange reverse parallels in Anne's life and the life of her half brother. Anne was told her mother died giving birth and Paul was told his father died in a work-related accident three months before he was born. Anne and Paul had the same mother, though Anne knew almost nothing about her mother and Paul was equally in the dark about his father. Anne Ca.s.sidy claimed never to have known her mother and Paul Bartholomew claimed never to have known his father, though they both had the same mother in common. Neither Anne Bartholomew, their mother, nor Matthew Ca.s.sidy, Anne's father, ever remarried. Over the years, Castle had become used to sorting out complex family histories. Discovering Anne, he believed, added an important piece to this puzzle.

"I'm sure I'm not the only person ever to be separated at birth from a mother," Anne said.

Castle agreed. "Still, you are one of the lucky ones. Very few people separated at birth ever get a chance to reconcile with a lost brother, or to find out the truth about their parents. After your father died, you learned the truth about your mother and now you are back together with Paul."

"I know it's hard to believe," Anne finally said, "but I think Paul is right. I feel surprisingly close to my mother now that I have met Paul. When Paul first saw me, he almost pa.s.sed out. Judging from Paul's reaction when he first saw me, I guess I do look a lot like my mother did when she was my age. I understand how hard it must have been for Paul to accept he had a half sister he had never heard about. Yet, after we had a chance to get acquainted, he embraced me and I felt like we had never been separated at all."

"Why do you think you mother never told Paul that he had a half sister?" Castle asked.

"Since I never spoke with my mother, I'm only speculating, but my guess is that she did not want Paul to know her first husband was still alive, or that she had divorced him in order to marry Jonathan Bartholomew when he returned from Vietnam."

"So, you think your mother might have been embarra.s.sed about the divorce with your father?"

"I'm not sure," Anne answered. "From the way I put the story together, my mother would never have married my father if she still thought Jonathan Bartholomew was still alive in Vietnam and coming back to her."

Castle admired how willing Anne was to accept the truth. It took some courage to come to New York to be with her brother after all these years. She obviously did not want her brother to suffer alone, not when she knew he shared her flesh and blood.

"Are you deeply Catholic like your brother?" Castle asked.

"No," Anne said. "My father was a Lutheran and I was raised Protestant."

"How about now? Do you believe in G.o.d?"

"Yes, I do," she said, "though I have to admit I'm not much for attending church regularly. Still, I can't accept that everything happens by accident. I have to believe there is a reason I found my brother and deep down I believe that reason has to do with G.o.d."

Castle saw no point in arguing with Anne about religion. He increasingly suspected she might help him better understand her brother.

As the limo entered Princeton, Castle enjoyed seeing once again how an Ivy League town looked. The open greens of the campus reminded him of Cambridge and his days at Harvard University. Finding the Physics Department headquartered in the modernistic Jadwin Hall, completed in 1968, was a bit of a shock. But despite the sweeping windows and central open s.p.a.ces of Jadwin Hall, Professor Horton Silver's office was pretty much what Castle had expected-floor-to-ceiling books and papers with one lonely window in the back that struggled to blend the ambient sunlight with the glare of Dr. Silver's slick widescreen monitor. Once the chairman of the Physics Department, Dr. Silver was now an emeritus professor.

Dr. Silver looked every bit the eccentric Dr. Castle expected to find. Silver's hair was just that-silver, and largely unkempt. His thick gla.s.ses seemed to protrude a quarter inch from their wire frames. Silver was comfortably attired in a loose-fitting sweater that looked as though it had reached its prime twenty years ago, complementing his baggy jeans and well-worn sneakers. Castle and Anne sat in straight-backed wooden chairs in front of the professor's desk, while Silver sat in his armed swivel chair positioned at the desk's helm so he could easily watch the monitor while they talked, moving the mouse and clicking at will even as he was conversing with his two guests.

"As I mentioned to you on the telephone, this is Anne Ca.s.sidy, Father Bartholomew's half sister," Castle said, introducing Anne.

Silver stood up and shook Anne's hand cordially. "I didn't know Paul had a sister," Silver said.

"It's a complicated story," Anne said. "But we have different fathers and my mother divorced my father before Paul was born. Paul never knew he had a half sister and we have just now been reunited."

"That's good," Silver said, obviously not interested in probing the details.

"As I understand it, Paul Bartholomew was one of your undergraduate students," Castle said, getting to the main purpose of the conversation. "Paul evidently was one of your proteges. You encouraged him to become a physics graduate student and you supported his appointment to the faculty of the Inst.i.tute for Advanced Study."

"Yes, that's right," Silver said. "Bartholomew was one of the most promising physicists ever to work at Princeton or at the Inst.i.tute for Advanced Study and we've had more than our share of n.o.bel Prize winners over the decades. In my estimation, Paul was well along his way to adding his name to that list, before he decided to quit."

"Why did he quit?" Castle asked.

"His mother died. She was sick for quite a while, as I remember. She had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis."

"She was sick for some time," Castle said.

"That's how I remember it. At any rate, when she died, Bartholomew wasn't the same. He lost his interest in physics. I couldn't figure it out at the time, but I remember him telling me he had despaired of the possibility of finding G.o.d in an equation."

"Did you ever meet Paul's mother?" Anne asked, anxious to see if he could supply her with any memories of their mother.

"I met her a few times," Silver recalled. "But, you've got to understand, I was Paul's academic advisor and then I was chairman of the Physics Department when he was a graduate student. I try not to intervene too heavily in the personal lives of my students. I'm a physicist, not a psychologist, and I built my career on knowing my limitations."

"As I understand it, you tried to discourage Paul from leaving his career as a physicist. Is that right?" Castle asked.

"Yes, I did. I could see he was emotionally crushed when his mother died. Paul had only two things in his life: his love of physics and his love of his mother. He was devoted to both. I had given up thinking Paul would ever get married. As I recall he had a few girlfriends, but relationships were hard for Paul. Women were too emotionally demanding and Paul was afraid of marriage. I'm sure, Ms. Ca.s.sidy, you will agree with me that a man who can't make a commitment to a woman is not a very good prospect for marriage."

"Maybe that's why I've never been married," Anne said, with a knowing smile. "Men like my brother marry their jobs and his attachment to our mother would not be very promising to a woman looking to be the center of his life as his wife."

"It was his commitment to theoretical research that consumed Paul," Silver said, wanting to be precise. "That's why I recommended him to the inst.i.tute. The inst.i.tute is a separate organization, not part of Princeton University. We are very close and the faculty here at the Physics Department typically works closely with the physicists at the inst.i.tute. But the faculty at the inst.i.tute have no students and they are not required to teach any cla.s.ses. The faculty are not even required to write any books or articles, unless they want to. You might say that getting an appointment at the Inst.i.tute for Advanced Study is one of the best academic jobs in America. You get paid handsomely and you are free to pursue whatever studies you want. Paul's devotion to theoretical research in physics fit right in."

"What was Paul working on when his mother died?" Castle asked.

"Do either of you have any background in physics?" Silver asked.

"None whatsoever," Anne volunteered.

"I took undergraduate physics in college," Castle said.

"That's about what I expected," Silver said with a smile. "Paul was working in advanced particle physics, the cutting edge of physics today, and he was trying to postulate the unified field theory that Einstein failed to formulate at the end of his career."

"I'm not sure I know what that means," Castle said.

"I'm not surprised," Silver replied as he clicked his mouse, preparing to type in a short answer to an email. "I will try to keep this simple so you both get the basic idea."

Castle and Anne agreed that made sense.

"In the last century, quantum mechanics challenged our fundamental understanding of time and s.p.a.ce, just as did Einstein with relativity theory. In other words, physicists like your brother came to understand we do not live in a world defined by the four dimensions of length, width, height, and time. We frequently use the example of a famous novel Edwin Abbott published in 1884, called Flatland Flatland. In Abbott's flatland, the characters in the novel lived in a two-dimensional world in which there was only length and width. The world was flat in that no object had any height. This opened up an interesting possibility. Creatures like us who live in the added dimension of height take on magical properties in flatland. If you hover above flatland, you can enter the two-dimensional world as if you appear from nowhere. Then, if you leap out of flatland, it looks like you have disappeared. Appearing here and then there gives the impression you have walked through walls in flatland, when all you have really done is to hover above it in the dimension of height, waiting to choose when you want to enter the next room. Vanishing from the world of flatland and rematerializing suddenly out of nowhere is incomprehensible to flatlanders, who have no concept of height, but is no problem whatsoever to you, provided you live in three dimensions. Do you follow me?"

"Yes, I think so," Castle said for himself and Anne.

"You've got to read the books written by Michio Kaku," Silver said. "He's a theoretical physicist at the City University of New York. He's written several books explaining advanced physics to laymen and he's brilliant at it. Kaku uses another example. When H. G. Wells wrote his novel The Invisible Man The Invisible Man in 1897, he showed the limitations of our four dimensions. There is this stranger who is completely covered with white bandages around his face, a hat that covers his head, and dark gla.s.ses. The invisible man turns out to be a Mr. Griffen of University College, who has discovered a way to make himself disappear by changing the refractive and reflective properties of human skin. Instead of using his discovery to better the human condition, Griffen uses his ability to disappear to commit a score of petty crimes. The point is that by learning to tap into invisibility as a fifth spatial dimension beyond length, width, and height, the invisible man is able to manifest the type of powers we typically attribute to ghosts or phantoms." in 1897, he showed the limitations of our four dimensions. There is this stranger who is completely covered with white bandages around his face, a hat that covers his head, and dark gla.s.ses. The invisible man turns out to be a Mr. Griffen of University College, who has discovered a way to make himself disappear by changing the refractive and reflective properties of human skin. Instead of using his discovery to better the human condition, Griffen uses his ability to disappear to commit a score of petty crimes. The point is that by learning to tap into invisibility as a fifth spatial dimension beyond length, width, and height, the invisible man is able to manifest the type of powers we typically attribute to ghosts or phantoms."

"So, what is the point?" Castle asked bluntly. "I'm sure I would benefit from taking one of your graduate courses, but I'm afraid I would turn out to be a disappointing candidate for a physics Ph.D."

Silver got the message. "My point is that physicists like your brother and me have come to believe that we may live in a universe that has as many as ten dimensions, not just four."

"What are the other six?" Anne asked. "Is this what my brother was searching for?"

"Yes," Silver acknowledged. "It is. Specifically, your brother was working with complex equations that explain observations particle physicists make when observing subatomic particles in complex and ridiculously expensive machines like the Large Hadron Collider at CERN on the French-Swiss border near Geneva. Physicists like Paul Bartholomew were investigating what we call 'M-Theory,' sometimes called 'the Theory of Everything,' an advanced version of what we physicists call 'string theory.' We can postulate that instead of a four-dimensional world, maybe we live in ten-dimensional s.p.a.ce. A b.u.mblebee flying in ten-dimensional s.p.a.ce could conceivably go everywhere at once, without seeming to be anywhere."

"I don't get it," Anne said.

"Neither do I," Castle added.

"Don't worry," Silver said. "n.o.body really gets it."

"What are the additional dimensions?" Castle asked. "Do you have names for them, or can you describe how they work?"

"Not really," Silver said. "That's the type of question Paul was working at answering when he was here in Princeton at the inst.i.tute. Physicists fifty years ago would have said all this is nonsense, but the top physicists today worldwide are considering phenomena like time warps, or what astronomers call 'worm-holes,' physical constructs where you can enter in the universe here and come out in a parallel universe where everything is the same except maybe that you didn't die."

"It sounds like science fiction," Castle said critically. "So you are telling me that modern physics consider all these H. G. Wells phenomena to be possible?"

"Modern physics does not rule out time travel, if that's what you are asking," Silver answered. "Nor does it rule out that a lot of what we experience in our four dimensions might look very different if we could see the same phenomena in the ten dimensions or more that might truly define our universe."

For Castle, what he was hearing from Dr. Silver connected immediately with what Father Bartholomew had told him in their therapy session. Bartholomew had cautioned Castle not to rule out that his after-life experience may have happened exactly as he experienced it. What Castle realized listening to Silver was that Bartholomew was trying to tell him something that modern particle physics was seriously contemplating: for instance, that an afterlife may exist as a parallel world in which we remain alive. Bartholomew objected when Castle insisted his slippages in time back to Golgotha two thousand years ago on the day Christ died had been strictly a trick of Bartholomew's subconscious. What if Bartholomew, instead of being psychologically disturbed, had just slipped in time and s.p.a.ce so he could experience one or more of the dimensions beyond? Dr. Silver said many modern physicists accepted them as real.

Castle had struggled to understand how someone as brilliant as Paul Bartholomew could fail to see that his physical manifestation of the hair and beard of the man in the Shroud of Turin, or the stigmata he experienced, were obvious manifestations of a psychological disorder. Maybe what Bartholomew was trying to tell him was that the interventions into his life, including the scourge marks he experienced, were really happening, not in our four dimensions, but through an intervention from a dimension beyond our here and now.

Dr. Silver had just explained that the invisible man appeared and disappeared at will, just as the third-dimensional hyperbeing appeared and disappeared in flatland. To Castle, the idea was bizarre, but if we truly lived in a world not bounded by our four dimensions, maybe Rod Serling was right after all. Was it possible the Twilight Zone Twilight Zone was more reality than we ever thought it was? Is it possible we live in the was more reality than we ever thought it was? Is it possible we live in the Twilight Zone Twilight Zone and don't realize it? and don't realize it?

"Do you know that Father Bartholomew claims to have suffered an after-life experience in which G.o.d asked him to return to earth?" Castle asked Dr. Silver.

"I've been reading about it in the newspaper and watching the news reports on television," Silver answered. "I'm not an expert on the Shroud of Turin or the stigmata Paul claims to be manifesting."

"What sense do you make of what's happening to Father Bartholomew?" Castle asked, anxious to get the physicist's perspective. "Do you think what he is going through right now has anything to do with his career as a physicist?"

"I'm not sure," Silver answered. "All I know is that Paul Bartholomew is not only a priest, he is also a brilliant physicist. What he is going through with the stigmata and the Shroud may just be his most recent scientific experiment. I wouldn't put it past Paul to use himself as his own human guinea pig in the most recent phase of his search for G.o.d. Truthfully, that's what I think."

"So you don't think my brother is crazy?" Anne asked.

"We are probably all a little bit crazy," Silver answered with a grin. "But if your brother is crazy he reached that stage through the other side."

"What do you mean?" Castle asked. "What other side?"

"Paul was always so brilliant that he was beyond most human beings, even at the Inst.i.tute for Advanced Study," Silver explained. "That's why I think he had few friends and never married. It was always hard to understand Paul. He was a loner by nature, except when it came to his mother."

"I understand," Anne said quietly.

"Maybe I can explain it to you with one more example," Silver said, seeing that Castle and Anne were doing their best to understand what he was talking about. "I'm not sure this will help, but what if we live in a complex reality where a person could be both dead and alive at the same time?"

"How is that possible?" Castle asked.

"Simple," Silver answered. "The person is dead and alive at the same time because the universe has split apart into a parallel world. In one world the person is dead, but in the other world the person is very much alive. People in each world insist that their world is the only real world and that all other worlds are imaginary or made-up. Universes might split up into millions of branches. In one branch you live to be ninety years old and never marry. In another branch you die tragically young, fighting bravely in combat. In one branch you have ten children; in another branch your only child dies at childbirth and you never have another one, or at least that's what you are led to believe."