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platform. Due in part to the usual dirt and debris stirred up by arriving trains, no one except for Sarah seemed to notice the drifting, talcum-like powder that now entered the eyes, noses, and mouths of everyone around her, and as the tiny white particles floated down their throats and descended into the sponge-like cavities of their lungs, the fine powder triggered a brief cough reflex among those standing on the platform.
    The substance fell like a dry rain, swirling under the glare of the florescent lights overhead until it came to rest on every surface—including the fibers of the clothing worn by the commuters as they stepped into the waiting subway car for their ride to the next station.
    Sarah looked down at her coat in horror and began to frantically brush away the dust. That only stirred it up more! She glanced back up to see what had become of the man who had thrown the object. He was gone! Like a ghost, he had disappeared into the crowd, and like the lingering aroma of a strong perfume, the strange powder-like residue was all that remained of his visit.
    Instinctively, Sarah knew she was in trouble—that everyone around her was in trouble. But how would she tell them? She couldn’t just go running through the crowd like a crazy woman, yelling and screaming that she thought they were all going to die from a cloud of white powder that came from a mysterious bearded man. Or could she? Maybe that’s exactly what she should do .
    Sarah stood frozen on the platform, not knowing what to do next as people flooded into the waiting train. With a sudden hiss of air, the doors closed and the train moved away from the platform, leaving a shaken and bewildered Sarah Adams alone and shivering in the now empty station as the mysterious white powder was sucked along with the train into the subway system below the streets of New York City. By all appearances, it seemed that Penn Station was about to undergo its second great catastrophe.

CHAPTER 4
    From his vantage point beneath the rust-colored umbrella that shaded his outdoor table, Cardinal Leopold Amodeo sipped coffee from a small porcelain cup and gazed across Rome’s Piazza Navona . Something about the scene wasn’t quite right. This area of town, usually filled to capacity at this time of day, was strangely void of the camera-encrusted tourists trying to capture the beauty of Bernini’s fountain in a digital image that did little to convey the noise and sights and smells of one of Rome’s most famous piazzas .
    The cardinal’s intelligent green eyes squinted in the early morning sunlight as he clicked through a mental checklist of the day’s appointments and finished a hot cornetto , the Italian version of a croissant. Placing his napkin on the white linen tablecloth, he looked around at all the vacant tables nearby. Was today some kind of holiday he had forgotten about?
    Cardinal Leopold—or Leo , the name his friends used—had just returned from a week of much needed solitude at Bishop Anthony Morelli’s country estate south of Rome. The two men were close friends and had known each other since they had studied together at Georgetown University back in the 1970’s. Following graduation, both men had been accepted to the same Jesuit seminary in Maryland, at a time when becoming a priest made every mother proud and people looked upon the man behind the Roman collar with deference and respect.
    Although all Jesuit priests took vows of poverty, Leo, along with almost everyone else at the Vatican, was privy to the fact that Morelli had made a small fortune in the stock market. In view of this fact, most of the bishop’s money went to charity, but the pope had allowed Morelli to keep two luxuries for himself—a beautiful palazzo in the country and his beloved, bright red BMW two-seat sports car. This rare papal dispensation was due in part because of Morelli’s generous donations to the Church and his vital role as the Vatican’s Chief of Archaeology, but others