It bothered Bugenhagen that while Morgan remained understandably skeptical, Morgan's attractive girl friend had no trouble believing him. That she was even with them had bothered Bugenhagen to begin with, but Morgan was an incorrigible romantic and rarely without a woman, no matter what the occasion. So even though Bugenhagen had expressly insisted upon a private meeting, he was not at all surprised to find a woman with Morgan—just annoyed.

Her name was Joan Hart, and she was very striking, with auburn hair and flashing eyes. Bugenhagen didn't know what to make of women like her. When he was younger, young enough to have been swayed by her looks, though certainly not by the way she talked, women like Joan Hart didn't even exist.

She was a free-lance photo-journalist, a fact she not only announced at every opportunity, underscoring it by a firm handshake and a professional smile, but which she further accented by the manner in which she dressed. Her outfit, which had obviously been custom-made by a London tailor, at a no doubt exorbitant price, was apparently designed to recall Ernest Hemingway on safari. She wore absurdly oversized jewelry and was never without several Nikons slung around her neck. She smoked and talked incessantly.

But for all her paraphernalia, Joan Hart was not in Acre entirely because of an assignment. She was there because of Michael Morgan, who was, at the moment, the most important man in her life, though it was true that her work claimed all of the interest and attention that Michael Morgan did not.

Joan Hart, who had just arrived by plane from her home base in London, had already seen the newspaper headline that Bugenhagen was now showing Morgan:

U.S. AMBASSADOR AND WIFE BURIED.

Morgan had already seen it too, although he hadn't been very interested in it at the time, nor for that matter was he interested in it now.

'Yes,' he said in that detached manner that only upper-class Englishmen can muster when they are trying to be polite, 'very curious.'

Bugenhagen, undaunted, showed him the other newspaper, the American one, with the headline:

PRESIDENT AND WIFE COMFORT AMBASSADOR'S BEREAVED SON.

Bugenhagen pointed with his stubby finger at the photograph of a six-year-old boy with a black armband on his sleeve, a boy with a face as beautiful and radiant as the faces of the cherubim the Renaissance painters used to put in the corners of their church ceilings, up high where no one could see.

'Don't you recognize him?' asked Bugenhagen.

Morgan looked at the picture again, studying it more closely this time. 'No,' he said finally.

The frustration of being the only one left who knew, the only one left who understood, was starting to take its toll on Bugenhagen. He spoke more sharply than he intended. 'Haven't you seen Yigael's Wall yet?' he asked.