But he was answered with the sound of a disconnect. In the darkness of his room Thorn wept, his sobs echoing down the corridor outside. A night porter hurried to his room and knocked, but all went silent within and stayed that way for hours.

At midnight Jennings returned, his gangly form bent with exhaustion as he entered the room and looked at Thorn's figure lying on the bed. "Thorn?" "Yes," Thorn whispered.

"I went to the library, then the auto club, then called the Royal Geographic Society."

Thorn didn't answer and Jennings sat heavily on the opposite side of the bed. He could see that the bloodstain on Thorn's shirt had widened, the area beneath his armpit dark and wet.

"I found out about the town of Meggido. It's taken from the word 'Armageddon.' The end of the world."

"Where is it?" Thorn asked without expression.

"About fifty feet underground, I'm afraid. Outside the city of Jerusalem. There's an excavation going on there. Some American university."

There was no reply and Jennings moved to his own bed where he lay down, limp with exhaustion.

"I want to go there," whispered Thorn. *

Jennings nodded, emitting a long sigh. "If you could only remember the name of the old man ..."

"Bugenhagen."

Jennings glanced at him, still unable to see Thorn's eyes.

"Bugenhagen?"

"Yes. I've remembered the poem, too."

Jennings' face was filled with confusion.

"The name of the man you're supposed to see is Bugenhagen?"

"Yes."

"Bugenhagen was a seventeenth-century exorcist. He was mentioned in one of those books we've got."

"That was the name," replied Thorn without expression. "I've remembered it all. Everything he said."

"Hallelujah," Jennings muttered.

"When the Jews return to Zion .. ." Thorn recited in a near whisper, ". . . And a comet fills the sky . . . and the Holy Roman Empire rises . . . then all of us will die."

Jennings listened intently in the darkness; finally, alerted by the lifeless tone, he knew something in Thorn had changed.

"From the eternal sea he rises . .." Thorn continued, ". . . with armies on either shore . . . turning man against his brother . . . until man exists no more."

He fell silent; Jennings waited while the sound of a police car sped toward them, and passed on by the window.

"Has something happened?" he asked.

"Katherine's dead," replied Thorn without emotion. "I want the child to die, too."

They listened to the sounds of the streets outside and both were still awake at dawn when the sounds had fallen to silence. At eight o'clock Jennings dialed El-Al and booked the noon flight to Israel.