"Something wrong in here, sir?" asked the Marine.

"You sounded strange," added the secretary. "And the door was locked."

"I want this man escorted out of here," said Thorn. "And if he ever comes back •.. I want him put in jail."

No one moved, the Marine hesitant to put his hands on a priest. Slowly, Tassone turned and walked to the door. There he stopped, looking back at Thorn.

"Accept Christ," he whispered sadly. "Each day drink His blood."

Then he left, the Marine following him, all the others standing in confused silence.

"What did he want?" an aide asked.

"I don't know," whispered Thorn gazing after the priest. "He was crazy."

On the street outside the Embassy, Haber Jennings leaned up against a car, checking out his spare camera, having put the broken one away. His eye caught sight of the Marine escorting the priest down the front steps, and he snapped off a couple of shots of the two as the priest slowly shuffled away. The Marine spotted Jennings and walked to him, eyeing him with distaste.

"Haven't you gotten into enough trouble with that thing today?" he asked, indicating Jennings' camera.

"Enough trouble?" smiled Jennings. "Never enough."

And he clicked off two more shots of the Marine at point-blank range, the Marine glaring as he withdrew. Then Jennings changed focus and found the small priest; he snapped off one more shot of him as he disappeared in the distance.

Late that night, Jennings sat in his darkroom gazing at a series of photographs, his eyes curious and confused. To make sure his spare camera was operating efficiently he had shot off a roll of thirty-six pictures at varying exposures and speeds, and three of them had turned out defective. It was the same sort of defect he'd had a few months ago in the shot of the nanny at the Thorn estate. This time it involved the shots of the priest. Once again it seemed to be a flaw on the emulsion, but this time it appeared more than once. It came twice in a row, then skipped two shots, then returned, exactly as before. Even more curious, it seemed linked to the subject, the strange blur of movement hanging above the priest's head as though it were somehow actually there.