Thorn arrived at twelve thirty, parked by the curb, and waited tensely in his car. The time passed slowly, and he listened to the news, only half-hearine as the roll call of countries in trouble was sounded. Spain, Lebanon, Laos, Belfast, Angola, Zaire, Israel, Thailand. One could literally close his eyes and point to the map and be within inches, at most, of a hot spot. It seemed the longer man's time on earth, the shorter the outlook for habitation. The time-bomb was ticking and one of these days it would go off. Plutonium, the by-product of nuclear power, was now available to everyone, and with it, even the smallest countries could arm themselves for atomic war. Some were bent, anyway, on suicidal destruction. They would lose nothing if in their outrage they took the rest of the world with them. Thorn thought of the Sinai Desert, the Promised Land. He wondered if God knew when he promised it to Abraham that it was there that the time-bomb would go off.

He gazed at the clock on his dashboard; it was one o'clock. Pulling himself together, he slowly entered the park. He had worn a raincoat and dark glasses so as not to be recognized, but the disguise added to his anxiety as he searched for the fieure of the priest. He spotted him, and froze, fighting off the impulse to go no farther. Tassone was alone on a bench, his back to him; Thorn could easily have turned without being seen. But instead he moved forward, circling the priest and confronting him head on.

Tassone was jarred by Thorn's sudden appearance; his face was tense and bathed in sweat, as though suffering unendurable pain. For a long moment, they stared in silence.

"I should have brought the police" said Thorn curtly.

"They can't help you."

"Get on with it. Say what you have to say."

Tassone's eyes fluttered and his hands began to tremble. He was plainly under intense exertion; the exertion of fighting pain.

"When the Jews return to Zion ..." he whispered.

"What?"

".. . When the Jews return to Zion. And a comet fills the sky. And the Holy Roman Empire rises. Then you and I. . . must die."

Thorn's heart leapt. The man was insane. It was a poem he was reciting, his face rigid and trancelike, his voice rising in shrill intensity.

"From the Eternal Sea he rises. Creating armies on either shore. Turning man against his brother. Till man exists no more!"

Thorn watched as the priest began to quake in every fiber, struggling to make himself heard.

"The Book of Revelations predicted it all!" he blurted.

"I'm not here for a religious sermon."

"It is by means of a human personality entirely in his possession that Satan will wage his last and most formidable offense. Book of Daniel, Book of Luke . . ."

"You said my wife was in danger."