The old man set the photograph down on the wooden table, which had faded over the years. His gaunt fingers, knuckles swollen with age, fumbled through the air as if searching for something invisible.
The entire room fell into silence.
A heavy, suffocating silence, broken only by the rhythmic ticking of an ancient wall clock and the suppressed breathing of five people standing huddled within the cramped space, which was pungent with the scent of photo-developing chemicals.
"They want to find something else, something that must be very important."
His cloudy eyes came to rest on Julian Sterling's face. This time, the strange glint in the depths of his gaze did not vanish as it had before. It lingered, burning dimly like a glowing ember buried beneath a layer of ash. He stared intently at Julian, then looked down at the photograph again.
That movement was repeated several times, as if he were making a comparison.
