path.'
The doors opened. The two officers pushed into the throng, politely asking everyone to stand aside, please, as they shoved with hands and forearms against the human sea of reporters. Frawley pushed forward on Fletcher's arm to set up a quick pace.
She resisted. Rather than cowering to avoid the cameras, she held her head high and walked with a slow gait that Frawley found impossible to quicken. He took a deep, irritated breath and fell in step with her pace, tugging at her arm every so often in an effort to make her appear unsteady. She seemed to sense his strategy and to counter each tactic he attempted to employ.
This was the day she had anticipated for so long. Anticipated, feared, and rehearsed for. She was not going to act the criminal's role.
A raven-haired woman shoved a microphone past the offic-ers while her partner pointed a glaring videocam at the doc-tor. Amidst the din of questions, hers rang through clearly. 'How many babies did you steal?'
'Our only comment,' Frawley said, 'is that a complete in-vestigation is underw-'
'After performing three thousand six hundred eighteen preg-nancy terminations,' Fletcher said in a powerful, level tone, 'I managed to save one baby from death. I welcome being con-victed of such a crime.'
That was enough for Frawley. With a subtle but firm tug at her arm, he caused her to stumble over her own feet. She re-covered, glared at him, and resumed her tall stride.
The cloud of reporters orbiting around Dr. Fletcher encoun-tered a choke point at the elevator. The police cleared out a car, and the four descended.
'I know,' Fletcher said, 'that it's in your interest to make me look bad before the press. Battery complaints go both ways, though. Don't set the grounds for a civil suit against you when all this is over.' Frawley rubbed his nose and stared at the elevator door. 'You're right. That was a lame trick. But don't you get your hopes up. You doctor types get so wrapped up in your experi-ments that you think the rest of the world will welcome you as a god floating down from Olympus. Don't count on it. You're a cold, calculating demon, and I'm personally going to see you raked over the coals for this.' The doors parted before another swarm of reporters. The faces were familiar, if a bit flushed, from the third floor. They continued their questioning with labored breath. The entire knot of people moved outside.
'Were you driven to this by religious convictions?' shouted one voice.
'How much did the parents pay you?' hollered another.
'How do you justify breaking the law?'
'I broke no law,' Fletcher said in a loud and level tone. 'Ex-cept the unwritten one that thou shalt not act on conscience. I delib-'
Something hit the side of her head with stunning impact and exploded in a cloud of brown dust. She stared incredu-lously at the man who had thrown the dirt clod. A member of the picket line, he carried a sign that read Abortion Is Mur-der-Save the Future.
'
The attack, caught on video, played for the noon news view-ers.
Terence Johnson sat in his cluttered Long Beach apartment, watching with intense fascination. Surrounded by stacks of law books upon which rested empty fast-food containers from Popeye's, Del Taco, and Gourmet to Go, the twenty-six-year-old man observed the scene with sharp black eyes. His curly almost coal-black hair was longer than was currently fashion-able for his profession, and the cramped quarters of his Sev-enth Street lodgings gave lie to the canard that all lawyers made a fortune. As if any further proof were needed, he wore aging acid-wash jeans that had apparently seen more acid than wash. The T-shirt clinging to his trim frame bore the smiling face of Captain Midnight, urging everyone to drink their Ovaltine.
He scooped up another mouthful of yakisoba with chopsticks, set the nearly empty carton on his copy of Black's Law Dictio-nary, and concentrated on the woman's expression. He tried to read her personality from her body language and neurolinguistics.
He might as well have used her sun sign for all the informa-tion he was able to glean. He was intrigued, though. Enough to reach for his briefcase, shove a few notes into its crammed interior, slip on a reasonably clean, natural- hued knit sweater, and listen carefully.
The camera shifted to the reporter at the scene. 'This bi-zarre story of medical experiments and stolen babies has only just begun to unfold. Dr. Fletcher will be interrogated further in the DA's office downtown. When further word develops on this astonishing-'
Johnson heard nothing more. He slammed the door run-ning and rushed to his battered white Volkswagen.
'
