The building was only two stories high, the offices of the Committee for Preborn Rights occupying the second floor. Johnson glanced at his watch and bounded up the stairs.
'Sorry I'm late,' he announced to the elderly woman at the reception desk. 'I'm Terry Johnson. I have an appointment with-'
'Yes, young man. Please step right in.' She gestured with an age-spotted hand toward a frosted glass door.
Pastor Avery Decker stood when Johnson entered. He ex-tended a chubby hand to the taller, younger man. The fluores-cent light overhead reflected from his balding pate, seeming to wink at Johnson along with the minister's twinkling eyes.
'Greetings, Mr. Johnson. I'm Avery Decker, this is James Rosen.' He indicated a young, intense man standing by a book-case in the bright room. Tall and darkly handsome, he seemed more suited to the Colonial furnishings than did the overweight middle-aged preacher. 'Jim's my assistant and legal advisor. I hope you don't mind his sitting in on this meeting.'
'Not at all.' Johnson shook Rosen's hand, making the usual small-talk introductions.
'Won't you have a seat?' Rosen pointed to a well-stuffed wing chair. Johnson eased happily into the soft leather recesses. This, at least, was a warmer reception than Burke had given him.
Rosen sat in a chair off to Decker's right. He watched Johnson with a studied alertness that marked him as more of a body-guard than an assistant. It made sense. Decker was a hated man.
'You know,' Decker began, leaning back in his swivel chair and placing his hands in his pockets,
'when I spoke to you on the phone, I wasn't too aware of what this whole transoption thing was about. I had Jim, here, do what he does with his computer and search the AP news wire to get us up to date.' He tapped at a thin stack of printout on his desk. 'I don't like it. Not one bit. I'm afraid the answer has to be no.'
Johnson dove right in, unwilling to lose the argument to slow response. 'I don't know what's in there, but the truth of the matter is that Dr. Fletcher has found a way to save the lives of fet-of preborns and she's being persecuted for rescuing a defenseless victim of abortion.'
'And who did the aborting, Mr. Johnson? She didn't just stumble across this `victim.' She created it in the first place. If she had refused to perform abortions, this new technique would be unnecessary.'
'Oh, come on!' A strange anger grew inside Johnson. 'Women would just go to some other doctor, and the preborns would still be aborted and dead, and the problem would re-main. Is that what you'd prefer?'
'We'd prefer,' Rosen said, 'that all the doctors obey their Hippocratic-or is it hypocritic-oath and
`not aid a woman to procure abortion.' A very simple solution-just say no.'
'You can't expect that,' Johnson said with a sharpness that surprised him. Why are they acting like the enemy, too? 'Some women will always need abortions and there will always be a market to perform them. Dr. Fletcher has found a way to give women what they want and yet save the babies. Isn't that what you're fighting for?'
Decker cleared his throat and put his hands on the desk, clasping them as if in prayer. 'What we're fighting for, Mr. Johnson, is an end to all interference with God's plan. If God had wanted that baby to be born inside of Mrs. Chandler, he wouldn't have needed Dr. Fletcher to act as a go-between. It's not just a preborn's right to life we're struggling to defend here. It's the right to live and be born according to God's will. Any-thing that disrupts or interferes with that plan-be it abortion or contraception or transoption-is contrary to God's holy plan.'
'I suppose adoption is evil, too?'
Decker smiled with condescending patience. 'I would say that it is the least of many evils, the minimum in a wide spec-trum of meddling in God's will.'
'You'd outlaw that, too?' Johnson leaned forward a few inches, as if the increased closeness could deepen his under-standing of Decker's position.
'We don't seek to outlaw anything,' Rosen interjected in a calm, conversational tone. 'What we seek is a world in which evil actions are never chosen. We don't fool ourselves that it's going to be an easy, overnight task. Caesar's laws are only a temporary expedient toward the implementation of God's law.' Johnson looked from Rosen to Decker. 'And are you the in-fallible interpreters of God's plans?' The minister smiled. 'I never laid claim to such an honor.'
'Then perhaps,' Johnson said, 'there's a slim chance-how-ever inscrutable to you-that Dr. Fletcher is part of God's plan and you are just too bullheaded to see it.' He rose to leave. Decker spoke to Johnson's departing back. 'If the plaintiff doesn't accept my offer to appear on her behalf, I'll be making our position clearer in the amicus we'll be filing.'
'Thanks for nothing' was the sharpest retort Johnson could summon. He slammed the door with unprofessional force and strode angrily to his car. As a pair of Huey Cobras whined a few thousand feet away, his brain burned
