What was going on here? Taylor glanced at Burdick and saw him sitting forward, clearly troubled.

A dozen rows behind him Clayton's representative, Randy Simms, sat immobile though with a slight smile on his face.

The judge looked at Reece, opposing counsel looked at Reece.

"I appreciate your candor, Doctor. Malpractice, malpractice." Reece walked back to the table slowly, letting the word sink into the jury's consciousness. He stopped and then added brightly, "Oh, Doctor, if you don't mind, I just have a few matters of clarification."

"Not at all."

Reece said, "Doctor, where are you licensed to practice?"

"As I said before, California, New Jersey and New York."

"No other state?"

"No."

Reece turned to look into Morse's eyes. "How about any other country?"

"Country?"

"Yessir," Reece said. "I'm just curious if you've ever been licensed to practice in any other country."

A hesitation. Then a smile. "No."

"Have you ever practiced medicine in another country?"

"I just said I wasn't licensed."

"I caught that, sir. But what I just asked was 'practiced, ' Doctor, not licensed. Have you ever practiced medicine anywhere outside of the United States?"

The man swallowed, a look of horror in his eyes. "I've done some volunteer work."

"Outside of the country."

"Yes, that's right."

"And would you be so kind as to tell us which country, if that isn't too much trouble, Doctor?"

" Mexico."

" Mexico," Reece repeated. "What were you doing in Mexico?"

"I was getting a divorce. I liked the country and I decided to stay for a while -"

"This was when?"

"Eight years ago."

"And you practiced medicine in Mexico?"

Morse was looking at his fingertips. "Yes, for a while. Before I moved back to California. I set up a practice in Los Angeles. I found Los Angeles to be -"

Reece waved his hand. "I'm much more interested in Mexico than Los Angeles, Doctor. Now, why did you leave Mexico?"

Dr. Morse took a sip of water, his hands trembling. The plaintiff's lawyers looked at each other. Even the poor plaintiff seemed to have sat up higher in his wheelchair and was frowning.

"The divorce was final. I wanted to move back to the States."

"Is that the only reason?"

The witness lost his composure for a moment as a time-lapse bloom of anger spread on his face. Finally he controlled it. "Yes."

Reece said, "Did you run into some kind of trouble down in Mexico?"

"Trouble, like the food?" He tried to laugh. It didn't work and he cleared his throat again and swallowed.

"Doctor, what is Ketaject?"

Pause. Morse rubbed his eyes. He muttered something.

"Louder, please," Reece asked, his own voice calm and utterly in control of himself, the witness, the universe.

The doctor repeated. "It's the brand name of a drug whose generic name I don't recall."

"Could it be the brand name for ketamine hydrochloride?"

The witness whispered, "Yes."

"And what does that do?"

Morse breathed deeply several times. "It is a general anesthetic." His eyes were joined to Recce's by a current full of fear and hate.

"And what is a general anesthetic, Doctor?"

"You know. Everybody knows."

"Tell us anyway, please."

"It's a solution or gas that renders a patient unconscious."

"Doctor, when you were in Mexico, did you have a patient, a Miss Adelita Corrones, a seventeen-year-old resident of Nogales?"

Hands gripped together. Silence. He wanted water but was afraid to reach for the glass.

"Doctor, shall I repeat the question?"

"I don't recall."

"Well, I'm sure she recalls you. Why don't you think back to the St Teresa Clinic in Nogales. Think back seven years ago. And try to recall if you had such a patient. Did you?"

"It was all a setup. They set me up. The locals – the police and the judge – blackmailed me! I was innocent."

"Doctor," Reece continued, "please just respond to my questions." His tie was loose, his face was ruddy with excitement, and even from the back of the courtroom Taylor could see his eyes shining with lust.

"On September seventeenth of that year, pursuant to a procedure for the removal of a nevus – that is, a birthmark – from Miss Corrones's leg, did you administer Ketaject to her and then, when you perceived her to be unconscious, partially undress her, fondle her breasts and genitals and masturbate until you reached a climax?"

"Objection!" Marlow's lead lawyer was on his feet.

The judge said, "Overruled."

"No! It's a lie." the witness cried.

Reece returned to the counsel table and picked up a document. "Your honor, I move to introduce Defense Exhibit Double G, a certified copy of a complaint from the federal prosecutor's office in Nogales, Mexico."

He handed it to the judge and a copy to the plaintiff's counsel, who read it, grimaced and said in disgust, "Let it in."

"So admitted," the judge intoned and looked back to the witness.

Dr. Morse's head was in his hands. "They set the whole thing up. They blackmailed me I paid the fine and they said they'd seal the record."

"Well, I guess it's been unsealed," Reece responded. "Now, the report goes on to say that the reason Miss Corrones was aware you were molesting her was that you not only administered the wrong dosage of Ketaject but that you injected it improperly so that most of the drug didn't even reach her bloodstream. Is this what the prosecutor's report says?"

"I…"

"True or not true? Answer the question."

"They set me -"

"Is this what the report says?"

Sobbing, the man said, "Yes, but -"

"Wouldn't you say, sir, that you can hardly state my client is guilty of malpractice because of the improper administration of drugs when you can't even knock out a teenager enough to rape her?"

"Objection."

"Withdrawn."

"They set me up," the witness said. "Just to blackmail me. They -"

Reece turned on him. "Well, then, Doctor, did you at any time contact the law enforcement authorities in Mexico City or in the United States to report that you were being blackmailed?"

"No," he raged. "I paid them the extortion money and they said I could leave the country and they'd seal the record I -"

"You mean," Reece said, "you paid the fine for your punishment. Like any other criminal. No further questions."

Taylor found herself sitting forward on the edge of the pew. She now saw Recce's brilliant tactic. First, he'd gotten the jury's attention. Expecting petty bickering, they'd seen Reece befriend the witness, surprising them and getting them to sit up and listen. Then he got the man to say the magic word that, by rights, Reece or LaDue or anyone on the St Agnes legal team would try never even to allow into testimony, let alone elicit themselves, "malpractice".

And then, in a masterful stroke, he'd linked that characterization – that one magic word – to the witness s terrible behavior and completely destroyed his credibility.

Taylor saw a gleam in Recce's face, a flushing of the cheeks, fists balled up in excitement.

Reece turned. He noticed Donald Burdick in the back of the courtroom. The two men looked at each other. Neither smiled, but Burdick touched his forehead in a salute of respect.

Taylor turned and looked at Burdick then behind him. Finally Randy Simms showed some emotion. His lips were tight and his eyes bored into the back of Donald Burdick's head. He rose and stepped out of the courtroom, which was utterly silent.

Except for the sobbing of the witness.