62

You and Cleo exit the vehicle simultaneously and walk side by side toward the mob and its animated spokesman. Cleo puts up a calm front, but you can sense the tension in her as she strides along the police cordon and toward the steps leading up into Gibson Hall.

You manage a few steps in peace, but then Bulldog Beaumont spots you from his elevated perch and unleashes the mob on you.

"There!" he squawks, pointing a fat finger in your direction. "There they are! Stone and Spillane!"

The world explodes around you. A hooting, jeering mass of people are bellowing insults and provocations at you. The police officers look nervously at each other and brandish their nightsticks at the crowd. That holds the mob back, for now.

One particularly enraged protester, face red and raw with fury, with veins standing out on his shaved temples, leans his head through the police cordon right next to you. He screams a particularly vile racial epithet at Cleo.