Silent Creed (10 page)

Washington, D.C.

F
rankie Sadowski hated waiting. Butterflies had invaded his stomach. The palms of his hands perspired as he clutched the rim of his hat. His daughter, Susan, sat quietly by his side. They were told to stay outside the hearing room and asked not to wander far from the corridor. He tried to keep his mind focused on why he was there in the first place. The reason he had agreed to do this.

It all started with the reunion. They’d grown into old men who complained about their various health issues as though their surgeries were badges of honor. Frankie smiled at that. Once upon a time this same group bragged about their children, their promotions, even their golf handicaps. But this reunion was a litany of ailments. It wasn’t long before the eight men realized each of them had gone through or suffered from too many of the same things: pulmonary infections, chronic respiratory problems, and pulmonary fibrosis. Duke Hutchins had had five heart bypass surgeries. Calvin Clark was getting ready for his fourth.

At first they had laughed. By the end of the evening they were elbowing each other in smaller groups, whispering their suspicions. Was it possible that their time in the service had had anything to do with so many illnesses?

Frankie shared their concerns with Susan, who was a nurse. Immediately she said it was a strange coincidence. She started doing research. Frankie had never even heard of SHAD until she explained that it was an acronym for Shipboard Hazard and Defense. The tests were part of Project 112 and were conducted secretly from 1962 until around 1974. She told him about veterans getting sick.

The government, of course, had denied any such tests until 2002. Since then Congress had held hearings, ordered study after study, tried to enact legislation—but all of it had simply put off doing anything about the servicemen who had been exposed. And consequently, it allowed the VA to deny those servicemen any benefits or compensation.

Frankie figured they would just keep putting it off until all of them were dead. He wasn’t sure how anyone had managed to bring it back to life. Another congressional hearing. Another possibility of getting some help for his friends.

Frankie’s buddies had christened him their crusader. Slapped him on his back and wished him well. They even took up a collection among themselves to pay for Frankie’s flight to D.C. He felt bad about that. None of them had extra money sitting around. He hadn’t asked for their money or their trust. He simply wanted answers, and he wanted his friends to finally get the medical benefits they deserved.

Frankie started coughing and Susan offered him a bottle of water. He took it and sipped. The cough had gotten worse. He hadn’t told Susan about the blood he’d hacked up the other day. At Segway House he was afraid Hannah would notice that her little dog named Grace could obviously smell his cancer. Hannah had barely finished telling him that the dog was capable of doing just that when Frankie noticed Grace staring at him, long and hard.

Now all Frankie cared about was that if he could help Gus and the others, then this would be worth it. He thought about Gus being worried about his grandson. The kid had come home from Afghanistan without one hand. What they’d been through might have caused them some health issues, but at least all his buddies were in one piece. He couldn’t imagine going through life with only one hand.

Maybe they were silly to be fixated on a stupid government test that had been kept secret for sixty years. Even Gus had said that if they were able to keep secret who killed Kennedy for this long, how did they ever expect to bust open Project 112?

Frankie shook his head thinking about Gus. He knew his friend didn’t have much time left, either. Frankie knew Gus was dying, too. But he knew this not because Gus had told him. He wasn’t sure Gus even knew. Nor did he know it because of his daughter, who was a nurse at the care facility that Gus went to. If she did know, she’d never divulge that information to her father.

No, Frankie knew that Gus was dying because that’s what the man from the government had told him. The man who had visited him a week ago and suggested what Frankie should and shouldn’t say during his testimony.

Frankie and his friends knew the government might try to discourage them from testifying. They had battled with their VA for years now. And they knew there were others like them who had been fighting this fight for many more years. All of them had been denied benefits, first because the government denied Project 112 and Project SHAD even existed, then because the government’s studies claimed those projects did not hurt any military personnel. Of course, their own studies would not show any evidence despite private studies showing the opposite.

So Frankie wasn’t surprised to have someone visit him and try to guide his testimony. He didn’t care. It was too late to worry about himself. But he didn’t want the others to worry, so Frankie hadn’t told Gus about the man. He hadn’t told Susan, either. In fact, he hadn’t told a single soul.

S
enator Ellie Delanor tried not to be distracted by the reporters and cameras. They were sprawled below in the tight area between the row of senators on the dais and the table where witnesses would testify. Some of them looked ridiculous squatting or sitting on the floor, bracing their foot-long lenses. She hid her delight in their discomfort. It was nice to have them focused on someone else for a change.

“To fully understand Project 112,” Dr. Hess was telling the committee, as if he were a professor in control of a classroom instead of an expert who had been subpoenaed to be there, “you must understand the nature of the world at that time. There was a deep, almost visceral, distrust after World War Two. Russia had been an ally out of necessity only. But the Russians were happy to split the spoils of war. For the most part we imported German scientists and their minds. The Russians got the laboratories and they literally disassembled them piece by piece and transferred them to places inside their borders. We had no idea what may have been left in those labs.”

He reached for his glass of water, slowly taking a sip as if he wanted the committee to sip on that last bit of information. When Senator John Quincy started to say something, Dr. Hess held up his index finger and stopped the senator cold.

Ellie couldn’t help being fascinated by the colonel’s air of authority. At first glance he looked like a stodgy old man, his shoulders sagging as if from the weight of all the medals that decorated his dress blues. His full head of hair had gone thin; the feathery wisps barely covered the brown spots on his scalp that matched the ones on the back of his hands. But there was something about him—the piercing blue eyes, the confident gestures—that demanded respect.

“We knew the Russians were way ahead of us in the chemical and biological warfare department. The Cold War was something no one had ever experienced. Two countries literally had the ability to wipe each other off the face of the earth and take everyone else with them. We were all looking for alternatives to nuclear weapons. President Kennedy ordered his secretary of defense, Robert McNamara—”

“With all due respect, Colonel Hess,” Senator Quincy interrupted, and this time managed to ignore the scowl he received, “I don’t believe we brought you here today for a history lesson.”

There were a few nervous smiles and nods as the cameras turned. Even the reporters seemed to be waiting for some kind of confrontation.

“How old were you, Mr. Quincy, in 1962?”

“I’m not sure how that’s relevant. I certainly wasn’t old enough to enlist, if that’s your point.”

“I’m guessing you were in elementary school, perhaps?”

“Actually, if you must know, I was five years old. Not quite in school yet.”

“Ah, I see. That explains things.” Hess was now nodding and smiling, and Senator Quincy suddenly looked uncomfortable, as though he’d missed out on a joke. “You never experienced the school drills of the 1960s, where children were instructed at the blaring sound of an alarm to climb underneath their desks in preparation for an attack. You probably don’t remember the evening news showing soldiers slogging through the jungle or the daily casualty report from Vietnam. You have no idea, Mr. Quincy, what kind of fear and panic existed at that time because you were simply a child. But let me tell you as someone who was there, someone who helped prepare us for a new generation of threat—we were in the race of our lives.”

Ellie, along with the other senators, kept quiet. She wasn’t born until a decade later. Project 112—from the little homework she had done—existed between 1962 and 1974. As far as she was concerned, these hearings seemed more for show than anything else. Veterans who were unknowingly a part of Project 112 had been attempting to get VA medical benefits and disability since 2002, when the Department of Defense finally acknowledged this project even existed.

There had already been hearings that produced studies that later went nowhere. A legislative bill passed the House in 2008, only to die in the Senate. Maybe that’s why she hadn’t bothered to read beyond those facts. She already knew this hearing would most likely be only for show, too. And that’s why she had signed up. Why she had fought to be included. She needed to look like she was fighting for veteran voters without really engaging in any controversy that could alienate her from the powers that be within Congress. It was a safe political bet for an embattled incumbent who needed to look like she was working hard for her constituents.

“These tests that a handful of veterans are complaining about nearly forty to fifty years later were not conducted with the intention of hurting them. These tests were to determine the vulnerability of U.S. warships to attacks with chemical and biological agents that we understood could wipe out more than just our troops if used by a willing enemy. These weapons could wipe out entire cities. So excuse me, Senator Quincy, if I insist that knowing a bit about history is important in this matter.”

Without raising his voice Hess had managed to deliver a scolding that silenced the room. Except for the clicks of the cameras. Hess milked it, waiting patiently with a stone-cold stare that made Quincy squirm and shift in his chair. Ellie watched him give a slight tug on his collar, as if it were choking him to release the four words he finally said: “By all means, continue.”

Haywood County, North Carolina

D
aniel Tate had discovered an entire tunnel system. Fractured walls and splintered furniture made it a challenge, as did the many cables and electrical wires tangled in clumps or strung from one side to another. Ceiling tiles dangled, and in some spots he could see all the way up to the clouds. He climbed over burst pipes that spewed disgusting sewer mixtures.

This was nothing.

He’d been through much worse—a bombed village outside of Baghdad. He remembered the soles of his boots melting from walking on the charred remains. As long as he lived he’d never forget the smell of burnt flesh.

Earlier, searching through a caved-in storage room, Tate had hit the jackpot. He found night vision goggles, something that looked like a Kevlar vest but was lighter, and a helmet with two different lighting options. With a flick of a switch he could change from LED to infrared. The helmet and the goggles allowed him to see whatever he wanted without filling his hands with a flashlight. And he needed his hands to pull and shove and push as he made his way through the tunnel system.

Despite all the gadgets, he had yet to find a pair of shoes. He had found bottles of alcohol and cleaned his bruised and bloodied feet by pouring stinging amounts of the liquid over them. Then he carefully wrapped them with ACE bandages. If he couldn’t walk—and if necessary, run—it wouldn’t matter what weapons he had.

Now if only he could shut down the prickly feeling that stabbed at his skin like a thousand tiny needles. His nose kept bleeding even after he had stuffed wads of tissue up his nostrils. And his heart raced in his chest so fast and so hard it felt as if it would crack his ribs open at any moment.

Enough time had gone by that Tate suspected these things were probably side effects of the drug that Dr. Shaw had given him. He tried to tell himself that they would wear off.

He heard a noise and stood stock-still. Cocked his head and listened to see if he could identify it. By now he knew the sound of pipes belching or walls cracking. There was something different about this sound. He didn’t have to wait long. He heard it again.

It came from somewhere in the tunnel ahead of him. A rhythmic
clack-clack
, then the crunch of glass.

Footsteps!

T
hey stopped after they pulled out the first body and realized it could be a crime scene because of the gunshot wound,” the National Guardsman explained. He looked back over his shoulder as he led O’Dell and the medical examiner through the mud. “We’ve had someone securing the area since last night. The only problem is that some of it’s underwater now.”

His long legs made it an effort for him to slow his pace to keep close to theirs. He maneuvered around the debris sticking out of the ground. The slight incline didn’t seem to affect him. O’Dell, however, found herself slipping just when she thought she had her balance. And still, she put out her arm to help the older woman beside her.

She guessed that the woman’s slight limp made her look frailer than she actually was. She swatted away at O’Dell’s offer and continued marching in big rubber boots that swallowed her feet all the way up to her knees.

When O’Dell first met Dr. Gunther she found herself thinking they had reached the bottom of their barrel—so to speak—and that all the more capable law enforcement officials must already have been overwhelmed in rescue efforts. The dead—or at least the dead not associated with the landslide—would have to settle for whoever was left.

Ben had made it sound like this was a top secret mission. Yet from the moment O’Dell arrived, she couldn’t help thinking the government had pieced together a slapdash team. She was told that Peter Logan was held up in D.C. and that his assistant, Isabel Klein, was supposed to meet her. But instead, a young National Guardsman named Ross showed up in her place.

Dr. Gunther looked as if she herself had been through the landslide. Her long gray hair was tied back and tucked into a headscarf, but strands waved across her face. One end of her scarf wrapped tightly around her neck and into the collar of her baggy jacket, as if she were prepared for deathly cold temperatures. The rain had stopped for the moment, leaving a gray sky masked behind a thick cloud of fog. The breeze brought a damp chill, but nothing that warranted Dr. Gunther’s wardrobe.

The top of the woman’s head came to O’Dell’s chin, and the oversized clothing made her thin frame look even smaller. And though she didn’t use a cane or a walking stick, she moved with a pronounced limp. Even when it slowed them down she made no excuse or explanation for the handicap.

“And where is that first body being kept?” the medical examiner asked.

That surprised O’Dell. She had presumed Dr. Gunther had already been involved.

“It’s my understanding a temporary morgue has been set up a couple blocks from the high school.”

“A couple blocks from the high school?” The woman’s brow furrowed as she tried to retrieve what must have been familiar territory. “You don’t mean Ralph’s Meat Locker, do you?”

The guardsman’s ears flushed with his answer before he said, “I wouldn’t know, ma’am. I haven’t been involved in that aspect of the recovery.”

By now they were at the top of the incline and O’Dell could see three guardsmen setting up equipment. They already had two tents, one most likely being used to shelter the remains. O’Dell could hear rushing water. Not more than a couple of feet away a muddy stream raced over rocks and debris.

Guardsman Ross pointed at the water and said, “The last slide broke that free. Someplace underneath is where they left at least one body buried.”

“Is this where the research facility was located?” O’Dell asked, knowing that one of the bodies had already been identified as one of the scientists.

“It’s my understanding that the facility was located about a half mile up.” He pointed in the direction, but there was nothing that looked remotely like a brick building—only debris and mud.

“We’re still trying to find it,” Ross added when he noticed O’Dell still searching. “Landslides can dismantle buildings and relocate objects—vehicles, furniture, bodies—miles from where they originated. That body we think is under the water might not even be there anymore. We’re waiting on the K9 unit to relocate it. Hopefully it didn’t get washed farther downhill.”

“I thought the K9 unit was already here?” O’Dell asked, expecting to see Ryder Creed and trying not to sound disappointed.

“Actually, he and his dog found the bodies yesterday. Then all hell broke loose. It’s my understanding he was buried under that last slide. If it wasn’t for his dog, they might not have found him in time.”

“Is he okay?”

“Must be.” He checked his cell phone. “Sounds like they’re sending him back up here.”