Senator 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.