Sherlock - The Game Is On!

The Hounds Of Baskerville- Eleven

Chapter Eleven

We followed Stapleton along a corridor to a large room which has Major Barrymore's office in the corner. As we go into the room, Sherlock points back to the door we just came through. "John."

"Yeah, I'm on it."

"Project HOUND. Must have read about it and stored it away. An experiment in a CIA facility in Liberty, Indiana. H, O, U, N, D." Sherlock states as Stapleton types in the letters and hits Enter. A message comes up saying 'NO ACCESS. CIA Classified' and requesting an authorisation code. "That's as far as my access goes, I'm afraid."

"Well, there must be an override and password." I state. "I imagine so, but that'd be Major Barrymore's." I saunter to Barrymore's office. "Password, password, password." Sherlock mumbles, repeatedly. Switching on the lights in the room I sit down at the desk. "Ok so, he sat here when he thought it up." Placing my hands on the desk, I snap my head to Stapleton. "Describe him to me, Stapleton."

"You've seen him."

"Yes, but describe him to me."

"Er, he's a bloody martinet, a throw-back, the sort of man they'd have sent into Suez."

"Good, excellent. Old-fashioned, traditionalist; Not the sort that would use his children's names as a password. He loves his job; Proud of it and this is work-related, so what's at eye level?" Sherlock suggests. I rapidly scan around everything in the room without altering the angle of my head. "Books." I point to my left. "Jane's Defence Weekly, bound copies." I look to my right again at the subject matter of some of the books on the bookshelf. "Hannibal; Wellington; Rommel; Churchill's 'History of the English-Speaking Peoples' all four volumes." I stand up looking towards the bronze bust on a shelf. "Churchill well, he's fond of Churchill. Copy of 'The Downing Street Years'; One, two, three, four, five separate biographies of Thatcher." I look down to a framed photograph on the desk of a man in uniform standing with his teenage son. "Mid 1980s at a guess. Father and son: Barrymore senior. Medals: Distinguished Service Order. That date? I'd say Falklands veteran. So Thatcher's looking a more likely bet than Churchill." Walking out the office I head towards the computer.

"So that's the password?" Stapleton asked, dubiously. "No. With a man like Major Barrymore, only first name terms would do." I speak rapidly. Leaning down to the keyboard, I start to type Margaret Thatcher's first name into the box but stop when it reaches the maximum digits. I narrow my eyes and delete everything back to the first letter, retyping it as 'Maggie'. Looking into the screen and gritting my teeth ever so slightly, I hit Enter. The computer beeps happily and announces 'OVERRIDE 300/421 ACCEPTED.'

I step back and let Sherlock scan the information over. John comes over from the door to look at the screen. After a slight pause information begins to stream across the screen as everything related to Project H.O.U.N.D. becomes available. Sherlock's concentration becomes intense while he takes it all in. I focus on certain phrases like 'extreme suggestibility,' "fear and stimulus,' 'conditioned terror,' 'aerosol dispersal.' A photograph comes up of the project team posing happily together and I identify the five project leaders amongst the larger group: Elaine Dyson, Mary Uslowski, Rick Nader, Jack O'Mara and Leonard Hansen. Clearing the photo from the screen Sherlock rearranges the names into another order:

          Leonard Hansen
                 Jack O'Mara
                Mary Uslowski
                 Rick Nader
             Elaine Dyson

"HOUND." Stapleton murmurs. We stare at the screen in growing horror as more information from the project appears and words and phrases are highlighted such as: 'Paranoia,' 'Severe frontal lobe damage,' 'Blood-brain,' 'Gross cranial 'trauma,' 'Dangerous acceleration,' 'Multiple homicide,' accompanied by photographs of some of the subjects of the project screaming insanely. "Jesus." John was stunned. Sherlock and I read on: "Project HOUND: a new deliriant drug which rendered its users incredibly suggestible. They wanted to use it as an anti-personnel weapon to totally disorientate the enemy using fear and stimulus; but they shut it down and hid it away in 1986."

"Because of what it did to the subjects they tested it on." Stapleton adds on. "And what they did to others. Prolonged exposure drove them insane, made them almost uncontrollably aggressive." Sherlock carried on. "So someone's been doing it again, carrying on the experiments?" John speaks in unfamiliar recognition. "Attempting to refine it, perhaps, for the last twenty years."

"Who?" Stapleton asks. John nods towards the screen, indicating the names of the project leaders. "Those names mean anything to you?"

"No, not a thing." I sigh inwardly but focus in deeper depth. Placing my hand on top of Sherlock's I scroll to an image of the team and zoom in. "Five principal scientists, twenty years ago." I murmur. The closer footage shows that they are all wearing identical sweatshirts. Looming out of a diamond pattern in the centre of the sweatshirts is a large snarling wolf's head and the legend 'H.O.U.N.D.' is printed underneath. There some more context underneath but it's not yet clear what it says. Sherlock continues to zoom in and out of the photo to look more closely at the faces. "Maybe our friend's somewhere in the back of the picture, someone who was old enough to be there at the time of the experiments in 1986..." I stop Sherlock from scrolling when I see a bland photographic face that seems eerily familiar. "Maybe somebody who says 'cell phone' because of time spent in America. You remember."

"Mm-hm." John hums in agreement. "He gave us his number in case we needed him." Sherlock realises. Stapleton stared at the screen. "Oh my God. Bob Frankland. But Bob doesn't even work on... I mean, he's a virologist. This was chemical warfare."

"It's where he started, though... He's never lost the certainty, the obsession that that drug really could work. Nice of him to give us his number." Leaning forward, I reach to Sherlock blazer, retrieving Frankland's card. "Let's arrange a little meeting." I spoke.

As we walked away John's phone begins to ring. Apparently not recognising it. He answers. "Hello? Who's this?" John turns to us. "It's Louise Mortimer. Louise, what's wrong? What? Where-where are you? Right: stay there. We'll get someone to you, okay?"

"Henry?" Sherlock and I question. "He's attacked her."

"Gone?"

"Yes." Sherlock hits his speed dial. "There's only one place he'll go to: back to where it all started." I stated. "Lestrade. Get to the Hollow... Dewer's Hollow, now. And bring a gun."