The Color of Wounds Read online

  Kent looked straight at Bentley but spoke to Loren. “Get me out of here before I vomit all over this guy.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Outside of Bentley’s lab, Kent told Loren he was done with the whole thing. He wanted out, period, and he was headed back to New York. It took Loren close to an hour of reasoning, cajoling, and begging him to stay as they walked around the campus before Kent relented. He agreed to give it another try, but he was barely under control when they got back to Dr. Bentley’s office. The coffee Iris brought helped, though she showed no sign of regaining her homespun countenance.

  “Okay, while everyone is cool,” Loren said, looking cautiously at Kent, “Dr. Bentley, would you justify what you are doing in there?”

  “Impossible,” Kent said, under his breath.

  Bentley looked at her across his desk, with an expression that said, ‘It’s pretty obvious.’ “It’s what our soldiers were subjected to in World War II, North Korea, and Vietnam. POWs, concentration camps, Korea. The Army War College tells us the next war will likely be in the Middle East—scorching hot. Besides that, our research will help astronauts, mountain climbers, test pilots, deep-water divers. Anyone who confronts someone or something that wants to tear them apart stands to benefit from what we are doing.”

  Kent blew a sarcastic snort out his nose. “So what conclusions have you drawn?”

  “Initial results indicated stress impedes learning and performance.”

  “No shit!”

  Bentley didn’t flinch. “Then the interesting stuff started happening.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “We started testing substances that might block the effects of stress. Oddly, some substances even enhanced performance. For a while.”

  “For a while?”

  “Their affects are short-lived. Soon performance and learning drop back to the levels of untreated controls or worse.”

  “Any of Nancy Reagan’s ‘Say No to Drugs’ kids could have told you that.”

  Bentley poked lightly at his cheek. Kent could see that the skin under his beard had become a wine-red blotch. “Our goal is to find out how these substances enhance performance, then engineer compounds that give a more predictable response.”

  “So what is with all those wires and tubes in the heads?” Loren asked.

  “The tubes are the delivery system. They connect to fine needles that are placed into very specific regions of the brain. The electrical wires are for monitoring.”

  “Drilled through their skulls,” Kent said, rising out of his chair toward Bentley.

  Loren grabbed his elbow and pulled him back into his seat.

  “I’m afraid so,” Bentley said.

  All three sipped their coffee and didn’t speak. Bentley seemed content to let the silence hang.

  After a long minute, Bentley said, “The military is extremely interested in our work.”

  Loren gave him a tight-lipped grin. “No doubt.”

  “I’m sure NASA will be, too, but we haven’t spoken to them yet. We can’t until our results make the project less sensitive. NASA’s security is a joke. We can’t risk a huge public outcry that would force our spineless politicians to shut us down.” He gave Loren the look of a comrade. “That’s why you’re here.”

  Kent looked at Loren. “There’s your cover-up theory. ‘Something more than politics going on in this case,’ you said. Now we’re talking defense and aerospace.”

  Loren looked as though she’d been punched in the stomach.

  Kent gave her time to reply. She didn’t. So he said to Bentley, “What substances are you testing?”

  “Normally we don’t reveal much of that information.”

  “It’s a fair question for an OCO investigation.”

  Bentley rattled off a list. “Ethanol, marijuana, cocaine, heroin, LSD, many anesthetics like pentobarbital, propofol, and ketamine. Acetylcholine, scopolamine, and epinephrine. Then there’s a lot of weird ones that I cannot remember or pronounce. And a lot of common ones. That rhesus monkey you saw convulsing in the lab?”

  Kent and Loren nodded.

  “He got nicotine.”

  “Your dose is off,” Kent said.

  Bentley brushed aside the sarcasm. “Those pigeons that were having trouble with the mirror?”

  “You call smashing into a mirror until their beaks are bloody pulps ‘having trouble’?”

  “They got an extract from a leaf that grows in Peru. Some army guys found out the plant had interesting effects on memory, so they flew us up a sample.”

  “There’s the military again.”

  “I told you. They are very supportive.”

  Kent asked, “Is this project top secret?”

  Bentley smiled sympathetically. “Of course not. You got in, didn’t you? It’s just kept quiet. The armed forces reserve the top-secret designation for projects they conduct and carefully control on their own premises.” He paused, apparently trying to think of a tactful phrase, but could not. “If you considered our experiments inhumane, you would consider theirs absolutely revolting. They definitely cannot risk public disclosure of those. However, they have taken another approach with their less ghastly experiments like ours. That is to disseminate them throughout the world in reputable institutions.”

  “Less ghastly?” Kent said.

  “Like Burman A&M University,” Loren said.

  “Yes. And Harvard, Berkeley, Penn State, and Ohio State, to mention a few in the United States. Then there’s the Sorbonne in Paris, Guelph in Canada, University of Zurich in Germany, that I know of.”

  Kent was relieved when Cornell didn’t make the hit parade. “Basically, they hide everything under the good names of top universities.”

  “Precisely. They prefer that such testing stay out of the public eye, but they feel they can control the damage if it happens. It’s really no different than the big car manufacturers and their crash tests. Do you really think they rely on that ridiculous pair of talking dummies they flaunt before the public?”

  “A&M’s reputation, military’s involvement, the OCO’s responsibility—there’s a lot of pieces,” Loren said.

  “That is correct.” Bentley pulled his brow into a questioning look. “So, do you folks want to take on Burman A&M University, with all its wealthy and influential alumni who will rally around her, the State of Texas, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Army? Any of those groups is going to fight like a cornered cat, and two of them are masters at cover-ups.”

  Kent was pretty sure he knew which ones but said nothing.

  Bentley said, “At a more personal level, Byron Losiewicz will, no doubt, lose his job.”

  Kent was surprised by the mention of Byron Losiewicz since neither he nor Loren had mentioned him. It was his understanding that the whistleblower’s name was confidential at this stage.

  Bentley read his mind and quickly brushed Kent’s thought away with a wave of his hand. “I know Losiewicz tipped you. He’ll lose his job and his pension. It’s too bad. Basically, he’s a nice guy.”

  “You realize we’re going to have to shut you down,” Kent said.

  Bentley gestured with palms up, helpless to do anything about it. “Let’s face it. Regardless of the outcome of an OCO investigation, the experiments will go on. If not at Burman, then somewhere else. Maybe they’ll take it top secret. Who knows? But there is work going on here that could enable our men and women to survive in combat. It’s not just going to get tossed because some bleeding hearts want to save a few animals.”

  “We are going to stop you.”

  Bentley sighed. “I realize you have to try.”

  “We’ll be back here tomorrow. If I need the dean of the medical school, the president of the university, or the police to let us in, we will get in. So make it easy on yourself and don’t try to sto
p us. I want to see that these experiments have been terminated and the apparatus dismantled.”

  Bentley leaned back in his chair and put his feet on his desk. “If that’s the way you want it.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Spring 1989

  Four trips to Houston, Texas in two months was enough. Actually, it was too much, as far as Kent was concerned. But, with a little bit of luck, it would be his last one. Kent had interviewed dozens of Burman employees, sought the opinion of a slew of lab animal experts, spent countless hours on the phone with Loren, and finally collaborated with her on a hundred-fifty page report. He wanted it done, over with, in the past. And today was the big day. The whole thing would be history by nightfall. The very thought of it was a relief.

  He stood in front of the mirror in his hotel room and thought about their report as he knotted his tie. It was a good report. He was proud of it. It illuminated the medical school’s blatant disregard for animal welfare while maintaining a controlled, professional tone. They used phrases like “assurance non-compliance” and “subject discomfort-to-research benefit ratio,” but they had slipped in enough innuendoes to make any reader realize the Torture Lab was exactly that. It was convincing. It had bite. It took a strong position against cruelty to animals, and, by now, all parties involved had read it carefully.

  He wolfed down a bagel and a cup of coffee at the continental breakfast table downstairs, hailed a cab, and headed to the city courthouse.

  The courthouse in Houston had been agreed upon as neutral turf. However, Burman wanted it perfectly clear that it was a hearing, not a trial. Details and legal posturing—it couldn’t end soon enough.

  As Kent’s cab pulled to the curb in front of the courthouse, Loren emerged from a similar one.

  “Fancy meeting you here,” he said as he approached, but he dropped his attempt at levity when he saw the fatigue in her eyes. Her outfit looked great, a prim gray wool suit with a white jabot-style blouse, closed at the neck by a silver brooch. But it could not hide the obvious; she hadn’t slept.

  She lit a cigarette and headed up a long set of marble stairs to the entry. “You ready for this fiasco?” she asked.

  “We’ve got them,” he said, hoping to give her a lift. “I don’t think it’s going to be that bad.”

  “It’ll be worse.”

  She sneered at the ‘no smoking’ sign on the door, took a deep drag, and flicked her cigarette into the shrubbery. Her spike heels tapped loudly as they crossed the rotunda. She jammed the elevator button as if plunging a sword into Bentley’s gut.

  “I think we’ve got a good case,” Kent said.

  Loren laughed a humorless laugh, and he caught a whiff of Scotch.

  “Won’t make a damn bit of difference.”

  “Why not?”

  “Just take my word for it.”

  “Loren, what’s the matter?”

  “I’ll tell you what’s the matter,” she blurted, and Kent was glad they were alone in the elevator. “I got a call from Huddleston this morning. He’s here in Houston.”

  “So? He’s your boss. It’s a big case.”

  “He wants to argue our case.”

  “He’s a politician, a power player. Don’t be insulted. He’s looking for headlines. Let him have them.”

  “I’m not insulted,” she said. “I would be fine with it if he were really going to argue it.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Huddleston told me they are dropping the animal cruelty charges. Some bullshit about those being criminal charges since they are violations of the Animal Welfare Act. That’s not us. That falls under USDA jurisdiction.”

  They were both silent, as Loren let him mull that over.

  Finally, Kent said, “But, that’s the real issue. Animal cruelty.”

  “And the real penalties, if convicted,” Loren said.

  The elevator stopped at the fifth floor, and they turned down a hall to the room their hearing had been assigned.

  “We have enough to crucify these guys,” Kent said, half running at her side. “I thought we were going to make an example of them.”

  “It ain’t gonna happen. Not if all we can get them for is PHS assurance noncompliance. The best we can hope for there is sanctions. Cut-off of federal funding. Maybe a fine.”

  “You figure somebody got to Huddleston?”

  “Without a doubt. He wouldn’t admit it. Naturally. He’s probably been in on it from the beginning. Ladder-climbing bastard.”

  Kent pushed open the door to the hearing room. Loren drew in a deep breath and squared her shoulders. Their conversation dropped to a whisper.

  They marched down a central aisle toward a stern, fortyish woman who was giving instructions to a court stenographer from an elevated bench. Behind her, like sentries at attention, was a pair of eight-foot flagstaffs. From one hung the Stars and Stripes, from the other the Lone Star of Texas. Two long tables for the plaintiff and defendants stood in front of and below the bench—standard courtroom arrangement.

  “This may be a hearing, but it looks like a trial to me,” Kent said.

  Loren nodded a cool greeting to a man that was sitting alone at the right table. “Douglas Huddleston, this is Kent Stephenson. Kent, Douglas.” She took a seat next to her boss and busied herself arranging papers from her briefcase.

  Huddleston was about Kent’s age, but his hair was already snow-white and coifed perfectly. It accentuated his eyes which were so blue he had to be wearing tinted contacts. His charcoal suit with red and black silk tie made him a cookie-cutter Washingtonian. He held up a tattered copy of Loren and Kent’s report. “Good job. Well done.”

  “Thanks,” Kent said, as he slid into a chair. “I think we should be able to hang them. Don’t you?”

  Huddleston’s face became long, his expression dour. “That’s not what we’re all about here.”

  “It’s not? I thought it was.”

  “I don’t know if Dr. Summer has misled you, Dr. Stephenson.” He looked toward her, but Loren gave no indication of having heard his remark. “The Office of Compliance Oversight’s sole responsibility is to determine whether or not institutions that apply for federal funds should be permitted to have those funds.”

  “Yes, but don’t we have a moral obligation to stop this kind of cruelty to animals—for research purposes or otherwise?”

  “That’s not our call.”

  “It’s everyone’s call!” Kent whispered, loud enough that nearby people looked over.

  Huddleston dropped both hands to the table. “If you want blood, go to USDA. They are the animal defenders.”

  Kent thought about Jimmy the janitor and old Byron Losiewicz. The frustration they felt hit home.

  “Now you tell me,” he said. “Besides, the experiments are no longer there. USDA could not win the case at this point.”

  Huddleston shrugged. “There you have it. The experiments are done. Isn’t that your goal?”

  “That’s not what I said. I said they are no longer there. I very much doubt they are done…”

  Kent was cut off by the moderator calling the hearing to order. He groaned and moved his chair to the end of the table, next to Loren, and as far away from Huddleston as he could get.

  Loren leaned toward him. “See what I mean?”

  Kent was too angry to answer.

  “My name is Bonita Lipton and I welcome you all here today,” the moderator said, then she launched into an opening statement about how the action today was a hearing, not a trial, and therefore questioning of witnesses and rules of evidence would be relaxed. However, as previously agreed upon by both sides, her ruling would be binding. She summarized her qualifications, and it was evident that she was a highly qualified, knowledgeable researcher and had been an administrator at institutions similar to Burman. Kent’s initial feeling about her w
as good.

  He let his eyes drift around the room. Dr. E. Randolph Bentley sat front and center at the defendant’s table and was looking as smug and confident as ever. He noticed with satisfaction that Bentley’s beard had been cropped close. Too close to grab. Kent gave him a thin-lipped smile when they made eye contact. Bentley returned nothing.

  To Bentley’s left sat a sour-faced woman with short curly hair, thick glasses, and massive breasts that even her clerical robe could not hide. Kent recognized her as the Reverend Alice Dunlap. Besides being the minister for the on-campus Burman Baptist Church, she was the chairperson of the medical school’s Animal Care and Use Committee. Kent had spoken to her on several occasions during the investigation and he knew her to be a title collector, the perfect person for Bentley, et al., to have overseeing their lab—hugely respected, but too busy and disinterested to be in their way. When Kent had spoken to her, she had been clueless about the Torture Lab. Now, however, draped in her robe, she appeared more judge-like than Moderator Lipton.

  To Bentley’s right was a smooth-skinned man of around thirty in a dark, Italian-looking suit. As Kent watched him, he stood, introduced himself to Lipton as the lawyer for the defense and asked for a clarification of some subtle point of order. When he was satisfied with the answer, he sat down again, letting Lipton continue. He twisted around and whispered to a bevy of three young suits, obviously members of the Burman defense team. They leaned eagerly toward the rail that separated them from their leader. Their heads bobbed in apparent unanimous agreement.

  Posturing, game playing, already. Kent was reminded how much he hated this stuff. The phantom fist in his gut clenched tighter, as he realized Burman’s table had four lawyers. Theirs had none.

  A respectable three empty rows behind Burman’s legal team sat Raymond T. Slater, dean of the medical school. With him were two distinguished gentlemen in army dress uniforms laden with ribbons and medals. Kent marveled at Burman’s audacity. He couldn’t wait to take them down.

  They had managed to squelch any publicity. Except for the actual players, the place was virtually empty. The only observers were a small group of young men and women that stretched across the very back row. They chattered in nervous whispers. Kent recognized most of them as grad students who had worked in the Torture Lab.