Foster Winfield was born in Brooklyn, New York, where his father was a chemist and his mother was a math professor. Winfield was a gifted scientist. He’d been a professor at MIT before working with DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. He then left DARPA for the CIA to head some of its top-secret research.
Lancer left the dirt road for a grass-and-rock stretch that twisted down to the lakeshore and an A-frame cottage.
Winfield cut a solitary figure standing on the deck watching Lancer approach. The old man was wearing a rumpled bucket hat, khaki pants and a faded denim shirt with a pocket protector from which pens peeked out. He stood a few inches above Lancer’s six feet and had a firm handshake.
“Thanks for coming, Bob. Coffee?”
While they waited for the coffee to brew, Lancer noticed a golden retriever on the floor.
“That’s Tug, the neighbor’s dog. He comes by every day.”
Lancer’s gaze went to Winfield’s desk: a laptop hooked up to the satellite dish outside, a phone, files, a framed photo of Winfield’s wife, who’d died years earlier. They had no children.
It underscored a void familiar to Lancer.
The two men took their coffee out to the deck, where they sat in Adirondack chairs and Winfield talked about his terminal condition while he stroked the dog.
“I take medication-there’s no discomfort. They gave me six months, five months ago,” Winfield said. “It’s come full circle for me. My parents had a cottage here. Some of the happiest days of my life were the summers I spent here as a boy.”
Winfield gazed out at the tranquil lake.
“Forgive me, you’re not here to listen to an old man reminisce.”
“It’s all right, Foster.”
“As you know, DARPA was created in the late 1950s, after the Russians launched Sputnik. I came aboard many years later, after they’d headhunted me at MIT.”
After several years with DARPA, Winfield had been approached by the CIA.
“The Cold War was in its death throes and the CIA wanted me to put together a secret research team to ensure the nation did not let its guard down-exciting stuff but lots of pressure. I got the best people I could, Andrew Tolkman, very brilliant, from Chicago, Gretchen Sutsoff from San Francisco-she was our youngest team member and known for her strong will and strong views. We had Lester Weeks from Chicago, very even-handed, Phillip Kenyon, the uber-intellectual from Harvard, and several others from MIT, Cornell and Pittsburgh. Our objective was to ensure that the U.S. not be surprised by an adversary’s technological advances in weaponry.
“First, we were to defend against, match, then surpass any work by the Soviets or Eastern Bloc scientists, or the Chinese, or North Koreans, or some Middle East and Gulf states whose research was emerging rapidly.
“The CIA provided us with historical intelligence on research by Nazi, Chinese and Japanese scientists, up to our time and on dangerous advances made by enemy states.”
“What kinds of stuff are we talking about, Foster?” Lancer asked.
“It was a spectrum of research over the years, ways to destroy your enemy’s crops with infestations, ways to contaminate the water supply, the air. We analyzed their work on mind-control experiments, the effects of chemical compounds on humans, parapsychology, engineered pathogens, advances in chemical and biological warfare, human endurance studies, medical breakthroughs and human engineering.”
“Sounds like a Pandora’s box.”
“Not all that long ago we learned that some African rogue states had initiated work on genetic attacks. They’d planned to secretly introduce malevolent microorganisms to attack the DNA profile of certain races by secretly contaminating a national health initiative, like flu shots. The microorganisms were designed to cause an extremely high rate of miscarriages in that race, with the aim of wiping it out. That work was covertly thwarted.
“Another disturbing file concerned biological warfare. One of the Soviet satellite countries was developing a new lethal airborne virus that could be used to infect enemy troops. The scientists who engineered the virus also created the antidote, so that the weapon could not be used on their forces and population. That threat was also contained. And, more recently, we learned of something called File 91.”
“File 91?”
“North Korean scientists had made advances on hyper tissue regeneration, to accelerate and increase survival rates of battlefield wounds. The research used nanotechnology, essentially, microscopic robots introduced into the body that are programmed and controlled by computer via low-frequency radio signals to read DNA and engage in rapid rebuilding-molecular manufacturing of cells, tissue and bones.”
“It sounds miraculous.”
“Yes. But there’s a flip side. The CIA had learned that other rogue states and terrorist groups wanted to exploit the technology to reverse the process, to manipulate it to attack and destroy, rather than rebuild.”
“I’m not sure I follow you.”
“We feared File 91 technology could, in theory, be used to deliver a synthetic biological agent or microorganism that was unlike any known pathogen.”
“Would it work?”
“With File 91, it is theoretically possible to create a new deadly microbe you could introduce into a host, but it would not harm the host. The host could be your mode of delivery. You could manipulate and control release of the new agent, control infection or even target infection of a certain population using DNA profiles, using cutting-edge nanotechnology and state-of-the-art genetic manipulation.”
“That’s a nightmare. How would you stop it?”
“That was the crux of our job through a classified program called Project Crucible. Research by our enemies, rogue states and terrorist groups was aimed at killing large numbers of people. Without our scientific understanding of it, the United States would be helpless to defend itself and its allies. Through Project Crucible we worked to defend against, and to dismantle, that work. But in order for us to gain effective knowledge we had to replicate it and, most important, test it.
“Some CIA agents gave their lives providing us with intelligence on the research. It was a key component but it was not all we needed. We had to embark on the most critical aspect-secret human trials. It was the only way we could get accurate results.”
Lancer shook his head slowly.
“Traditionally,” Winfield said, “we used inmate volunteers, usually those serving life sentences. They were told about military research and signed their consent to be test subjects. All work was done with their knowledge, consent and cooperation. Still, some of our team were hinting at modifying trials on Project Crucible to be conducted on civilian populations.”
“What?”
“Not using anything lethal,” Winfield said, “but substituting the agent with something as harmless as a common cold, to study the effectiveness of delivery and other aspects even more accurately because you’re using the real environment, or theater of application.”
“But with the public’s knowledge?”
“That’s a sensitive area. As you know, throughout history there’ve been cases of secret experiments on humans without their consent or without them understanding the risks involved. I’m talking about notorious experiments conducted on soldiers, on unsuspecting groups like the poor, POWs or concentration camp victims. Such work is criminal and morally repugnant to doctors and scientists. It gave rise to the Nuremberg Code.”
“Which deals with consent.”
“The code holds that the voluntary consent of a human subject is essential for research. Now, Gretchen Sutsoff was a leading expert on genetic manipulation and diseases. She was a passionate firebrand and in the case of File 91 she was convinced it was flawed. To prove it, she advocated that Project Crucible’s trials be conducted on a civilian population without consent.”
“Without consent?”
“Tolkman and Weeks said her strategy was a clear violation of the Nuremberg Code.”