(He walks out of the office and heads back towards the computer.)
STAPLETON (following him): So that’s the password?
SHERLOCK: No. With a man like Major Barrymore, only first name terms would do.
(Leaning down to the keyboard, he starts to type Margaret Thatcher’s first name into the “Auth code” box but stops as he reaches the penultimate letter, narrows his eyes and deletes everything back to the first letter, then retypes it as “Maggie”. Looking into the screen and gritting his teeth ever so slightly, he hits Enter. The computer beeps happily and announces “OVERRIDE 300/421 ACCEPTED. Loading ...”)
(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 as he takes it all in and focuses 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 he identifies 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 he rearranges the names into another order:
Leonard Hansen
Jack O’Mara
Mary Uslowski
Rick Nader
Elaine Dyson
Standing beside him, Doctor Stapleton finally begins to understand.)
STAPLETON: HOUND.
(She stares in growing horror at the screen 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.)
JOHN (softly): Jesus.
SHERLOCK (still scanning the information as it flows across the screen): 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 nineteen eighty-six.
STAPLETON: Because of what it did to the subjects they tested it on.
SHERLOCK: And what they did to others. Prolonged exposure drove them insane – made them almost uncontrollably aggressive.
JOHN: So someone’s been doing it again – carrying on the experiments?
SHERLOCK: Attempting to refine it, perhaps, for the last twenty years.
STAPLETON: Who?
(John nods at the screen, indicating the names of the project leaders.)
JOHN: Those names mean anything to you?
STAPLETON: No, not a thing.
SHERLOCK (sighing): Five principal scientists, twenty years ago.
(He pulls up the photograph of the team and begins zooming in on individuals within it. 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 is some smaller text 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.)
The Hounds of Baskerville - PART 4
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