Free The Archangel Project by C.S. Graham Page A

crisis?” said Matt.
    â€œI’ve read about it.”
    Matt sighed. “You’re such an infant. Anyway, they had the Army’s remote viewers from Fort Meade working twenty-four hours a day during the rescue mission.”
    Jax looked up. “You mean the Army had a hand in this, too?”
    â€œThe Army, the Navy, NASA, the NSA—you name it. Everybody had projects going on this at one time or another.”
    â€œNASA?” Jax laughed. “What for?”
    â€œThey had the idea maybe astronauts could be trained to use telepathy. It’s the same reason the Navy was interested. They wanted to find a way to stay in touch with their submarines when traditional communications technology failed…and maybe follow the movement of the Soviets’ boats at the same time.”
    â€œAnd the National Security Agency?”
    â€œThey were worried about Soviet remote viewers being able to access our top secret files. Maybe even use telekinesis to mess with our computers.”
    â€œYou mean to tell me the Soviets were fooling around with this, too?”
    â€œThat’s right. At one point there was a real psi arms race going on.”
    â€œYou mean, as in psychological warfare?”
    â€œNo, I mean psi as in ‘psychic.’”
    Jax groaned.
    â€œWe had film clips of Soviet sessions that showed their group moving objects, even killing. We had no way toverify any of it, but it was worrisome, to say the least. Once Reagan was elected, we got into the psi business big time. The White House started consulting astrologers and fortune-tellers, and things really went off the deep end. There was talk about shit like a Photonic Barrier Modulator to induce death telepathically, and a Hyperspatial Nuclear Howitzer, which was supposed to use thought waves to send a nuclear explosion from the deserts of Nevada to the corridors of the Kremlin.”
    â€œJesus.” Jax snapped the file closed. “And this is still going on?”
    â€œAll psi-related projects were supposedly terminated in 1995.”
    Jax raised one eyebrow. “Supposedly?”
    Matt shrugged. “It’s hard to tell with these things. You know that. It was a Special Access Program from the very beginning.”
    â€œOf course,” said Jax. Anything sensitive, nasty, or just plain stupid was usually made into a Special Access Program, or SAP, as they were known in the business. SAPs were black operations, kept hidden from both the public and Congressional oversight by a procedure that allowed access only by those personnel specifically cleared by the program’s manager. The Iran-Contra deal had been an SAP; so had the development of the Stealth aircraft. Setting aside the file folder, Jax leaned over to study the title of the book at the top of the nearest stack: Mind Wars: The True Story of Secret Government Research into the Military Potential of Psychic Weapons . He wanted to laugh, except this wasn’t a joke. “Well, I can certainly see why they’d want to keep this a secret.”
    â€œIt’s not exactly a secret anymore. In 1995 the Company hired a private think tank to evaluate the entire history of remote viewing. Some of the guys I know who were in the program say the deck was stacked against them—the civilian scientists doing the review didn’t have top secret clearance, and the Government refused to declassify some of their most spectacular successes. They say the CIA wanted a negative review and only released the data that would give them that conclusion.”
    â€œIs that true?”
    â€œHell, I don’t know. But have you ever known the Company to commission a review that didn’t bring in the result they wanted? The review board found that remote viewing failed to produce the kind of specific information required for intelligence work, and all remote viewing projects were shut down.”
    Jax eyed the piles of paperbacks and hardcovers. There