The official reaction in Denver was basically the same. A staff car, complete with MP out-riders, picked them up as soon as they had landed at Lowry Field and took them directly to Fitzsimmons Hospital. They were taken directly to the laboratories and what must have been a good half of the giant hospital's staff took turns prodding, questioning and testing them. They were encouraged to speak—many times with lie-detector instrumentation attached to them—but none of their questions were answered. Occasional high-ranking officers looked on gloomily, but took no part in the examination. They talked for hours into tape recorders, answering questions in every possible field from history to physics, and when they tired were kept going on benzedrine. There was more than a week of this in which they saw each other only by chance in the examining rooms, until they were weak from fatigue and hazy from the drugs. None of their questions were answered, they were just reassured that everything would be taken care of as soon as the examinations were over. When the interruption came it was a welcome surprise, and apparently unexpected. Gino was being probed by a drafted history professor who wore oxidized captain's bars and a gravy-stained battlejacket. Since his voice was hoarse from the days of prolonged questioning, Gino held the microphone close to his mouth and talked in a whisper.
"Can you tell me who was the Secretary of the Treasury under Lincoln?" the captain asked.
"How the devil should I know? And I doubt very much if there is anyone else in this hospital who knows—besides you. And do you know?"
"Of course—"
The door burst open and a full colonel with an MP brassard looked in. A very high-ranking messenger boy: Gino was impressed.
"I've come for Major Lombardi."
"You'll have to wait," the history-captain protested, twisting his already rumpled necktie. "I've not finished...."
"That is not important. The major is to come with me at once."
They marched silently through a number of halls until they came to a dayroom where Dan was sprawled deep in a chair smoking a cigar. A loudspeaker on the wall was muttering in a monotone.