If he achieved nothing else in the short time left to him, the secretary of defense had pledged his conscience to stop that evil scheme before it got started. By comparison, chemical warfare was positively humane.
He buzzed his secretary and told her he was going to lunch at his desk. Would she bring him a sandwich, corned beef and pickle on rye, a glass of milk, and a cream doughnut. He'd given up counting calories. Not much point. And anyway over recent months he'd noticed that no matter what he ate, and in whatever quantity, he continued to lose weight. Only this morning he'd pulled his belt in another notch.
His head still throbbed. He couldn't shake it.
He took a plastic vial from a side drawer, shook a red-and-white capsule into his hand, and washed it down with water. Phenoperidine was a narcotic analgesic with side effects similar to those of morphine, and the doctor had warned him not to take more than three in any twelve-hour period. It was an effective pain-killer, although it tended to make him light-headed and euphoric. Hardly the right frame of mind for dealing with sober matters of state, Lebasse thought wryly.
The light from the window was hurting his eyes. He got up--too quickly, it seemed, because all of a sudden he felt giddy--and had to steady himself against the corner of the desk before going across to close the Venetian blind.
He held the cord in his hand. It had the feel and texture of thick rope. He tugged at it and the large office was plunged into restful twilight. Turning away, Lebasse was mesmerized by the pattern the filtered sunlight made on the pastel green carpet . . . thin gold rods arranged in perfect symmetry.
A lump of emotion rose up in his throat. That's what he'd miss the most. Vibrant golden light. It was light from heaven--God's light. He'd never been a religious man, but he supposed that the prospect of death heightened one's awareness of the Infinite. He'd soon know. Nothing surer.
It was restful in this aquarium. Everything was cool limpid green, peaceful and green and golden (the gold bars like golden steps reaching all the way to the Infinite) and for the first time in his life he had absolutely no fear of death. "Death, where is thy sting?" Death was pure golden light all the way to infinity, beckoning him. He welcomed it, in fact. To be at one with the Infinite, shimmering in green and gold light . . .
What more could any man want?
Woman.
Damn right, a woman!
Miracle of miracles, there she was, golden-haired, arms outstretched, drifting toward him. She was holding something, an offering, and he, in turn, opened his arms to her. But now she was turning away. Oh, no. He
Then. Something beautiful took place. The woman began to sing. Her mouth opened wide and a high note pierced his brain with such exquisite intensity that he wanted to weep. Siren song. He was uplifted, his spirits soaring, floating, flying toward the Infinite.
Why had he never flown before? It was so ridiculously easy!
Everyone ought to try this, he told himself, flying toward the bars of light, which parted before hirn in glittering splendor as he crashed through the window headfirst taking the tangled Venetian blind with him and soared ecstatically all the way down to the multicolored concrete paving four floors below.
When his blond secretary came back with his senior aide they found an empty office filled with a humid breeze. One complete window had disappeared from its aluminum frame and sunlight streamed like a golden searchlight onto the pastel green carpet. The senior aide approached the window. The blond secretary hung back, white except for her garish lips.
Thomas Lebasse, ex-secretary of defense, lay mangled and twisted on the concrete paving. The images invoked by having chosen the one capsule containing a large dose of LSD-25 were wiped clean from his brain.
Nothing surer.
10
The research laboratories of Advanced Strategic Projects were situated some thirty miles southeast of Washington, D.C., along highway 301, down an unmarked road leading nowhere.
A few fishermen did use the road to get to Patuxent Creek, which meandered northward until it lost itself in young plantations of spruce and firs, though none could have been aware of the square gray single-story building with smoke-blue windows that blended in with the picturesque Maryland landscape.
Unobtrusive as it was to the casual eye, the installation kept its real secret even more closely guarded. Belowground it extended to five sub-levels containing offices, recreation and living quarters, laboratories and test chambers, the latter being the size of football fields.
