The illuminatus! trilogy Read Online Free PDF Page A

paper shredders in the next room. The President recognized the characteristic sound of the “cesspool cleaners” hard at work. “Never mind,” he said. “Those things make me nervous.” He scribbled a quick “OK” next to the item and went on to “Deprived Children,” which made him feel better. “Here,” he said, “this is something we can cut.”
    He forgot everything about Desert Door, until the Fernando Poo crises. “Suppose, just suppose,” he asked the Joint Chiefs on March 29, “I go on the tube and threaten all-out thermonuclear
heck
, and the other side doesn’t blink. Have we got something that’ll scare them even more?”
    The J.C.’s exchanged glances. One of them spoke tentatively. “Out near Las Vegas,” he said, “we have this Desert Door project that seems to be way ahead of the Comrades in b-b and b-c—”
    “That’s biological-bacteriological and biological-chemical,” the President explained to the Vice-President, who was frowning. “It has nothing to do with B-B guns.” Turning his attention back to the military men, he asked, “What have we got specifically that will curdle Ivan’s blood?”
    “Well, there’s Anthrax-Leprosy-Mu…. It’s worse than any form of anthrax. More deadly than bubonic and anthrax and leoprosy all in one lump. As a matter offact,” the General who was speaking smiled grimly at the thought, “our evaluation suggests that with death being so quick, the psychological demoralization of the survivors—if there are any survivors—will be even worse than in thermonuclear exchange with maximum ‘dirty’ fallout.”
    “By golly,” the President said. “By
golly
. We won’t use that out in the open. My speech’ll just talk Bomb, but we’ll leak it to the boys in the Kremlin that we’ve got this anthrax gimmick in cold storage, too. By gosh, you just wait and see them back down.” He stood up, decisive, firm, the image he always projected on television. “I’m going to see my speechwriters right now. Meanwhile, arrange that the brain responsible for this Anthrax-Pi gets a raise. What’s his name?” he asked over his shoulder going out the door.
    “Mocenigo. Dr. Charles Mocenigo.”
    “A raise for Dr. Charles Mocenigo,” the President called from the hallway.
    “Mocenigo?” the Vice-President asked thoughtfully. “Is he a wop?”
    “Don’t say wop,” the President shouted back. “How many times do I have to tell you? Don’t say wop or kike or
any
of those words anymore.” He spoke with some asperity, since he lived daily with the dread that someday the secret tapes he kept of alt Oval Room transactions would be released to the public. He had long ago vowed that if that day ever came, the tapes would not be full of “(expletive deleted)” or “(characterization deleted).” He was harassed, but still he spoke with authority. He was, in fact, characteristic of the best type of dominant male in the world at this time. He was fifty-five years old, tough, shrewd, unburdened by the complicated ethical ambiguities which puzzle intellectuals, and had long ago decided that the world was a mean son-of-a-bitch in which only the most cunning and ruthless can survive. He was also as kind as was possible for one holding that ultra-Darwinian philosophy; and he genuinely loved children and dogs, unless they were on the site of something that had to be bombed in the National Interest. He still retained some sense of humor, despite the burdens of his almost godly office, and, although he had been impotent with his wife for nearly ten years now, he generally achieved orgasm inthe mouth of a skilled prostitute within 1.5 minutes. He took amphetamine pep pills to keep going on his grueling twenty-hour day, with the result that his vision of the world was somewhat skewed in a paranoid direction, and he took tranquilizers to keep from worrying too much, with the result that his detachment sometimes bordered on the schizophrenic; but most of the time