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"Milo, all of us are in the race of the century to come up with the ultimate weapon that could lead to the end of the world and bring everlasting fame to the victor who uses it first. Whoever sponsors that baby could be elevated to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and I, Bernard Bingam, would like to be that man."
"Hear, hear!" chorused the officers on both sides of General Bingam, who beamed in shy surprise, while the stout civilian and the slim civilian were mum and disconsolate.
"Then you better move quickly, sir," threatened Wintergreen churlishly. "We don't like to sit on our asses with a hot product like this one. If you guys don't want it--"
"Of course, Eugene, of course. Just give me some good sales copy so that we'll know what we are talking about when we talk to people about what you've been talking about to us today. Not much detail, or we might have trouble. Just a few glowing paragraphs of very hard sell, and maybe some drawings in color to give us an idea of what it's going to look like. They don't have to be accurate, just impressive. And we'll all move along as fast as we can. As fast as light, eh? And, Milo, there's one more troubling question I have to ask."
"Me too," said the fat man.
"I have one also," said Skinny.
"It's touchy, so I apologize beforehand. Will your planes work? Will they do the job you say they will? The future of the world may depend on it."
"Would I lie to you?" said Milo Minderbinder.
"When the future of the world may depend on it?" said ex-PFC Wintergreen. "I would sooner lie to my ex-wife."
"You've given me the assurances I need."
"General Bingam," said Wintergreen, with the pained solemnity of a man taking umbrage, "I understand what war is like. In World War II, I dug ditches in Colorado. I served overseas as a PFC. I sorted mail in the Mediterranean during the Normandy invasion. I was right there on D day, in my mailroom, I mean, and it was not much bigger than this room we're in today. I stuck my neck out with stolen Zippo cigarette lighters for our fighting men in Italy."
"I did that with eggs," said Milo.
"We don't have to be reminded of all that's at stake. No one in this room has a stronger awareness of my responsibilities or a deeper commitment to fulfill them."
"I'm sorry, sir," said General Bingam humbly.
"Unless it's you, General, or Mr. Minderbinder here. Or your colleagues at the table with you, sir. Jesus Christ, I knew those fucking bastards were going to want something," Wintergreen complained, when the two of them were out of the conference room.
Together they moved through the convoluted basement complex that teemed with men and women of ebullient demeanor hurrying briskly along on official business in mufti and uniform. The whole fucking bunch of them, Wintergreen noted in a subdued growl, seemed affluent and clean, aseptic, and too fucking self-assured. The women in uniform all seemed petite, except for those who were commissioned officers, and they loomed larger than life. And every fucking one of them, Wintergreen muttered with his eyes down guiltily, looked fishy, fishy.
Continuing toward the elevators, they passed a sign pointing off to the Department of Justice. In the next passageway was another directional arrow, this one black, leading to a shortcut to the new National Military Cemetery. The public area of the new MASSPOB building, with its scintillating shopping center in the soaring atrium, was already the second most popular tourist attraction in the nation's capital; the first most popular was the newest war memorial. One needed special top-secret MASSPOB credentials to go higher and lower than the stacked-up promenades and open mezzanines with their plenitude of nouveau art deco newsstands, food counters, and souvenir shops and their celebrated sideshows, dioramas, and "virtual reality" shooting galleries, which had already excelled in international architectural competitions.
On their right in the basement, an iridescent red arrow like a flaming missile carried their eyes to a directional sign announcing: Sub-Basements A-Z
The arrow angled downward suddenly to a closed metal door marked:
EMERGENCY ENTRANCE
KEEP OUT
VIOLATORS WILL BE SHOT
This was guarded by two uniformed sentinels, who seemed stationed at the emergency entrance to keep people away. A large yellow letter S against a glossy background of black gave comforting reminder that a new old-fashioned bomb shelter had been installed for the convenience and protection of visitors and employees.
At the elevators were other guards, who would not talk even to each other. Inside the elevator was a TV monitor. Milo and Wintergreen did not speak or move, even when back upstairs in the main lobby of the real world, where tour guides were leading tour groups from tour buses parked beyond the revolving doors in the area reserved at the front entrance. They did not converse again until they were outside in a light spring drizzle and walking away from the august special-secret-projects building in which their meeting had just taken place.
"Wintergreen," whispered Milo finally, "will these planes of ours really work?"
"How the fuck should I know?"
"What will they look like?"
"I guess we have to find that out too."
"If the future of the world is going to depend on it," reasoned Milo, "I believe we ought to make this deal while the world is still here. Otherwise we might never get paid."
"We'll need some drawings. That fucking Strangelove."
