THE POLITICS OF PLEASURE (10 page)

On her way out she saw a pay phone. She lowered her bag of goods to the floor and dropped a coin in the slot, then punched in the number Goldman had written on the back of a Baltimore gym card. As her call muscled its way through the lines, she glanced at her watch. Nada. Not there. Only her slim, pale wrist. Damn! She must have left her gold Gucci in Carmen's bathroom. She looked about in earnest and saw a black rectangular clock advertising Virginia Slims cigarettes: 11:48 pm.

'Jesus Christ.' She slapped down the handset, blustered by her lack of propriety. How could it be so late? But she knew how and could only chuckle. She and Carmen had made a right night of it, laughing and carrying on like a pair of spoiled princesses. Oh well, so be it. She reclaimed her coin, picked up her bag, and stepped out into the night with all the bravado and “don't mess with me” confidence she could muster.

TEN

Goldman jolted awake, the piercing
brrring
of the bedside phone echoing in his ears. He scowled at the green alphanumerics of his bedside clock. Close to midnight. Who'd call now? Probably some idiot with the wrong number.

He sat up in bed, the room dimly revealed by the conical light of his bedside lamp. Moving shapes on the television screen cast eerie patterns on his wardrobe door. The movie actors' words sounded forced and brittle as the chemist shook off the last vestiges of sleep and reclaimed his place in the world. Outside, rain lashed the bedroom window, while wind whistled intermittently from under the roof's overhang. The blustery night was still in full swing. Somewhat settled he tried to pick up the thread of
Midnight Express
.

Billy Hayes walked around a large stone column in the middle of the Turkish prison's psychiatric ward, much to the dismay of fellow inmates. A crazed, ragged-haired Englishman implored him to walk the other way, repeatedly empathizing that a good Muslim always walks clockwise about the column, and that the people from The Factory would punish Billy if he did not, punish him for being a Bad Machine ...

Goldman looked at the printouts scattered on the bed. He gathered together pages he hadn't read, namely a Department of Defense report on Bethazetamine (BZ), a powerful hallucinogen created by the army in the early sixties. Not long after his arrival from Australia in 1975, Goldman had seen footage on the CBS Walter Cronkite show which depicted a Silverwood Centre army private under the influence of BZ trying unsuccessfully to complete a basic obstacle course. Snatches of the black and white footage surfaced in the chemist's mind as he flicked to the fourth page of the report:

AUTHORIZED EXTRACT FROM M-162 MK-DELTA REPORT.

PSYCHOMIMETIC DRUG EXPERIMENTATION AT HARRIS PARK VETERANS HOSPITAL, CA.

Performed under the auspices of Dr Stanley Straub and Dr Alan Troudeau – in collaboration with the Warwick Marshall Army Institute of Research.

CASE 63 (Bethazetamine I.T. Programme)

NAME: JODI CHANDLER

D.O.B.:11/10/47

ADDRESS:2361 CRESTWARD ST. OAKLAND, CA.

OCCUPATION: STUDENT

The following account of a BZ-induced experience was written by Jodi Chandler, an English major student at the University of California. In response to a $95 per day student-induction programme, Chandler ingested a controlled amount of Bethazetamine (BZ) at the Harris Park Veterans Hospital.

Goldman skipped several pages of the report until stopping at Chandler's personal account: 

The Harris Park staff (whom I'll refer to as the White Coats) led me into a small room with padded walls. The room was bare save for a bolted-down seat and a Perspex-covered two-way mirror on one wall. Noting my university particulars on his clipboard, one of the White Coats told me it was in this same seat that Ken Kesey ...

Goldman skipped further paragraphs until coming to Chandler's description of the full-blown hallucinations she purportedly experienced in the opening hours of her marathon drug session: 

I walked up stone steps inside an impossibly ancient castle. Spindly cobwebs clung to the walls while the cloying fetor of mildew hampered my breathing. I was mysteriously drawn to a chamber at the end of the winding steps.

Burning torches in stone sconces cast menacing shadows as I moved hesitantly forward. I stopped at an aged wooden door. Lichen- encrusted walls pressed in on me as I breathed uneasily. Unbidden, the door creaked open. A shaft of reddish light spilled on the damp stonework at my feet. An unaccountable magnetism drew me through the half-open doorway. A ball of red light hovered above a stone dais inside a shadowy chamber. I became mesmerized as the glowing sphere turned on its axis ... A lurking evilness then overcame me with such speed and cunning I scarcely discerned its intrusion.

From deep inside me a voice commanded that I end my life, that I desecrate my flesh before passing over into its dark and ancient dominion. I had to fight back an overpowering urge to mutilate my body ... Then I saw the familiar walls of the Harris Park cell in which I'd taken my injection. I was back in the padded seat, and could only laugh from the welcoming realization the sinister castle had been a dream. Relief coursed through me like a current of revitalizing water. However I soon gasped in shock as I looked down at my body. A ghastly fluid, a dark and abominable ichor, oozed through the branching veins of my lower arms. Caught between  stupefaction and panic, I had to get the vile substance out of me. I looked about the room, only in panic, hoping to find some instrument, some knife or sharp object with which I could slice open my veins. Finding nothing, I ran to the two-way mirror on the wall and banged on its Perspex cover, begging those on the other side of the mirror to give me a knife, a razor blade, anything at all ...

Goldman rubbed his eyes and looked at a flashy TV ad for an abs crunch machine. He chuckled wryly, as much from Chandler's enthused narrative as from military administrators keeping such an account on file. In any case, he had a strong feeling MK-ULTRA was now dead and buried. Very likely the project's funding had been reallocated to more tangible threats of the Cold War. Of course he would never know, nor did he care to. Furthermore, he wasn't sure to what purpose his newly made MPA would be used. Very likely the psychotropic drug would be stockpiled, to end up as another extravagance in the United States' Cold War armoury.

In any event, if Silverwood Centre offered to extend his work contract he'd already made up his mind to leave. He had several appealing employment opportunities in the civilian sector, notably with Vortex Pharmaceuticals in Irvine, California. Apparently the company had stepped up its research into a class of drugs called Ampakines, which  drugs ramped up brain activity by enhancing the effects of the excitatory neurotransmitter glutamate. Vortex wanted to create and market a cutting-edge wakefulness promoter and planned to spend a small fortune on research. Goldman had already received a positive reply from the company, which almost guaranteed him a place in their research department.

The chemist grabbed his beer from off the night table and found it too warm. He sighed and watched the closing scenes of
Midnight Express
. Brad Davis acting as Billy Hayes acting as a Turkish prison officer (he'd stolen a guard's uniform) quickly closed the prison's side-door after him. He squinted from the day's bright light and walked smartly off camera.

The closing scene's gesture of freedom wasn't without effect on Goldman. Indeed returning to sunny California had never looked more promising. A part of him prefigured significant change. Something was just around the corner. Something new and exciting. He could feel it in his bones.

PART TWO

THE ESCAPE

Pleasure serves as the emotional fuel for man's existence – 

Nathaniel Branden.

ELEVEN

Friday 24th October, 1980.

Haslow braked his BMW and glanced at the green-and-white sign on the other side of the chain-link fence:

SILVERWOOD CHEMICAL CENTRE

SILVERWOOD ARSENAL

ABERDEEN PROVING GROUNDS

Fifteen years I've put in here,
he thought pensively.
Oh well, now they've got Goldman, I'll step aside and let him in. He's got the talent, if not the attitude.
Patches of rainwater littered the ground as he pulled up alongside the sentry in the gatehouse. Early-morning sun broke through strands of cirrus cloud and a light south-easter caressed Haslow's face as he lowered his window.

'Nice enough morning, Sidney?'

'A wee bit cool,' the elderly guard replied, rubbing his uniform sleeves in support of his statement. 'But nice enough, just the same.' He leaned forward and his weathered face brightened. 'So who do you think'll win the debate on Tuesday night? Jimmy or Ronnie?'

'Ronnie,' Haslow said firmly. 'The peanut farmer has run out of hands to play. High-interest rates and the Iran hostages fiasco have made sure of that. His flashy smile won't be enough to save him this time.'

'Hmm, we'll see,' Sidney replied from his side of the political divide. He activated a control and the boom gate lifted upward. 'Well, have yourself a good day, Rod.'

Haslow nodded and powered his German-made car towards the administration building. He swerved into his reserved space and cut the ignition. Friday at last. He looked forward to what promised to be an eventful weekend. Heaven help him he hadn't seen one of those in a long time. After locking his car, he moved with a sprightly step towards the building's front door.

Early afternoon. Goldman sat on a counter-top, reading a
Scientific American
article about the electrostatic discrepancies between natural and synthetic molecules. Before this he'd finished an
Omni
magazine article predicting life and times in the 21st century.

'Well, that's it. The report's done, it just needs to be typed up.' Haslow shuffled the pages together and looked expectantly at his colleague.

'Sorry?' Goldman looked up from the magazine.

'I said why don't you type this up because I'm heading home.'

Goldman was surprised. 'You're going home?' He checked his watch. 'It's only one-thirty. Are you sick or something?'

'No, but as you've been saying all week, there's not much to do. So, what the heck, it's Friday afternoon and I'm going home.' The senior chemist gathered his things into his bag and grabbed his corduroy coat from off the rack beside the door. He turned to Goldman. 'So, tonight then, your place, around seven. Oddly enough I'm looking forward to it.'

Goldman could only grin as he tossed the magazine aside and hopped down from the counter. 'Hey, Rod, you're my man. I'm sure we'll make a night of it. Belize and her sister, eh? What a combo.' He winked encouragingly as Haslow nodded and left the room.

The laboratory door slid shut. Goldman could only stare at its featureless surface. Haslow had gone home early, and in a bouncy mood to boot.
Who knows,
the Australian chemist thought with a sly grin,
old Rod just might get lucky tonight.
He stopped at Haslow's console and picked up the MPA report, flicking through the pages. Thank goodness Haslow was presenting the goddamn thing.

Toward the back of the report, Haslow had included a reference from Dr Kevin Cootes, a leading member of the American Society of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis. In his role as military consultant, Cootes had claimed: “MPA has positioned itself as an unparalleled tool in the field of mind-control and -manipulation ... a psychoactive agent capable of inducing inappropriate self disclosure ...”. Haslow had also included a military intelligence reference which cited MPA “would likely become an invaluable component of pharmaceutical interrogation”.

After reading the embellished references, Goldman became uneasy about what he'd help make; though the transient feeling was too ill-defined to weigh on his conscience. From his own experience the drug had a largely euphoric effect, and if not taken regularly, had minimal psychophysical side effects. Though he supposed the effects cited in the report were possible if given a high-enough dose. Well, the army could do what they liked with the stuff. He'd done his job and didn't plan to stick around. With a bit of luck he'd soon be employed with Vortex Pharmaceuticals in California.

Conscious of time, he dropped in front of the console and activated a word-processor program. He was at best a two-finger typist. The report's twenty-odd pages would prove something of a challenge to his limited skills. Still he would do his best, then use any remaining time to have another crack at the Army Milnet system upstairs; though he didn't want any printouts this time. His touch and go encounter with Troy Reid yesterday afternoon had cured him of that (not to mention Reid's thorough inspection of Goldman's bag this morning). No, he would simply read whatever took his fancy, then go home and prepare for his dinner party. He drew the report close to him, cracked his knuckles, and slowly typed keys.

Thanks Troy.' General Kaplan grabbed a hot coffee from his son-in-law and placed it on his desk's blotter. He leaned back in his leather seat and steepled his fingers. Last night's incident with his teenage son played on his mind.
Jesus, Dean's on hard drugs ...
damn fool kid!
He gritted his teeth and had to force his attention elsewhere.

'Listen, General Turner's coming this afternoon ... around four, with two DIA inspectors.'

Reid sighed loudly. 'You've got to be kidding?' Both men had an innate dislike of the DIA as was evident from the palpable tension that had filled the room.

'For God's sake, why
would
Turner come here?' Reid asked. 'Surely he's got enough on his plate at the Pentagon, or at that damned centre at Bollings Air Force Base.'

'Defence Intelligence Analysis Centre,' Kaplan said matter-of-factly.

'Why would he come here?' Reid looked down at the floor and drummed his fingers on his uniform trouser leg. His mind churned over possibilities. He looked up. 'You don't think he's coming here because of Goldman?'