"The chopper is approaching the perimeter2 of the airport," Ky says.
Uncle Enzo turns to his lieutenant3. "Everyone in place?"
"Yes, sir."
"How do you know that?"
"They all checked in a few minutes ago."
"That means absolutely nothing. And how about the pizza car?"
"Well, I thought I would do that later, sir -- "
"You need to be capable of doing more than one thing at a time."
The lieutenant turns away, shamed and awed4. "Ky," Uncle Enzo says, "anything interesting happening on our perimeter?"
"Nothing at all," Ng says.
"Anything interesting?"
"A few maintenance workers, as normal."
"How do you know they are maintenance workers and not Rife5 soldiers in costume? Did you check their IDs?"
"Soldiers carry guns. Or at least knives. Radar6 shows that these men do not. Q.E.D."
"Still trying to get all our men to check in," the lieutenant says. "Having a little radio trouble, I guess." Uncle Enzo puts one arm around the lieutenant's shoulders. "Let me tell you a story, son. From the first moment I saw you, I thought you seemed familiar. Finally I realized that you remind me of someone I used to know: a lieutenant who was my commanding officer, for a while, in Vietnam."
The lieutenant is thrilled. "Really?"
"Yes. He was young, bright, ambitious, well educated. And well meaning. But he had certain deficiencies. He had a stubborn inability to grasp the fundamentals of our situation over there. A sort of mental block, if you will, that caused those of us who were serving under him to experience the most intense kind of frustration7. It was touch and go for a while, son, I don't mind telling you that"
"How did it work out, Uncle Enzo?"
"It worked out fine. You see, one day, I took it upon myself to shoot him in the back of the head."
The lieutenant's eyes get very big, and his face seems paralyzed. Uncle Enzo has no sympathy for him at all: if he screws this up, people could die.
Some new piece of radio babble8 comes in over the lieutenant's headset. "Oh, Uncle Enzo?" he says, very quietly and reluctantly.
"Yes?"
"You were asking about that pizza car?"
"Yes?"
"It's not there."
"Not there?"
"Apparently9, when they set down to pick up Rife, a man got out of the chopper and climbed into the pizza car and drove it away."
"Where did he drive it to?"
"We don't know, sir, we only had one spotter in the area, and he was tracking Rife."
"Take off your headset," Uncle Enzo says. "And turn off that walkie-talkie. You need your ears."
"My ears?"
Uncle Enzo drops into a crouch10 and walks briskly across the pavement until he is between a couple of small jets. He sets the skateboard down quietly. Then he unties11 his shoelaces and pulls his shoes off. He takes his socks off, too, and stuffs them into the shoes. He takes the straight razor out of his pocket, flips13 it open, and slits14 both of his trouser legs from the hem12 up to his groin, then bunches the material up and cuts it off. Otherwise the fabric15 will slide over his hairy legs when he walks and make noise.
"My God!" the lieutenant says, a couple of planes over. "Al is down! My God, he's dead!"
Uncle Enzo leaves his jacket on, for now, because it's dark, and because it's lined with satin so that it is relatively16 quiet. Then he climbs up onto the wing of one of the planes so that his legs cannot be seen by someone crouching17 on the ground. He hunkers down on the end of the wing, opens his mouth so that he can hear better, and listens.
The only thing he can hear at first is an uneven18 spattering noise that wasn't there before, like water falling out of a half-open faucet19 onto bare pavement. The sound seems to be coming from a nearby airplane. Uncle Enzo is afraid that it may be jet fuel leaking onto the ground, as part of a scheme to blow up this whole section of the airport and take out all opposition20 at a stroke. He drops silently to the ground, makes his way carefully around a couple of adjacent planes, stopping every few feet to listen, and finally sees it: one of his soldiers has been pinned to the aluminum21 fuselage of a Learjet by means of a long wooden pole. Blood runs out of the wound, down his pant legs, drips from his shoes, and spatters onto the tarmac.
From behind him, Uncle Enzo hears a brief scream that suddenly turns into a sharp gaseous22 exhalation. He has heard it before. It is a man having a sharp knife drawn23 across his throat. It is undoubtedly24 the lieutenant.
He has a few seconds to move freely now. He doesn't even know what he's up against, and he needs to know that. So he runs in the direction the scream came from, moving quickly from cover of one jet to the next, staying down in a crouch.
He sees a pair of legs moving on the opposite side of a jet's fuselage. Uncle Enzo is near the tip of the jet's wing. He puts both hands on it, shoves down with all his weight, and then lets it go.
It works: the jet rocks toward him on its suspension. The assassin thinks that Uncle Enzo has just jumped up onto the wingtip, so he climbs up onto the opposite wing and waits with his back to the fuselage, waiting to ambush25 Enzo when he climbs over the top.
But Enzo is still on the ground. He runs in toward the fuselage on silent, bare feet, ducks beneath it, and comes up from underneath26 with his straight razor in one hand. The assassin -- Raven27 -- is right where Enzo expected him.
But Raven is already getting suspicious; he stands up to look over the top of the fuselage, and that puts his throat out of reach. Enzo's looking at his legs instead.
It's better to be conservative and take what you can get than take a big gamble and blow it, so Enzo reaches in, even as Raven is looking down at him, and severs28 Raven's left Achilles tendon.
As he's turning away to protect himself, something hits him very hard in the chest. Uncle Enzo looks down and is astonished to see a transparent29 object protruding30 from the right side of his rib31 cage. Then he looks up to see Raven's face three inches from his.
Uncle Enzo steps back away from the wing. Raven was hoping to fall on top of him but instead tumbles to the ground. Enzo steps back in, reaching forward with his razor, but Raven, sitting on the tarmac, has already drawn a second knife. He lunges for the inside of Uncle Enzo's thigh32 and does some damage; Enzo sidesteps away from the blade, throwing off his attack, and ends up making a short but deep cut on the top of Raven's shoulder. Raven knocks his arm aside before Enzo can go for the throat again.
Uncle Enzo's hurt and Raven's hurt. But Raven can't outrun him anymore; it's time to take stock of things a little bit. Enzo runs away, though when he moves, terrible pains run up and down the right side of his body. Something thuds into his back, too; he feels a sharp pain above one kidney, but only for a moment. He turns around to see a bloody33 piece of glass shattering on the pavement. Raven must have thrown it into his back. But without Raven's arm strength behind it, it didn't have enough momentum34 to penetrate35 all the way through the bulletproof fabric, and it fell out.
Glass knives. No wonder Ky didn't see him on millimeter wave.
By the time he gets behind the cover of another plane, his sense of hearing is being overwhelmed by the approach of a chopper.
It is Rife's chopper, settling down on the tarmac a few dozen meters away from the jet. The thunder of the rotor blades and the blast of the wind seem to penetrate into Uncle Enzo's brain. He closes his eyes against the wind and utterly36 loses his balance, has no idea where he is until he slams full-length into the pavement. The pavement beneath him is slippery and warm, and Uncle Enzo realizes that he is losing a great deal of blood.
Staring across the tarmac, he sees Raven making his way toward the aircraft, limping horrendously37, one leg virtually useless. Finally, he gives up on it and just hops38 on his good leg.
Rife has climbed down out of the chopper. Raven and Rife are talking, Raven gesticulating back in Enzo's direction. Then Rife nods his approval, and Raven turns around, his teeth bright and white. He's not grimacing39 so much as he is smiling in anticipation40. He begins to hop1 toward Uncle Enzo, pulling another glass knife out of his jacket The bastard41 is carrying a million of those things. He's coming after Enzo, and Enzo can't even stand up without passing out. He looks around and sees nothing but a skateboard and a pair of expensive shoes and socks about twenty feet away. He can't stand up, but he can do the GI crawl, and so he begins to pull himself forward on his elbows even as Raven is hopping42 toward him one-legged.
They meet in an open lane between two adjacent jets. Enzo is on his belly43, slumped44 over the skateboard. Raven is standing45, supporting himself with one hand on the wing of the jet, the glass knife glittering in his other hand. Enzo is now seeing the world in dim black and white, like a cheap Metaverse terminal; this is how his buddies46 used to describe it in Vietnam right before they succumbed47 to blood loss.
"Hope you've done your last rites," Raven says, "because there ain't no time to call a priest."
"There is no need for one," Uncle Enzo says, and punches the button on the skateboard labeled "RadiKS Narrow Cone48 Tuned49 Shock Wave Projector50." The concussion51 nearly blows his head off. Uncle Enzo, if he survives, will never hear well again. But it does wake him up a little bit. He lifts his head off the board to see Raven standing there stunned52, empty-handed, a thousand tiny splinters of broken glass raining down out of his jacket.
Uncle Enzo rolls over on his back and waves his straight razor in the air. "I prefer steel myself," he says. "Would you like a shave?"
收听单词发音 |
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hop
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| n.单脚跳，跳跃；vi.单脚跳，跳跃；着手做某事；vt.跳跃，跃过 | |
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perimeter
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| n.周边，周长，周界 | |
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lieutenant
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| n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员 | |
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awed
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| adj.充满敬畏的，表示敬畏的v.使敬畏，使惊惧( awe的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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rife
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| adj.(指坏事情)充斥的，流行的，普遍的 | |
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radar
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| n.雷达，无线电探测器 | |
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frustration
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| n.挫折，失败，失效，落空 | |
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babble
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| v.含糊不清地说，胡言乱语地说，儿语 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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crouch
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| v.蹲伏，蜷缩，低头弯腰；n.蹲伏 | |
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unties
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| 松开，解开( untie的第三人称单数 )； 解除，使自由； 解决 | |
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hem
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| n.贴边，镶边；vt.缝贴边；(in)包围，限制 | |
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flips
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| 轻弹( flip的第三人称单数 )； 按（开关）； 快速翻转； 急挥 | |
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slits
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| n.狭长的口子，裂缝( slit的名词复数 )v.切开，撕开( slit的第三人称单数 )；在…上开狭长口子 | |
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fabric
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| n.织物，织品，布；构造，结构，组织 | |
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relatively
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| adv.比较...地，相对地 | |
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crouching
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| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的现在分词 ) | |
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uneven
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| adj.不平坦的，不规则的，不均匀的 | |
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faucet
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| n.水龙头 | |
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opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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aluminum
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| n.(aluminium)铝 | |
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gaseous
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| adj.气体的，气态的 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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ambush
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| n.埋伏(地点)；伏兵；v.埋伏；伏击 | |
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underneath
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| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
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raven
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| n.渡鸟，乌鸦；adj.乌亮的 | |
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severs
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| v.切断，断绝( sever的第三人称单数 )；断，裂 | |
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transparent
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| adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的 | |
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protruding
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| v.（使某物）伸出，（使某物）突出( protrude的现在分词 )；凸 | |
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rib
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| n.肋骨，肋状物 | |
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thigh
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| n.大腿；股骨 | |
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bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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momentum
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| n.动力，冲力，势头；动量 | |
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penetrate
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| v.透(渗)入；刺入，刺穿；洞察，了解 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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horrendously
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hops
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| 跳上[下]( hop的第三人称单数 )； 单足蹦跳； 齐足（或双足）跳行； 摘葎草花 | |
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grimacing
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| v.扮鬼相，做鬼脸( grimace的现在分词 ) | |
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anticipation
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| n.预期，预料，期望 | |
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bastard
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| n.坏蛋，混蛋；私生子 | |
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hopping
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| n. 跳跃 动词hop的现在分词形式 | |
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belly
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| n.肚子，腹部；(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分，膛 | |
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slumped
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| 大幅度下降，暴跌( slump的过去式和过去分词 )； 沉重或突然地落下[倒下] | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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buddies
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| n.密友( buddy的名词复数 )；同伴；弟兄；（用于称呼男子，常带怒气）家伙v.（如密友、战友、伙伴、弟兄般）交往( buddy的第三人称单数 )；做朋友；亲近（…）；伴护艾滋病人 | |
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succumbed
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| 不再抵抗（诱惑、疾病、攻击等）( succumb的过去式和过去分词 )； 屈从； 被压垮； 死 | |
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cone
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| n.圆锥体，圆锥形东西，球果 | |
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tuned
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| adj.调谐的，已调谐的v.调音( tune的过去式和过去分词 )；调整；（给收音机、电视等）调谐；使协调 | |
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projector
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| n.投影机，放映机，幻灯机 | |
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51
concussion
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| n.脑震荡；震动 | |
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52
stunned
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| adj. 震惊的，惊讶的 动词stun的过去式和过去分词 | |
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