Individual Reading: "The Patriots Games" by Tom Clancy: week 5 - the finall curtain :D (p. 365 from 365)

Summary

Jean Claude, Jack and Cantor are looking forward to watch the operation against the O’Donnell’s group of The ULA (The Ulster Liberation Army) by the parachute subdivision of Jean Claude. It doesn’t get on for a radio contact because the parachutes can’t break electronic silence. In sober fact, they have been attacked by the military unit and don’t manage to make the operation. Snapshots from the satellite give the information that assassinators have gone before the beginning of the campaign.

Alex takes a house which has to be used as the ark of refuge. The terrorist is going to kill the residential agent who has helped him in this business. Miller is very pleased as they now have a place where they can take shelter. Having discussed the plan, Miller is very peeved with Alex, because the black suggests very good ideas. The Irish man wants to kill him.

The Ryans’ house seems to be inconvenient for an act of assault. There is only one strait road to the house. From the left there is the grove, from the right - the cliff. Nevertheless FBI and CIA put on the territory about 20 secret agents. But perpetrators of acts of terrorism, especially Kevin O’Donnell don’t think so. He strives a single purpose: his companions-in-arms will kill heads of the PIRA, the seizure of The Royal Family will give him a chance to let out prisoners and at all, all these will make him the head of terrorism.

Someone lodges information about the group and their house having seen weapons in the garage of the taken house. The police cervices come immediately but nobody is at home, only weapons. They have left the house on the black van which is identificated on one of the roads and is persecuted by the police car. The car is under fire but fortunately the police officer doesn’t die.

Their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Wales arrive to Jack and Cathy. Everybody hits it off. Robby and the Prince have much in common: both of them are pilots and they easily can speak about this or that model of the aircraft. The Ryans serves up simple American dishes: stakes, fried potatoes, boiled corn and tea with ice.

The group of assassins interferes to the territory of the Ryans family house. They killed 17 bodyguards and lost 6 of themselves. Among these 6 are Alex and his group, killed by Miller because of dispute. Jack and his guests are captured by the assassinators, all are captured, except Robby who is washing his hands in the toilet when the hijacking takes place. He finds Jack’s  short-barreled weapon and, having killed two of three terrorists, sets free all the group.

The third one, Mr. Cooley, shows them the way to the boats on which O’Donnell and others have come. The boats are protected by other small group of assaulters which is also neutralized by Jack, Robby and the Prince. Cooley is killed during the fight. On the boat Jack and other  go to Indianapolis where  Sergeant Major Noah Breckenridge and his amphibious soldiers take the injured wife of Robby and other women.

Miller, O’Donnell and other want to escape on the Cyprian ship, but are captured by Jack, Gunny and the amphibious soldiers. Ryan wants to kill Miller, but Gunny stops him, as Jack is not the killer. The American is waiting by the unbelievable news – he becomes father twice: Cathy has a baby – the boy, “who would have two complete, but very different, sets of godparents.”

Culture Words

1. FBI Academy

The FBI Academy, located in Quantico, Virginia, is the training site for new Special Agents of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation. It was first opened for use in 1972 on 385 acres (1.6 km²) of woodland. It is a relatively small government academy, housing three dormitory buildings and associated facilities. Federal law enforcement officers from the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration undergo training courses here. FBI agents currently have a 21-week long training course.

2. Dragunov sniper rifle

The Dragunov sniper rifle is a semi-automatic sniper rifle/designated marksman rifle chambered in 7.62×54mmR and developed in the Soviet Union. The Dragunov was designed as a squad support weapon, since according to Soviet and Soviet-derived military doctrines the long-range engagement ability was lost to ordinary troops when submachine guns and assault rifles (which are optimized for close-range and medium-range, rapid-fire combat) were adopted. For that reason it was originally named "Полуавтоматическая винтовка Драгунова" Dragunov's Semi-automatic Rifle. It was selected as the winner of a contest that included three competing designs - by Sergei Simonov, by Aleksandr Konstantinov and by Yevgeny Dragunov. Extensive field testing of the rifles conducted in a wide range of environmental conditions resulted in Dragunov’s proposal being accepted into service in 1963. An initial pre-production batch consisting of 200 rifles was assembled for evaluation purposes, and from 1964 serial production was carried out by Izhmash. Since then, the Dragunov has become the standard squad support weapon of several countries, including those of the former Warsaw Pact. Licensed production of the rifle was established in China (Type 79 and Type 85) and Iran (as a direct copy of the Chinese Type 79).

3. Grumman F-14 Tomcat

The Grumman F-14 Tomcat is a supersonic, twin-engine, two-seat, variable-sweep wing fighter aircraft. The Tomcat was developed for the United States Navy's Naval Fighter Experimental (VFX) program following the collapse of the F-111B project. The F-14 was the first of the American teen-series fighters which were designed incorporating the experience of air combat against MiG fighters during the Vietnam War. The F-14 first flew in December 1970 and made its first deployment in 1974 with the U.S. Navy aboard USS Enterprise (CVN-65), replacing the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II. The F-14 served as the U.S. Navy's primary maritime air superiority fighter, fleet defense interceptor and tactical reconnaissance platform. In the 1990s, it added the Low Altitude Navigation and Targeting Infrared for Night (LANTIRN) pod system and began performing precision ground-attack missions. The Tomcat was retired from the U.S. Navy's active fleet on 22 September 2006, having been supplanted by the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. As of 2012, the F-14 was only in service with the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force, having been exported to Iran in 1976, when the U.S. had amicable diplomatic relations with Iran's government.

4. Indianapolis

It is the capital city of the U.S. state of Indiana, and also the county seat of Marion County. As of the 2010 census, the city's population is 829,718. It is the twelfth largest city in the United States, and one of the fastest growing metropolitan areas in the United States. Indianapolis is now the second largest city in the Midwest after Chicago, surpassing nearby Detroit at the 2010 Census. Historically, Indianapolis has oriented itself around government (a byproduct of its state capital function) and industry, particularly manufacturing. Over the late decades of the 20th century, the city's Unigov began a long process to revitalize the downtown area. Today, Indianapolis has a much more diversified economy, contributing to the fields of education, health care, and finance. Tourism is also a vital part of the economy of Indianapolis, and the city plays host to numerous conventions and sporting events. Of these, perhaps the most well known are the annual Indianapolis 500, Brickyard 400, and NHRA U.S. Nationals. Other major sporting events include the Men's and Women's NCAA Basketball Tournaments. Indianapolis also hosted the 2012 Super Bowl, a game that featured the New York Giants defeating the New England Patriots. Both Forbes and Livability.com rank Indianapolis as one of the best downtowns in the United States citing "more than 200 retail shops, more than 35 hotels, nearly 300 restaurants and food options, movie theaters, sports venues, museums, art galleries and parks" as attractions. Greater Indianapolis has seen moderate growth among U.S. cities. The population of the metropolitan statistical area was 1,756,241 according to the 2010 Census, making it the 34th-largest in the United States. The 2010 population of the Indianapolis combined statistical area, a larger trade area, was 2,080,782, the 23rd-largest in the country.

5. Yankee

The term Yankee (sometimes shortened to Yank) has several interrelated meanings, referring to people from the United States. Within the US it refers to people originating in the northeastern US, or still more narrowly New England, where application of the term is largely restricted to the descendants of colonial English settlers in the region. Outside the US it is used to refer to people from the US in general. The meaning of Yankee has varied over time. In the 18th century, it referred to residents of New England descended from the original English settlers of the region. Mark Twain, in the following century, used the word in this sense in his novel A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, published in 1889. As early as the 1770s, British people applied the term to any person from what became the US. In the 19th century, Americans in the southern United States employed the word in reference to Americans from the northern United States (though not to recent emigrants from Europe; thus a visitor to Richmond, Virginia, in 1818 commented, "The enterprising people are mostly strangers; Scots, Irish, and especially New England men, or Yankees, as they are called"). The truncated form Yank is especially popular among Britons and Australians, and may sometimes be considered offensive or disapproving. The intense and ongoing sports rivalry between the eponymous New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox can also make the utterance of the "Yankee" term offensive to inhabitants of much of New England, especially to the most dedicated Red Sox fans living in the northeastern United States.

Questions

1.      Why does Sean Miller kill Alex?

2.      Is Alex cleverer than Sean?

3.      why doesn’t Jack kill Miller?

4.      Why doesn’t the author pay more attention to O’Donnell?

5.      What is going to be in the future of Jack and his family (only your imagination)?

Words

1.      a missile – реактивный снаряд

2.      a state trooper – патрульный

3.      an assassin – наемный убийца

4.      a grenade – граната

5.      a cotter pin – чека

6.      to pointed bayonet right at – направить штык-нож на

7.      an defendant – подсудимый

8.      a blast – взрывная волна

9.      to be sentenced to prison for the remainder of one’s natural life – попасть в тюрьму пожизненно

10.  to confront – противостоять

11.  to be loaded – быть заряженным

12.  to struck at – наносить удар

13.  the chatter of automatic weapons fire – автоматная очередь

14.  to disable a gunman – обезоружить

15.  a weapons training – огневая подготовка

16.  a radar installation – радарная установка

17.  a traitor – предатель

18.  a submachine gun – автомат

19.  a firing range – стрелковый полигон

20.  a machine-gunner – пулеметчик