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发表于 2008-9-30 13:17:27
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[B]2[/B]
[B]TODAY[/B]
THE SWIMMER DELIVERY VEHICLE shot out of the Ohio-class submarine’s torpedo tube and sliced its way through the subzero salt water toward the dock. With no propulsion system, the device was silent and stealthy as it made its way within range of the destination.
It didn’t feel as cold as he had expected.
The figure that clung to the SDV was dressed in a polithermal bodysuit, goggles, and scuba gear. The so-called sneaking suit protected him from the extreme temperature, but Dr. Hunter had told him that the shot she’d given him also was containing an antifreezing peptide to keep the blood and other body fluids from turning to ice, which could easily happen in the waters of Alaska’s Fox Archipelago.
The Fox Islands were clustered in the Aleutian chain, just east of Samalga Pass and the Islands of Four Mountains group. They were notorious for being difficult to navigate because of recurring adverse weather conditions and an abundance of reefs. As a result, the submarine had to remain a significant distance out to sea; thus the need for what Campbell had called a surgical insemination.
The man rode the SDV for nearly a nautical mile, at which point the missile’s forward thrust began to decline. They trick was to guide the thing to make a soft landing on the rocky, icy ocean floor. Allowing the device to tilt slightly to the right or left not only could cause a dangerous collision but also could alert the enemy’s sonar to its location.
The rider used both hands to keep the steering mechanism steady as the SDV slowed, drifted lower, and eventually speared over the icy bottom with a smooth thud. When it came to a stop, Solid Snake checked the Codec and verified his GPS position, pushed away from the device, and swam toward the dock.
Snake might have questioned the wisdom of keeping fit after he supposedly had retired. If he had only gained a few pounds and done noting but sit and watch television, Campbell might have had second thoughts about his taking the job. The fact that Snake was in superb shape gave Campbell another excuse to think that his man was ready to come back to work, even though Snake had fled to the middle of nowhere trying to escape the life.
But he was suddenly thankful that he was in excellent shape, for Snake encountered powerful currents that were preventing him from reaching ground. He struggled hard against them, staying focused, concentrating on the breathing and appropriate muscle groups he needed to get through this, the first of many hurdles he would have to overcome before accomplishing his goals. Eventually he arrived at the dock several seconds ahead of schedule. He was glad to use them to rest and get his bearings.
Shadow Moses Island. I made it.
Slowly and quietly, the man with the code name Solid Snake surfaced to his nose and peered at the platform. Floodlights illuminated the area, but the icy wind obscured much of the visibility in all directions. The cargo dock was empty, and so Snake took hold of a support and grasped it tightly. Like a salamander slipping across a stone, he climbed the support, slid onto the platform, and darted to the shadows at the side of the water filtration tank. He was out of sight there, so he removed the tank and flippers and laid them against the wall.
That’s it. Just a few moments to recharge. Wish I had a cigarette.
Snake closed his eyes and began his relaxation exercises. In sixty seconds he’d be like new.
As part of the meditation, Snake sometimes allowed his mind to drift over the events of events of earlier hours. That helped put the mission in focus.
[B]TWO DAYS EARLIER[/B]
HE HAD BEEN dreaming about gathering blueberries and salmonberries with a mind toward feeding the huskies he’d been training for the Great Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race when his internal alarm jolted Snake awake.
He listened for a repetition of the sound that had infiltrated his sleep.
There. A footstep crunching something outside the cabin.
How come the huskies didn’t bark?
Snake leaped out of bed, grabbed the 9-mm Heckler & Koch P7 from his gun clipboard, and snapped a magazine into it. He then carefully peered out of the frost-covered window to see three figures darting through the trees behind the cabin.
Black ops. Armed. With assault rifles.
“Who the hell are these guys?” Snake muttered aloud. He quickly took the bulletproof vest, from the table and threw it around himself. He had just finished snapping the last strap when he heard the men in the other room, on the other side of the bedroom door. Snake quickly assumed a firing stance at the side of the door, ready foe their intrusion.
“Combat operative Solid Snake!” called a voice. “We are your friends! Please throw down your weapon! We’re under orders form Colonel Roy Campbell! I repeat, throw down your weapon! We’re here form Colonel Roy Campbell!”
Campbell? What the hell?
Snake figured the soldiers were using thermal imaging to determine that he was standing in the other room with a pistol in hand. And since Campbell was the only person who knew that Snake lived like a hermit in a remote cabin near Twin Lakes in the Alaskan wilderness, he reluctantly placed the handgun on the table.
“We’re entering your room. Please raise your hands and do not move! ”
Snake did as he was told.
Two combat soldiers burst into the room, faced Snake, and pointed their rifles at him.
“Uhm, the door was unlocked, boys,” Snake said. “You didn’t have to break it down.”
“Get dressed, please,” one of the men ordered. “The colonel is waiting.”
Snake sighed heavily. “He’d better have one hell of a good reason for this.”
Five minutes later Snake and six soldiers were trudging through the newly fallen snow to a transport helicopter that had landed a hundred meters away. Snake figured he hadn’t heard the chopper because the wind was strong that morning. A major storm was about to come through.
The next hour went by in a blur as the helicopter flew out of sea and made a rendezvous with the SSBN-732 Discovery, Colonel Campbell’s mobile headquarters, a submarine currently floating in the Bering Sea. The men escorted Snake through the bowels of the boat until he was placed in what appeared to be the medic’s examination room. Snake was told to strip to his underwear, as he needed to undergo some tests.
“The hell I will,” Snake grumbled.
“You don’t have a choice, soldier,” one of the men replied. “Just do it.” When they left him alone, Snake decided to play along. Perhaps they’d send in a pretty nurse to take care of him. It had been a while since he’d seen a female, much less touched one.
After he had been sitting in his shorts for fifteen minutes-he’d kept his beloved bandana on his head-one of the few men Snake called a friend entered the room. Since the officer had been the commander of FOXHOUND while Snake had been a member, the two men had forged a bond that had endured beyond Snake’s self-imposed retirement.
“Snake. You look well.”
Snake didn’t want to say that the colonel appeared older. After all, the man was in his sixties. Colonel Campbell was dressed, as usual, in his old Green Beret uniform, even though he was no longer part of that elite outfit.
“Thanks, Colonel. You look …stressed. ”
Campbell shrugged. “Comes with the job.”
“You interrupted a very pleasant dream I was having about berries. This had better be good.”
“Sorry if the boys were a little rough. Snake, we need you. This isn’t good, but it’s big. ”
“Colonel…”
“Snake, we’ve got a serious situation, and you’re the only man who can get us out of it.”
“You know I’m retired FOXHOULD, Colonel. I don’t take orders anymore.”
“Let me tell you what’s up and you’ll change your mind. You know FOXHOUND splintered and many of the Next Generation Special Forces banded together and became a renegade group of terrorists-for lack of a better word – hell-bent on taking whatever they want and doing whatever they deem necessary to accomplish their goals.”
“I heart something about it.”
“Well, about five hours ago, our nuclear weapons disposal facility on Shadow Moses Island was attacked and captured by those renegades, led by members of FOXHOUND. They’re holding hostages and demanding that the government turn over the remains of Big Boss. They say that if their demands are not met within twenty-four hours, they’ll laungh a nuke.”
A shadow passed over Snake’s face at the mention of the name. “Big Boss… my- ”
“Your father. Yes.”
Snake frowned in confusion. “Why do they want … a corpse?”
A woman dressed in a white lab coat came into the room. She carried a hypodermic and was smiling. Snake found her attractive and guessed that she was in her late twenties.
At last!
“Who’s she?” he asked.
“This is Doctor Naomi Hunter, the unit’s chief medic. She’s also an expert in gene therapy.”
She pointed the needle at him and said, “This won’t hurt a bit.”
“What’s that?”
“I’ll tell you in a minute.” She proceeded to sterilize his arm and give him the shot before he could protest.
“Damn it, Colonel. I haven’t agreed - ”
“Shut up and let me finish, Snake.”
When she was done, Dr. Hunter stepped back but remained in the room. The colonel continued. “They don’t necessarily want Big Boss’s corpse; they want cell specimens that contain his genetic information.”
“What for?”
“Gene therapy. So they can better themselves.”
Dr. Hunter spoke in a cultured accent that was not quite British but certainly Ivy League. “They can enhance their Next Gen forces with the cells. They military has been working toward identifying the genes that make what they hope to be perfect soldiers. Once the genes are identified, we can splice them into regular troops and then -”
“Turn them into supermen.”
“Yes. So far we’ve discovered about sixty of these ‘soldier genes’ in Big Boss.”
Snake shook his head in disbelief. “So his body was recovered after all.”
Campbell said, “Yeah. His cells have remained frozen in a cryochamber. His genomic information is, well, priceless.”
“Priceless for the military, you mean.”
“Snake, you can understand why we can’t simply hand over his body. It’s more valuable as a weapon than any WMD our enemies could threaten us with.”
Dr. Hunter added, “His body was severely burned, but it was possible to restore his DNA profile from just a single strand of hair.”
“Who are these terrorists?” Snake asked.
Dr. Hunter replied, “Uhm, they’re calling themselves the Son of Big Boss.” |
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楼主: fengmosn
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