Avenger Quotes
"The man who ran alone leaned into the gradient and once again fought the enemy of his own pain. It was a torture and a therapy. That was why he did it."
"Those who know often say that of all the disciplines the triathlon is the most brutal and unforgiving."
"The reason it hurt so much is that the muscles needed are all different."
"The speed-blurred driving of the legs and hips of a cyclist are different from the tendons and sinews that give the runner the rhythm and cadence to eat up the miles underfoot."
"At the age of twenty-five it is a cruel event. At the age of fifty-one it ought to be indictable under the Geneva Convention."
"The Olympians are looking at just under two hours; the New Jersey runner had clipped two and a half hours."
"The point, as he could never dare to explain to the neighbours who grinned and cheered him on, was to use the pain to combat the other pain, the always pain, the pain that never went away, the pain of lost child, lost love, lost everything."
"There is not much to Pennington, one of a million neat, clean, tidy, neighbourly small towns that make up the overlooked and underestimated heart of the USA."
"He was created in a Newark slum, rife with roaches and rats, and came into the world in January 1950, the son of a construction worker and a waitress at the local diner."
"Early on, he knew nothing of this. Babies never know how or by whom they got here. They have to find out, sometimes the hard way."
"It is very easy, sir, to reject those who come with nothing, seeking not much but the chance of life. It is very easy to say no and walk away. It costs nothing to decree that these two Orientals have no place here and should go back to arrest, torture and the execution wall."
"I sometimes wish I could are Alas, I cannot. But you must now test your faith. The news is not good."
"You are pressing for the prosecution of my client, Mr Washington Lee, for having allegedly skimmed almost a million dollars from your clients’ accounts. I think it would be wise to drop the charges."
"It was a strange combat, the Bosnian civil war. There were rarely any lines, as such, and never a pitched battle. Just a patchwork quilt of mono-ethnic communities living in fear."
"But I ask you, not on a point of law, not as a triumph for clever lawyer semantics, but as a victory for what Shakespeare called the quality of mercy, to decree that in this huge country of ours there is room for one couple who have lost everything but life and ask only for a chance."
"When things became impossible, they went underground, moving from safe house to safe house among friends and fellow professionals, until the latter had all been arrested and taken away."
"The shock of the cold must have brought him to his senses."
"We are put upon this earth by our mighty and merciful Creator to help one another."
"I swear by Him that all I have said is the truth and nothing but the truth."
"It was a strange combat, the Bosnian civil war."
"When we buy things, we should pay for them. Not so?"
"Taking away from him what he has stolen can surely be only a good thing."
"If he uses one false name, he may have others."
"It’s such a God-awful place politically that hardly any businessmen go and no tourists."
"Even the bureau must have a comprehension of the smaller evil to obtain the greater good."
"By any count you and your agents are consorting with known criminals and of the filthiest hue."
"A naked body pegged out in the jungle would attract fire ants, and fire ants can do to soft tissue in a night what normal nature needs months or years to achieve."
"What he did not know was why a very senior hierarch in Washington had chosen to bring together the refugee and the tyrant."
"More directly, Moreno took a fee for providing the slave labour force, and keeping the numbers topped up with fresh arrests and transportations."
"‘If he sets one foot inside San Martin,’ he wheezed, ‘I will have him. You will not see him again, but every piece of information he divulges will be passed to you. On that you have my word.’"
"The voice did not identify the speaker. It was flat, monotone, as if coming through several layers of paper tissue. It said simply: ‘Avenger, be careful. They know you are coming.’"
"‘Photograph them, my dear sir. Find them and photograph them. Apparently there has been a sighting. Until now the Agrias narcissus was about as rare as it gets in the jungles of your hinterlands, but the Callicore maronensis? Now that would make history."
"And you don’t know how important the Serb is to all of us. Nor his paranoia. Nor how tight his schedule may be. He has to know the danger to himself is over, totally eliminated, or he will butt out of what I need him for."
"Devereaux knew a strike was coming. They all did; Dick Clarke at the White House, Tom Pickard at the Bureau headquarters in the Hoover Building, George Tenet one floor above his head at Langley."
"But if our man has a big stack of dollars he could elude arrest in Surinam. Back here he could get bail within a day, then skip."
"‘For the sake of your immortal soul, I hope he is, Kevin. You goofed. It’s phoney. He never died. He choreographed the whole damn episode, duped Moreno and Moreno convinced you. He’s alive.'"
"Enough? I'll show you how we husband the water supply here and never lose security. Come."
"But at night? Ah, you have not seen the dogs? A pack of twelve. Dobermanns and deadly."
"No women, no children? None. They are not here to breed. But there is a church. The priest preaches one text only – absolute obedience."
"Every evening the workforce for the next day is selected by the estate manager who goes to the village."
"I haven't the faintest idea. If he's got any sense, I guess he's gone by now."
"So, this mercenary of yours. What is he going to do?"
"A one-way ticket, thought the American, courtesy of Colonel Moreno and Major van Rensberg. A life sentence. For what offences? Jay-walking? Litter?"
"No. Every evening the workforce for the next day is selected by the estate manager who goes to the village."
"You'll never dare use it," said the Serb. "It will penetrate the hull and blow us all away."