Armored Car Quotes

The armored cars of dreams, contrived to let us do so many a dangerous thing.

Too much and too long, we seem to have surrendered community excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our gross national product...if we should judge the United States of America by that - counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for those who break them. It counts the destruction of our redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and the cost of a nuclear warhead, and armored cars for police who fight riots in our streets. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children. Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it tells us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.

I listened to the men's voices outside, muted by my car walls. "...went at it with a flamethrower in the online video. Didn't even pucker the paint." "Of course not. You could roll a tank over this baby. Not much of a market for one over here. Designed for Middle East Diplomats, arm dealers, and drug lords mostly." "Think she's something?" the short one asked in a softer voice. I ducked my head, cheeks flaming. "Huh," the tall one said. "Maybe. Can't imagine what you'd need missile-proof glass and four thousand pounds of body armor for around here. Must be headed somewhere more hazardous." Body armor. Four thousand pounds of body armor. And missle-proof glass? Nice. What had happened to good old-fashioned bulletproof?

But I guess even the knights were vessels to someone. Isn't that the way it worked? But then everyone is always a vessel to someone. Isn't that right, Terri? But what I liked about the knights, besides their ladies, was that they had that suit of armor, you know, and they couldn't get hurt very easily. No cars in those days, you know? No drunk teenagers to tear into your ass." Vassals," Terri said. What?" Mel said. Vassals," Terri said. "They were called vassals.

Srinagar is a medieval city dying in a modern war. It is empty streets, locked shops, angry soldiers and boys with stones. It is several thousand military bunkers, four golf courses, and three book-shops. It is wily politicians repeating their lies about war and peace to television cameras and small crowds gathered by the promise of an elusive job or a daily fee of a few hundred rupees. It is stopping at sidewalks and traffic lights when the convoys of rulers and their patrons in armored cars, secured by machine guns, rumble on broken roads. It is staring back or looking away, resigned. Srinagar is never winning and never being defeated.

Your beard and your big leather jacket and your big black car and your big black boots. No one puts on all that armor unless they been hurt by someone who didn’t have no right to hurt them.

She looked at Mad Rogan. "What did you do?" Mad Rogan opened his mouth. She turned to me. "What did he do?" "He got hit by a car," I said. The woman pivoted back to Mad Rogan. "Why in the world would you do a stupid thing like that?" Mad Rogan opened his mouth again to say something. "Don't you have an army of badasses to keep this exact thing from happening?" "I..." The woman turned to me. "What kind of car was it?" "An armored Escalade," I said. "Well, at least it was a nice car." She turned to Mad Rogan. "Who would want to ruin their nice car by hitting you with it?" Mad Rogan sucked in a slow breath and let it out. "Got you in the ribs, huh?" The woman waved. "Load both of them up." "I can..." Mad Rogan started. She pointed to a stretcher. "Down." Mad Rogan lay down on the stretcher.

What’s happening here? What’s going on? Then you hear yourself mumbling: “Dogs fucked the Pope, no fault of mine. Watch out! … Why money? My name is Brinks; I was born … born? Get sheep over side … women and children to armored car … orders from Captain Zeep.” Ah, devil ether—a total body drug. The mind recoils in horror, unable to communicate with the spinal column. The hands flap crazily, unable to get money out of the pocket … garbled laughter and hissing from the mouth … always smiling. Ether is the perfect drug for Las Vegas.

Long after the bomb falls and you and your good deeds are gone, cockroaches will still be here, prowling the streets like armored cars.

There's something weird about that guy," she whispers as she slips into the car, bringing an unexpected smile to my face. Ah, Ariel. Some might say she has poor taste, but I cant help but be flattered. Take that, knight in shining armor. This lady prefers the knave.

Any requests on the kind of car?” “Something with armor?” she said. “Oooh, and headrest DVD. Bonus for surround sound.” “Rocket launchers,” Michael said. “One hot yellow Hummer with optional mass destruction package, coming up.

The city was a puzzle box built of symbols, a confusion of old and new, armored cars and donkeys in the streets, Bedouins and bankers. The Turks and Haredim, the showy Greek and Russian processions -- everyone seemed to be in costume, reenacting the miraculous past.

I drive a taxi and a car and a truck and a T-55 tank and also a T-62 and armored cars and the motorcycles with and without sidecars.

In his books, Dr. Alexander Lowen put into words the anguish I could not describe. He explained how a repressed experience was converted into a physical symptom. Intense sexual energy that had not been resolved or discharged would be forced into muscles, causing chronic muscular tensions. Finally, someone understood my pain…at least that one. Chronic muscular tension may not sound like a big deal but I have lived in a body primed for lifting a car. The muscles never let go. Even when I awaken, they are flexed to the max. It’s called “muscular armoring.

Even if we act to erase material poverty, there is another greater task, it is to confront the poverty of satisfaction - purpose and dignity - that afflicts us all. Too much and for too long, we seemed to have surrendered personal excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our Gross National Product, now, is over $800 billion dollars a year, but that Gross National Product - if we judge the United States of America by that - that Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children. Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans. If this is true here at home, so it is true elsewhere in world.

air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities. It counts . . . the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children. Yet the Gross National Product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country. It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud to be Americans.40

With that he hurled and Athena drove the shaft and it split the archer's nose between the eyes— it cracked his glistening teeth, the tough bronze cut off his tongue at the roots, smashed his jaw and the point came ripping out beneath his chin. He pitched from his car, armor clanged against him, a glimmering blaze of metal dazzling round his back—

You and your beard and your big leather jacket and your big black car and your huge black boots. Nobody wears this much armor unless it has been hurt by someone who had no reason to hurt him.

Catalan metalworkers quickly fashioned armored cars that looked like giant boxes on wheels by welding steel plates to the frames of trucks and automobiles. Others fashioned homemade bombs and hand grenades, and thousands pitched in to build street barricades of everything from dead horses to massive rolls of newsprint to paving stones passed hand-to-hand along a chain of people. Office

From his corner office on the ground floor of the St. Cyril station house, Inspector Dick has a fine view of the parking lot. Six Dumpsters plated and hooped like iron maidens against bears. Beyond the Dumpsters a subalpine meadow, and then the snow¬ capped ghetto wall that keeps the Jews at bay. Dick is slouched against the back of his two-thirds-scale desk chair, arms crossed, chin sunk to his chest, star¬ing out the casement window. Not at the mountains or the meadow, grayish green in the late light, tufted with wisps of fog, or even at the armored Dumpsters. His gaze travels no farther than the parking lot—no farther than his 1961 Royal Enfield Crusader. Lands¬man recognizes the expression on Dick's face. It's the expression that goes with the feeling Landsman gets when he looks at his Chevelle Super Sport, or at the face of Bina Gelbfish. The face of a man who feels he was born into the wrong world. A mistake has been made; he is not where he belongs. Every so often he feels his heart catch, like a kite on a telephone wire, on something that seems to promise him a home in the world or a means of getting there. An American car manufactured in his far-off boyhood, say, or a motor¬cycle that once belonged to the future king of England, or the face of a woman worthier than himself of being loved.

Your reaction was not unexpected. Let me put it this way: Fort Knox is a bank like any other bank. But it is a much bigger bank and its protective devices are correspondingly stronger and more ingenious. To penetrate them will require corresponding strength and ingenuity. That is the only novelty in my project--that it is a big one. Nothing else. Fort Knox is no more impregnable than other fortresses. No doubt we all thought the Brink organization was unbeatable until half a dozen determined men robbed a Brink armored car of a million dollars back in 1950. It is impossible to escape from Sing Sing and yet men have found ways of escaping from it. No, no, gentlemen. Fort Knox is a myth like other myths.

For possession of a single bullet, Shaykh Farhan al-Sa‘di, an eighty-one-year-old rebel leader, was put to death in 1937. Under the martial law in force at the time, that single bullet was sufficient to merit capital punishment, particularly for an accomplished guerrilla fighter like al-Sa‘di.57 Well over a hundred such sentences of execution were handed down after summary trials by military tribunals, with many more Palestinians executed on the spot by British troops.58 Infuriated by rebels ambushing their convoys and blowing up their trains, the British resorted to tying Palestinian prisoners to the front of armored cars and locomotives to prevent rebel attack, a tactic they had pioneered in a futile effort to crush resistance of the Irish during their war of independence from 1919 to 1921.

This is unbelievable,” James said. “I mean, you guys are out here planning to build an armored car out of my dad’s old, and I mean old, car. Mom is in the house making cookies like this is just an everyday occurrence. Once this starts, you guys probably won’t live through it, and nobody is acting like it’s a big deal. I don’t know that I’m comfortable with my parents preparing for their funeral.” “Everyone has to die of something, son,” Rick said. James looked stunned. “So you are thinking about that as a possibility? Then why go to all the trouble of putting armor on the car and putting in that big engine?” “Because I have to get back to the starting point, which in this case is the Deal’s Gap,” Rick answered. “And the car won’t make it if I don’t make modifications.” “Once they figure out what you’re doing and where you’re going, they’ll ambush you. You won’t be able to get out of it. They’ll gun you and Mom down in cold blood.” James was trying to hide the emotion from his face.

This is the main advantage of ether: it makes you behave like the village drunkard in some early Irish novel … total loss of all basic motor skills: blurred vision, no balance, numb tongue—severance of all connection between the body and the brain. Which is interesting, because the brain continues to function more or less normally … you can actually watch yourself behaving in this terrible way, but you can’t control it. You approach the turnstiles leading into the Circus-Circus and you know that when you get there, you have to give the man two dollars or he won’t let you inside … but when you get there, everything goes wrong: you misjudge the distance to the turnstile and slam against it, bounce off and grab hold of an old woman to keep from falling, some angry Rotarian shoves you and you think: What’s happening here? What’s going on? Then you hear yourself mumbling: “Dogs fucked the Pope, no fault of mine. Watch out! … Why money? My name is Brinks; I was born … born? Get sheep over side … women and children to armored car … orders from Captain Zeep.

When the wife was found alive, the victim of a horrible car accident that might not have been discovered in time were it not for the husband's persistence, I was shocked to find myself actually tearing up. It was cathartic, the relief that she was okay after all--- something true crime programming rarely gave you. But there was more to it than that. Somehow, Sam had sanded down my cynical edges. I'd built up this armor for so long, and I'd always worried I wouldn't recognize myself without it. But it turned out that I liked who I was with Sam.

Even if we act to erase material poverty, there is another greater task; it is to confront the poverty of satisfaction – purpose and dignity – that afflicts us all. Too much and for too long, we seemed to have surrendered personal excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our Gross National Product, now, is over $800 billion a year, but that Gross National Product … counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children. Yet the Gross National Product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country. It measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.

Do you believe yourself in love with Deveaux?” He snarled the words. Between gritted teeth, he said, “It’s emblazoned on your pretty face. But you wouldn’t love him if you truly knew him. Your feelings would wither and die.” “What are you talking about?” “He’s lied to you repeatedly.” “Uh-huh. I’ll just take your word for it?” “No, I received my information from the Fool. He was quite worried about his Empress’s safety when you were in Deveaux’s keeping.” “You know I’ll fact-check.” “I expect you to.” “And why would you two be discussing my safety?” “I’ve been up-front about my intentions with you, unlike Deveaux. Did you never wonder about his instant infatuation with you?” “Maybe he had a thing for cheerleaders.” Death shook his head. “No, he targeted you before he ever saw you.” “That doesn’t make sense.” “You were possessed by someone he hated.” He downed another shot. “Jack despised Brand. That was no secret.” “You never asked yourself why?” “Because Brand was rich and seemed to have everything so easy.” “I’m sure that had something to do with it. However, the main reason he hated Brandon Radcliffe”—Death’s eyes had never looked so flat and dark—“was that they shared a father” “You’re saying Brand and Jackson were . . . half brothers?” Only one son had known of their connection. Was this why Jack’s eyes had darted when I’d asked him if he had any secrets? Death was relishing this. “Deveaux coveted all his brother had: the perfect family, the house, the car. The girl. He could never have any of the others—but he could have you. And he did.” “You’re lying.” You can trust me alone, Evie. “Matthew would’ve told me about this.” Death tsked. “Such trust you have in the Fool. How do you think I learned what my armor would do to your powers?” I tottered on my feet. “H-he wouldn’t!” “It’s nothing personal with him, just strategy and scheming.” I’d thought Matthew an innocent, wide-eyed boy. “The Fool knew that I’d kill you if I had no means to control you. In essence, he’s saved your life. So far, at least.” Death continued, “Deveaux didn’t even like you, but he pursued you.” “You don’t know anything!” I cried, though I could hear Jack’s words: Even when I hated you, I wanted you. “One benefit of my endless life? I have quite a grasp on human behavior.” “Maybe he did target me. But his feelings grew from that. You’ll have to do better than this.” “Do better? As you wish, creature.” With an evil grin, he said, “Deveaux killed your mother.

Normandy operations, typified by Quesada's armored column cover and Broadhurst's contact cars, thus fulfilled a concept born a quarter-century earlier, amid the mud of Flanders: the notion of the airplane as a partner of the tank, as a "counter antitank" weapon. In that war, then-Colonel J.F.C. Fuller, Great Britain's greatest armor advocate, had recognized that cooperation between air and armor forces was "of incalculable importance.

School bus drivers are like armored car drivers. Except their cargo is priceless, yet they are paid and treated worse than a sanitation driver. Where your priorities lay so are your treasures found. Maybe our children are not the treasures we assume they were.

We duck-walk as fast as we can across the lot to an SUV the size of a freight train. The doors are thick with armor and the windows are two-inch-thick ballistic glass. Of course Abbot has one of these. He’s the Sub Rosa Augur, king high fuck-all, and this is L.A. Cars are sacred objects here. It wouldn’t do for a big shot like him to be seen in anything less than a four-wheeled Stealth fighter.

That night it was difficult to sleep because an armored car was patrolling on our roof and checking the documents of the cats which always prowl there. I was told that only one cat had his papers on him but he too was arrested. After all, an ordinary car carrying authentic personal documents is enough to arouse justified suspicion.

The men were not watering the grass; they were spraying it an emerald green. This was Ireland in an atomizer. The workers were coloring the dead, hurrying to finish before the Crown Prince's gaze would zoom by, perhaps peering through the bullet-proofed, tinted, heavily-armored glass of his German car. So much about the Kingdom concerned outward appearances. Veneer was as important as substance, perhaps more so.

The car came up as being registered to a Renee Barnes Knight. Knight’s dead wife.

I was also curious as to who would have a car in my ex-wife’s name. As far as I knew, she only had one car in her name and that was a silver Acura.

What Kool aid didn’t know was that all Troy’s cars were bulletproof. I pulled up next to Kool aid and I took out my

I knew Renee was dead, there was no doubt about that, but who the hell had a car registered in her name?

tonight. I was able to clearly see through the car window the face behind me; it was the nigga Shawn.

The M1A3 Abrams was a man-killer. Colonel J. “Lonesome” Jones thanked the good Lord that he had never had to face anything like it. The models that preceded it, the A1 and A2, were primarily designed to engage huge fleets of Soviet tanks on the plains of Europe. They were magnificent tank busters, but proved to be less adept at the sort of close urban combat that was the bread and butter of the U.S. Army in the first two decades of the twenty-first century. In the alleyways of Damascus and Algiers, along the ancient cobbled lanes of Samara, Al Hudaydah, and Aden, the armored behemoths often found themselves penned in, unable to maneuver or even to see what they were supposed to kill. They fell victim to car bombs and Molotovs and homemade mines. Jones had won his Medal of Honor rescuing the crew of one that had been disabled by a jihadi suicide squad in the Syrian capital. The A3 was developed in response to attacks just like that one, which had become increasingly more succesful. It was still capable of killing a Chinese battle tank, but it was fitted out with a very different enemy in mind. Anyone, like Jones, who was familiar with the clean, classic lines of the earlier Abrams would have found the A3 less aesthetically pleasing. The low-profile turret now bristled with 40 mm grenade launchers, an M134 7.62 mm minigun, and either a small secondary turret for twin 50s, or a single Tenix-ADI 30 mm chain gun. The 120 mm canon remained, but it was now rifled like the British Challenger’s gun. But anyone, like Jones, who’d ever had to fight in a high-intensity urban scenario couldn’t give a shit about the A3’s aesthetics. They just said their prayers in thanks to the designers. The tanks typically loaded out with a heavy emphasis on high-impact, soft-kill ammunition such as the canistered “beehive” rounds, Improved Conventional Bomblets, White Phos’, thermobaric, and flame-gel capsules. Reduced propellant charges meant that they could be fired near friendly troops without danger of having a gun blast disable or even kill them. An augmented long-range laser-guided kinetic spike could engage hard targets out to six thousand meters. The A3 boasted dozens of tweaks, many of them suggested by crew members who had gained their knowledge the hard way. So the tank commander now enjoyed an independent thermal and LLAMPS viewer. Three-hundred-sixty-degree visibility came via a network of hardened battle-cams. A secondary fuel cell generator allowed the tank to idle without guzzling JP-8 jet fuel. Wafered armor incorporated monobonded carbon sheathing and reactive matrix skirts, as well as the traditional mix of depleted uranium and Chobam ceramics. Unlike the tank crew that Jones had rescued from a screaming mob in a Damascus marketplace, the men and women inside the A3 could fight off hordes of foot soldiers armed with RPGs, satchel charges, and rusty knives—for the “finishing work” when the tank had been stopped and cracked open to give access to its occupants.

There’s a reason objects burn up when they fall to earth like gruesome angels – a reason other than the obvious one. Asteroids the size of armored cars narrow to mere pebbles in a matter of seconds. It’s because the planet is a carnivore and just wants to be fed.

Her limber body swayed as though in time to an orchestra and in a way that showed she ate well, and ate all kinds of things no one could tell, like veal or fresh figs in the sunshine. She had the kind of face that made one cry. She drew salt water out like sheer chemistry. The chemical reaction was usually the same sentiment—the world saw the little shelf bone under her eyes, a sharp nose, precious jaw, two moons for cheekbones, and so was deeply confused and upset that there was no metal armor attached to her body to protect her. People had cried fearing all kinds of possibilities—that a piece of hail might cut across her cheek, a drunkard might break her nose, or a car from nowhere would crash into hers and shatter her skull entirely. But no case of that happened. She remained unblemished. Watchful cars slowed down for her as she walked, drunkards sobered at her eyes, and even hail made way for this little human.

There’s a reason objects burn up when they fall to earth like gruesome angels—a reason other than the obvious one. Asteroids the size of armored cars narrow to mere pebbles in a matter of seconds. It’s because the planet is a carnivore and just wants to be fed. People want that as well. People like to eat other people.

There’s a reason objects burn up when they fall to earth like gruesome angels—a reason other than the obvious one. Asteroids the size of armored cars narrow to mere pebbles in a matter of seconds. It’s because the planet is a carnivore and just wants to be fed. People want that as well. People like to eat other people. I spent so many years forgetting I had teeth, too.

Six months later, though I still loathed the man, I changed my approach to the task list. I got up after the first wake-up call without delay. There would be no more early-morning baptisms for me. Instead, I focused on the details Sgt. Jack always noticed and finished each job right the first time. That was the only way I’d get any free time to play basketball. However, my new approach produced an unexpected side effect as well: a sense of pride in a job well done. In fact, that sense of pride came to mean more to me than basketball time. When I washed his car collection, a weekly assignment, I knew every drop of water had to be wiped away with a chamois before the first coat of wax. I used SOS pads to get the white walls gleaming and buffed the hell out of every panel. I also used Armor All on the dashboards and all the vinyl insides. I buffed the leather seats too. It bothered me if I saw streaks on the glass or chrome. I was annoyed if I missed a soiled spot or cut a corner here or there on any chore. I didn’t know it at the time, but that was a sign that I was actually healing. When a half-assed job doesn’t bother you, it speaks volumes about the kind of person you are. And until you start feeling a sense of pride and self-respect in the work you do, no matter how small or overlooked those jobs might be, you will continue to half-ass your life. I knew I had every reason in the world to rebel and remain a lazy motherfucker. I also sensed that would only make me more miserable, so I adapted. But no matter how well I did or how fast I completed a given task, there were no atta’ boys or weekly allowance. No ice cream cones or surprise gifts, hugs, or high fives. In Sgt. Jack’s mind, I was finally doing what I should have been doing all along.

211 P.C. Savor that penal code designation. Forget jewel heists. Forget racetrack robberies. Forget armored-car capers. The zenith of 211 is the liquor store job, as performed within the inner city. LAPD Robbery detectives be de biggest and baaaaaadest o’ de bad. Dat’s because dey go after de men with de guns and de penchant to cause pain and death. The law of the jungle carries a binding 211 P.C. clause. It reads like this: If you perpetrate armed robbery, we will kill you. Junkie heister with the shakes, beware! Liquor store proprietors stash pistols and shotguns below the counter, and are inclined to use them. LAPD Robbery dicks may be poised behind false-front refrigerators, armed with Ithaca pumps. 211 P.C. The wages of sin are death!

Gone the glitter and glamour; gone the pompous wealth beside naked starvation; gone the strange excitement of a polyglot and many-sided city; gone the island of Western civilization flourishing in the vast slum that was Shanghai. Good-by to all that: the well-dressed Chinese in their chauffeured cars behind bullet-proof glass; the gangsters, the shakedowns, the kid­napers; the exclusive foreign clubs, the men in white dinner jackets, their women beautifully gowned; the white-coated Chinese “boys” ob­sequiously waiting to be tipped; Jimmy’s Kitchen with its good Amer­ican coffee, hamburgers, chili and sirloin steaks. Good-by to all the night life: the gilded singing girl in her enameled hair-do, her stage make-up, her tight-fitting gown with its slit skirt breaking at the silk­ clad hip, and her polished ebony and silver-trimmed rickshaw with its crown of lights; the hundred dance halls and the thousands of taxi dolls; the opium dens and gambling halls; the flashing lights of the great restaurants, the clatter of mah-jongg pieces, the yells of Chinese feasting and playing the finger game for bottoms-up drinking; the sailors in their smelly bars and friendly brothels on Szechuan Road; the myriad short-time whores and pimps busily darting in and out of the alleyways; the display signs of foreign business, the innumerable shops spilling with silks, jades, embroideries, porcelains and all the wares of the East; the generations of foreign families who called Shanghai home and lived quiet conservative lives in their tiny vacuum untouched by China; the beggars on every downtown block and the scabby infants urinating or defecating on the curb while mendicant mothers absently scratched for lice; the “honey carts” hauling the night soil through the streets; the blocks-long funerals, the white-clad professional mourners weeping false tears, the tiers of paper palaces and paper money burned on the rich man’s tomb; the jungle free-for- all struggle for gold or survival and the day’s toll of unwanted infants and suicides floating in the canals; the knotted rickshaws with their owners fighting each other for customers and arguing fares; the peddlers and their plaintive cries; the armored white ships on the Whangpoo, “protecting foreign lives and property”; the Japanese conquerors and their American and Kuomintang successors; gone the wickedest and most colorful city of the old Orient: good-by to all that.

In 1958, a New York diamond merchant named Harry Winston donated the Hope Diamond to the Smithsonian Institute. At forty-five-and-a-half carats, the gem is worth an estimated $200 million (give or take $50 million), but Winston didn’t hire an armored car to deliver it to the Smithsonian. He sent it via the U.S. Postal Service, placing it in a box, wrapping the box in brown paper, and insuring it for $145.29.

What exactly is going on?” Resignation clouded Mary Beth’s cute face. “You know men, always looking out for us.” Anger lit like a match inside Maddie as she turned narrowed eyes on Mitch through the windows. She didn’t know what was going on, but she was in the mood for a fight, and this was the perfect excuse to have one. He gave her a sheepish look, and Maddie wanted to throttle him. She turned away. Her veins practically raced with adrenaline. She’d been tamping down her temper so long she’d forgotten how intoxicating it was to let it rise to the surface. How much effort did she spend repressing her emotions? The better question was, why did she continue? She stiffened her spine. Not anymore. Through gritted teeth she said, “Yes, I know.” Mary Beth’s expression turned consoling and she made some motherly “tsk” noises, even though she couldn’t be much older than Maddie. “They can’t help themselves. It’s in their nature, but obviously execution is not their strong suit.” Maddie turned her attention to the woman. She’d deal with Mitch Riley later.     “What in the hell is going on in there?” Mitch cursed. This was the worst thought-out plan in the world. Why did he leave the details up to Tommy? He knew better. He scowled at the mechanic. “You can’t lie for shit.” Tommy shot him a droll look. “What about you? You could have jumped in any time, but no, you just stood there like an idiot.” “I hired you to lie to her so I wouldn’t have to, dumbass.” With his jaw clenched, the words came out like a growl. Tommy jabbed a finger in his direction. “Ha! I knew you were pussy-whipped.” “I’m not pussy-whipped.” One had to have sex to be pussy-whipped. Not that Mitch was about to volunteer that information. “I just don’t want to lie to her.” “Same difference, dickhead.” Irrational anger flared hot in his blood. God, he wanted to take someone out. He was so fucked. “If you’d thought of a halfway decent story, this wouldn’t be happening.” “How in the hell was I supposed to know she’d know anything about cars?” “She has brothers.” “Yeah, well, you could have mentioned that.” Through the glass window, Maddie shot him a death glare. Yep, totally fucked. He shouldn’t have told her about his past; it was another strike against him, one he knew from experience couldn’t be overlooked. Between tarnishing his knight-in-shining-armor image and the subterfuge, somehow he didn’t think he’d be granted a third strike. They watched the women. Mitch tried to decipher the expressions playing across Maddie’s features and finally gave up, resigned to his fate. Ten excruciating minutes later, the door opened, and Mitch steeled himself for the fight that was sure to come. He didn’t care how he managed it, but she wasn’t leaving. Maddie walked across the dark gray, grease-stained floor, and unable to stand it any longer, he said, “Now, Maddie, I can explain.” “There’s no need.” Her voice held no trace of emotion. Not good. “But—” he started, but before he could say any more, Maddie flung herself into his arms. Shocked, he caught her and held tight. He raised a questioning eyebrow at Mary Beth, and a satisfied smirk curled over her lips. “I told Maddie how her transmission blew,” Mary Beth said in a pleased tone. “And how it cost twenty-five hundred dollars, but Tommy knows this guy over in Shelby who can trade him for a sixty-five Corvette carburetor so it would only cost her around four hundred. Unfortunately, I had to explain how Tommy was doing you a huge, gigantic favor so you agreed to represent Luke in his legal troubles.” While

The truth was, she hadn't felt much like a cop in a long time. That was a place she never thought she'd get to. Be just like the rest of them after ten years. Angry and drunk. Numb to pretty much everything. That wasn't supposed to be her. But she now knew what they all knew: that the very thing you need to stay strong and keep your head, that daily and deliberate apathy you practice like meditation, is the very thing that, in the end, robs you of your desire to get in the car and catch bad guys. Nobody tells you that, once you put on the armor, you can never take it off.

Pfc. Leonard J. Savitskie and his driver jumped into the car and swung its .50-caliber machine gun on the Krauts. An enemy mortar opened up behind the building and Savitskie, with a hand grenade, raced from his car behind the building under small-arms fire, lobbed the grenade and destroyed mortar and crew. The one-man task force then got into his armored

Robert F. Kennedy called on Americans to look at our economy in a radically different way. “Our gross national product is now over $800 billion a year,” he said, “but that GNP—if we should judge America by that—counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors, and the jails for those who break them. It counts the destruction of our redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and the cost of a nuclear warhead, and armored cars for police who fight riots in our streets.

Raised in privilege, Robert Moses was always cushioned from real life; from the age of nine, he slept in a custom-made bed and was served dinner prepared by the family’s cook on fine china. As Parks Commissioner, he swindled Long Island farmers and homeowners out of their land to build his parkways—essentially cattle chutes that skirted the properties of the rich, allowing those well-off enough to own a car to get to beaches disfigured by vast parking lots. He cut the city off from its waterfront with expressways built to the river’s edge, and the parks he built were covered with concrete rather than grass, leaving the city grayer, not greener, than it had been before. The ambient racism of the time hardly excuses his shocking contempt for minorities: of the 255 new playgrounds he built in the 1930s, only one was in Harlem. (Physically separated from the city by wrought-iron monkeys.) In the decade after the Second World War, he caused 320,000 people to be evicted from their homes; his cheap, sterile projects became vertical ghettos that fomented civic decay for decades. If some of his more insane schemes had been realized—a highway through the sixth floor of the Empire State Building, the Lower Manhattan Expressway through today’s SoHo, the Battery Bridge whose approaches would have eliminated Castle Clinton and Battery Park—New York as we know it would be nearly uninhabitable. There is a name for what Robert Moses was engaged in: class warfare, waged not with armored vehicles and napalm, but with bulldozers and concrete.

The revolution inherited grave social problems and made them worse. In 1998, the year before Chávez took office, there were forty-five hundred murders, a grim per capita rate on par with much of Latin America. A decade later it had tripled to more than seventeen thousand per year, making Venezuela more dangerous than Iraq, and Caracas one of the deadliest cities on earth. Eight times more murderous, it was calculated, than Bogotá, Colombia’s capital. With less than 1 percent of cases ever solved, it was, all things considered, a good place to commit murder. Kidnappings, previously a rarity, became an industry with an estimated seven thousand abductions per year. To allay their terror, the rich and the middle class invested in bodyguards and armored cars, or emigrated, but most of the killing and dying was done by gangs—by some estimates, there were more than eighteen thousand—in slums fighting for drugs, turf, women, and prestige.

Our gross national product, now, is over eight hundred billion dollars a year, but that GNP--if we should judge America by that--counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for those who break them. It counts the destruction of our redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and the cost of a nuclear warhead, and armored cars for police who fight riots in our streets. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children. Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.

What threw me off was when Camilla hooked off on the chick that was with Chyna. I didn't know the back story to that until we got in the car and she told me that was the chick that lied and had her arrested, and how she and Capri knew Chyna from when she worked at the bar.

a young Indian in our little Datsun chased one of the government’s huge armored cars. He was banging on the armor with a stick, “counting coup.” The

The only one to remain in his vehicle, was my radio operator, who was sending off my messages. Next to the vehicle, stood my intelligence officer, who passed on to the operator what I shouted across to him. Then a machine—I thought I recognized the Canadian emblem—approached for a low-flying attack on the armored radio station. At 20 yards, I could clearly see the pilot’s face under his flight helmet. But instead of shooting, he signaled with his hand for the radio officer to clear off, and pulled his machine up into a great curve. “Get the operator out of the vehicle,” I shouted, “and take cover, the pair of you.” The machine had turned and now came at us out of the sun for the second time. This time, he fired his rockets and hit the radio car, fortunately, without doing too much damage. This attitude of the pilot, whether he was Canadian or British, became for me, the example of fairness in this merciless war. I shall never forget the pilot’s face or the gesture of his hand.

don’t get the cute guy in the red sports car. I don’t get the knight in shining armor.

Tokyo." Mr. Fuchigami's voice inflates with pride. "Formerly Edo, almost destroyed by the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake, then again in 1944 by nighttime firebombing raids. Tens of thousands were killed." The chamberlain grows silent. "Kishikaisei." "What does that mean?" There's a skip in my chest. We've entered the city now. The high-rises are no longer cut out shapes against the skyline, but looming gray giants. Every possible surface is covered in signs---neon and plastic or painted banners---they all scream for attention. It's noisy, too. There is a cacophony of pop tunes, car horns, advertising jingles, and trains coasting over rails. Nothing is understated. "Roughly translated, 'wake from death and return to life.' Against hopeless circumstances, Tokyo has risen. It is home to more than thirty-five million people." He pauses. "And, in addition, the oldest monarchy in the world." The awe returns tenfold. I clutch the windowsill and press my nose to the glass. There are verdant parks, tidy residential buildings, upmarket shops, galleries, and restaurants. For each sleek, new modern construction, there is one low-slung wooden building with a blue tiled roof and glowing lanterns. It's all so dense. Houses lean against one another like drunk uncles. Mr. Fuchigami narrates Tokyo's history. A city built and rebuilt, born and reborn. I imagine cutting into it like a slice of cake, dissecting the layers. I can almost see it. Ash from the Edo fires with remnants of samurai armor, calligraphy pens, and chipped tea porcelain. Bones from when the shogunate fell. Dust from the Great Earthquake and more debris from the World War II air raids. Still, the city thrives. It is alive and sprawling with neon-colored veins. Children in plaid skirts and little red ties dash between business personnel in staid suits. Two women in crimson kimonos and matching parasols duck into a teahouse.

A third armored car robbery, however, ended with four-and-a-half years in a maximum-security prison for all three of them.

There's a reason objects burn up when they fall to earth like gruesome angels--a reason other than the obvious one. Asteroids the size of armored cars narrow to mere pebbles in a matter of seconds. It's because the planet is a carnivore and just wants to be fed. People want that as well. People like to eat other people. I spent so many years forgetting I had teeth, too.

Wow, you're, like, a knight in shining armor," Day said with a smirk as they walked through the parking lot. "Yeah, and you're like a rabid poodle," Jackson said, nodding towards his car. "A rabid poodle?" "Yeah, all frills and bows on the outside, but snarling and vicious deep down.

Tho was Buffalo Bill Cody? Most people know, at the very least, that he was a hero of the Old West, like Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, and Kit Carson-one of those larger-than-life figures from which legends are made. Cody himself provided such a linkage to his heroic predecessors in 1888 when he published a book with biographies of Boone, Crockett, Carson-and one of his own autobiographies: Story of the Wild West and Campfire Chats, by Buffalo Bill (Hon. W.F. Cody), a Full and Complete History of the Renowned Pioneer Quartette, Boone, Crockett, Carson and Buffalo Bill. In this context, Cody was often called "the last of the great scouts." Some are also aware that he was an enormously popular showman, creator and star of Buffalo Bill's Wild West, a spectacular entertainment of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It has been estimated that more than a billion words were written by or about William Frederick Cody during his own lifetime, and biographies of him have appeared at irregular intervals ever since. A search of "Buffalo Bill Cody" on amazon.com reveals twenty-seven items. Most of these, however, are children's books, and it is likely that many of them play up the more melodramatic and questionable aspects of his life story; a notable exception is Ingri and Edgar Parin d'Aulaire's Buffalo Bill, which is solidly based on fact. Cody has also shown up in movies and television shows, though not in recent years, for whatever else he was, he was never cool or cynical. As his latest biographer, I believe his life has a valuable contribution to make in this new millennium-it provides a sense of who we once were and who we might be again. He was a commanding presence in our American history, a man who helped shape the way we look at that history. It was he, in fact, who created the Wild West, in all its adventure, violence, and romance. Buffalo Bill is important to me as the symbol of the growth of our nation, for his life spanned the settlement of the Great Plains, the Indian Wars, the Gold Rush, the Pony Express, the building of the transcontinental railroad, and the enduring romance of the American frontier-especially the Great Plains. Consider what he witnessed in his lifetime: the invention of the telephone, the transatlantic cable, the automobile, the airplane, and the introduction of modem warfare, with great armies massed against each other, with tanks, armored cars, flame-throwers, and poison gas-a far cry from the days when Cody and the troopers of the Fifth Cavalry rode hell-for-leather across the prairie in pursuit of hostile Indians. Nor, though it is not usually considered

He then pointed to the right, and I turned to look. Exactly on cue, something massive came around the corner: a snaking, vehicular army that included a phalanx of police cars and motorcycles, a number of black SUVs, two armored limousines with American flags mounted on their hoods, a hazmat mitigation truck, a counterassault team riding with machine guns visible, an ambulance, a signals truck equipped to detect incoming projectiles, several passenger vans, and another group of police escorts. The presidential motorcade. It was at least twenty vehicles long, moving in orchestrated formation, car after car after car, before finally the whole fleet rolled to a quiet halt, and the limos stopped directly in front of Barack’s parked plane. I turned to Cornelius. “Is there a clown car?” I said. “Seriously, this is what he’s going to travel with now?” He smiled. “Every day for his entire presidency, yes,” he said. “It’s going to look like this all the time.” I took in the spectacle: thousands and thousands of pounds of metal, a squad of commandos, bulletproof everything. I had yet to grasp that Barack’s protection was still only half-visible. I didn’t know that he’d also, at all times, have a nearby helicopter ready to evacuate him, that sharpshooters would position themselves on rooftops along the routes he traveled, that a personal physician would always be with him in case of a medical problem, or that the vehicle he rode in contained a store of blood of the appropriate type in case he ever needed a transfusion. In a matter of weeks, just ahead of Barack’s inauguration, the presidential limo would be upgraded to a newer model—aptly named the Beast—a seven-ton tank disguised as a luxury vehicle, tricked out with hidden tear-gas cannons, rupture-proof tires, and a sealed ventilation system meant to get him through a biological or chemical attack.

The truck, also black, was much like the armored armored cars that banks used to transport money.

lifetime: the invention of the telephone, the transatlantic cable, the automobile, the airplane, and the introduction of modem warfare, with great armies massed against each other, with tanks, armored cars, flame-throwers, and poison gas-a far cry from the days when Cody and the troopers of the Fifth

TABLE OF GERMAN COMPANIES AND MAIN SS CONCENTRATION CAMPS REPORTED TO BE ACTIVE IN EXPLOITATION OF FORCED LABOR DURING THE THIRD REICH Auschwitz AEG (electronics) [5] Barthl (construction) [5] Bata Schlesische Schuhwerke (leather, shoes, and factory construction) [10] Benton-Monteur-Bau (construction) [10] Berle Hoch- und Tiefbau (construction) [10] Berliner Baugesellschaft (construction) [10] BRABAG (mining, synthetic fuel) [3] Breitenbach Montanbau [10] Borsig-Koks-Werk (coal processing) [10] Charlottengrube (Hermann-Göring-Werke) (tunnel construction) [10] Concordia Kohlenbergwerk (coal processing) [10] Deutsche Gasrusswerke, Gleiwitz [5] [8] Dyckerhoff & Widman (construction materials) [5] Egefeld (construction) [10] Emmerich Machold (textiles) [10] Energie-Versorgung-Oberschlesien AG (electrical construction for Elektrizitätswerk “Walter”) [10] Erdöl Raffinerie Trzebinia GmbH (oil refining) [10] Fürstengrube GmbH (coal mining) [10] Fürstlich Plessische Bergwerks AG (coal processing) [10] Godula (factory construction) [10] Grün und Bilfinger (construction) [10] Gute Hoffnung Janinagrube (coal mining) [10] Heinkel (aircraft components, munitions) [5] [10] Hubertushütte (coal processing) [10] IG Farben—Buna Werke (construction, synthetic fuel) [3] [4] [5] [8] [10] Junkers (aircraft) [5] Klotz und Co. (construction) [10] Königshütte Metallwerke (metal works) [10] Königs- und-Bismarckhütte AG (armored cars and tanks) [10] Krupp (munitions) [4] [5] Krupp—Laurahùtte (munitions) [8] Lasota (tunnel & road construction) [10] Oberschlesische Gerätebau GmbH [10] Oberschlesische Hydrierwerke (construction of synthetic gasoline works) [5] [8] [10] Ölschieferanlagen (oil refinery construction) [8] Ost-Maschinenbau GmbH (OSMAG) (cannon) [2] [5] [8] [10] Pfitzner und Kamper (munitions, loading) [10] Philipp Holzmann (construction) [10] Pluschke und Grosser (construction) [10] Portland-Zement-Fabrik AG (construction materials) [10] Riedel (tunnel and roadbuilding) [10] Rheinmetall-Borsig (munitions) [3] Schuchtermann und Kremer Bau AG (construction) [10] Schweinitz (construction) [10] S. Frankel—Schlesische Feinweberei AG (textiles) [10] Siemens-Schuckert (electronics for aircraft) [2] [3] [10] Union Metallindustrie (munitions) [4] [5] Vacuum Öl (oil refinery) [5] [10] Vereinigte Aluminiumwerke (aluminum) [5] Wayss und Freytag (construction) [10] Zieleniewski (munitions) [10] Zwirnfabrik G. A. Buhl und Sohn (textiles) [10]

The defenses that form a person’s character support a grand illusion, and when we grasp this we can understand the full drivenness of man. He is driven away from himself, from self-knowledge, self-reflection. He is driven toward things that support the lie of his character, his automatic equanimity. But he is also drawn precisely toward those things that make him anxious, as a way of skirting them masterfully, testing himself against them, controlling them by defying them. As Kierkegaard taught us, anxiety lures us on, becomes the spur to much of our energetic activity: we flirt with our own growth, but also dishonestly. This explains much of the friction in our lives. We enter symbiotic relationships in order to get the security we need, in order to get relief from our anxieties, our aloneness and helplessness; but these relationships also bind us, they enslave us even further because they support the lie we have fashioned. So we strain against them in order to be more free. The irony is that we do this straining uncritically, in a struggle within our own armor, as it were; and so we increase our drivenness, the second-hand quality of our struggle for freedom. Even in our flirtations with anxiety we are unconscious of our motives. We seek stress, we push our own limits, but we do it with our screen against despair and not with despair itself. We do it with the stock market, with sports cars, with atomic missiles, with the success ladder in the corporation or the competition in the university. We do it in the prison of a dialogue with our own little family, by marrying against their wishes or choosing a way of life because they frown on it, and so on. Hence the complicated and second-hand quality of our entire drivenness. Even in our passions we are nursery children playing with toys that represent the real world. Even when these toys crash and cost us our lives or our sanity, we are cheated of the consolation that we were in the real world instead of the playpen of our fantasies. We still did not meet our doom on our own manly terms, in contest with objective reality. It is fateful and ironic how the lie we need in order to live dooms us to a life that is never really ours.

Beau caught me staring and winked. I bit my bottom lip to keep from laughing. A sharp elbow nudged me in the ribs, causing me to gasp and spin around to find the person who belonged to the boney arm. Lana was smiling innocently at me. “You’re being obvious,” she hissed, keeping a fake smile on her face. Her meaning, however, sunk in. “I need to go to the car and get my phone. My mom’s probably called me ten times by now,” Lana announced. “I’ll go with you,” I quickly replied, glancing up at Sawyer, who seemed pleased I was being nice to my cousin. I used to seek out this sort of approval from him, but now it annoyed me. If I didn’t like my cousin, I’d stomp on her foot just to piss him off. Once we were safely out of the clearing and headed for the car, Lana stopped walking and turned to glare at me. “You’ve about ten minutes or so to get yourself together before your knight in shining armor comes looking for us. I’m going to go get my phone and make a few calls.” I frowned. “What do you mean?” “I mean you need to stop openly flirting with Beau while the entire football team is around to witness it. It’s like you two think you’re the only ones out there. We all have eyes, you know.” She spun around and headed deeper into the pecan orchard and toward the parked cars. “She’s got a point, but it’s my fault.” Beau’s voice should have startled me, but it didn’t. Somehow I knew he’d find a way to get me alone. “Yes, it probably is,” I said teasingly as I turned around to meet his gaze. Beau took a step toward me and ran his hand through his hair, muttering a curse. “I want to rip his damn arms off his body, Ash. Sawyer, who I’d do anything for. I want to hurt him. If he touches you again in front of me, I’m going to crack. I can’t take this.

Sometimes, when she rode hard, when she could really proj, Chevette got free of everything: the city, her body, even time. That was the messenger’s high, she knew, and though it felt like freedom, it was really the melding-with, the clicking-in, that did it. The bike between her legs was like some hyper-evolved alien tail she’d somehow extruded, as though over patient centuries; a sweet and intricate bone-machine, grown Lexan-armored tires, near-frictionless bearings, and gas-filled shocks. She was entirely part of the city, then, one wild-ass little dot of energy and matter, and she made her thousand choices, instant to instant, according to how the traffic flowed, how rain glinted on the street-car tracks, how a secretary’s mahogany hair fell like grace itself, exhausted, to the shoulders of her loden coat.

When they crossed the bridge and their armored cars were rolling up the Narodni a profound silence fell over the city. People turned away, and from that moment they walked more slowly, like somnambulists, as if they no longer knew where they were going. What particularly upset us, so Vera remarked, said Austerlitz, was the instant change to driving on the right. It often made my heart miss a beat, she said, when I saw a car racing down the road on the wrong side, since it inevitably made me think that from now on we must live in a world turned upside down.

Arab retribution was swift and terrible. Six days after Deir Yassin, a bus convoy carrying eighty nurses and doctors headed toward Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus, set off slightly from the rest of Jewish Jerusalem. To get there, the convoy had to cross through Arab neighborhoods. Therefore, several armored cars escorted the buses. But the lead armored car hit a huge mine and tumbled into a crater, blocking the rest of the vehicles. Soon, Arab gunmen swarmed over the site, screaming, “Deir Yassin!” They began shooting at the trapped convoy, killing the passengers one by one. An attempt by the Haganah to rescue the trapped convoy failed. Some Arabs reached the vehicles and set them on fire, burning the passengers inside alive. The convoy’s agony was clearly visible to the civilians watching from rooftops and balconies around the city. The shooting went on for six hours, until the British finally authorized a force large enough to extricate the convoy. By the time they arrived at the scene of the devastation, there were only six survivors. It might have seemed that the episode that began at Deir Yassin the week before was over, but it was only beginning.

She looked at Mad Rogan. "What did you do?" Mad Rogan opened his mouth. She turned to me. "What did he do?" "He got hit by a car," I said. The woman turned to me. "What kind of car was it?" "An armored Escalade," I said. "Well, at least it was a nice car." She turned to Mad Rogan. "Who would want to ruin their nice car by hitting you with it?

Buffalo Bill is important to me as the symbol of the growth of our nation, for his life spanned the settlement of the Great Plains, the Indian Wars, the Gold Rush, the Pony Express, the building of the transcontinental railroad, and the enduring romance of the American frontier-especially the Great Plains. Consider what he witnessed in his lifetime: the invention of the telephone, the transatlantic cable, the automobile, the airplane, and the introduction of modem warfare, with great armies massed against each other, with tanks, armored cars, flame-throwers, and poison gas-a far cry from the days when Cody and the troopers of the Fifth Cavalry rode hell-for-leather across the prairie in pursuit of hostile Indians. Nor, though it is not usually considered a milestone in American history, should we forget Joseph F. Glidden's 1874 invention of barbed wire, which, more than the rifle or the plow, transformed Buffalo Bill's Great Plains by insuring the survival of thousands of family farms, and making possible the growth of enormous-and enormously profitable-cattle ranches. In addition, I feel a personal connection. In April 1855 my great-granduncle Alexander Carter Jr. and his younger brother, Thomas Marion Carter, left their home in Scioto County, Ohio, and headed west. Starting by steamboat, the two brothers floated down the Ohio River until it joined the Mississippi and then traveled upstream to St. Louis. In St. Louis they found little transportation west, so they walked, hitched rides, and rode horseback to reach St. Joseph, Missouri. There they caught a stagecoach to Council Bluffs, Iowa, riding on top of the stage, with seventeen men and women-a three-day ordeal. On May 14, nineteen days after leaving St. Louis, the brothers crossed the Missouri River and landed on the town site of Omaha, then a community of cotton tents and shanties, where lots were being offered to anyone willing to build on them. They refused this offer and pressed on to their final destination, DeSoto, Washington County, Nebraska Territory, where

Reflected briefly in the car’s polished black door, just as his visitor ducked back into the sheltering shadow of the shutters, was not a darkly menacing shadow-shape laced with fire, but the stern, majestic figure of an armored warrior, with a diadem of stars bound across its noble brow and dark pinions sweeping from powerful shoulders to trail rainbows behind. And what its strong hands were cradling against its armored breast was not a radiator mascot but a tiny winged cherub.

Well over a hundred such sentences of execution were handed down after summary trials by military tribunals, with many more Palestinians executed on the spot by British troops.58 Infuriated by rebels ambushing their convoys and blowing up their trains, the British resorted to tying Palestinian prisoners to the front of armored cars and locomotives to prevent rebel attack, a tactic they had pioneered in a futile effort to crush resistance of the Irish during their war of independence from 1919 to 1921.59 Demolitions of the homes of imprisoned or executed rebels, or of presumed rebels or their relatives, was routine, another tactic borrowed from the British playbook developed in Ireland.60 Two other imperial practices employed extensively in repressing the Palestinians were the detention of thousands without trial and the exile of troublesome leaders.