5 Dr. Herman Warsaw and The Genius Files

Chapter 5 Dr. Herman Warsaw and The Genius Files Somebody certainly was trying to kill the McDonald twins. And this somebody would prove to be amazingly persistent. We need to rewind the story a bit here. Back to September 11, 2001. A century from now when kids learn about American history in school, it will probably be divided into everything that happened before 9/11 and everything that happened after 9/11. It was on that tragic day that Dr. Herman Warsaw decided to take a cigarette break. This decision would change his life. In fact, this decision would ultimately change a lot of lives. Born in Poland, Dr. Warsaw was a brilliant

第5章赫尔曼·华沙博士和天才档案肯定有人想杀麦克唐纳双胞胎。 这个人会被证明是惊人的执着。 我们需要在这里倒带一下这个故事。 回到2001年9月11日。 一个世纪后，当孩子们在学校里学习美国历史时，它可能会被分为9/11之前发生的一切和9/11之后发生的一切。 就是在那个悲惨的日子里。 赫尔曼·华沙决定抽根烟休息一下。 这个决定改变了他的一生。 事实上，这个决定最终改变了很多人的生活。 华沙博士出生于波兰，是一位杰出的

man, and one whose brain examined the world differently from the rest of us. As an amateur inventor, he had made a small fortune creating a GPS that people could have implanted under the skin of their dog or cat so that if the pet ran away, it could be tracked down easily. With the royalties he earned from his invention, Dr. Warsaw didn't have to work for the rest of his life. But he offered his services as a consultant for one dollar a year at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. America had been good to him. He wanted to give something back. Dr. Warsaw was an odd-looking sort. He was young at the time—barely thirty—but he had the look of an old man. He wore baggy brown suits and a fedora as if he had stepped out of a 1940s gangster movie. He was rail thin and slightly bent over. He had the squinty-eyed look of a man who spent too much of his short life staring at computer screens instead of interacting with people in the real world.

他的大脑看待世界的方式与我们其他人不同。 作为一名业余发明家，他发明了一种GPS，赚了一笔小钱，人们可以把它植入狗或猫的皮肤下，这样如果宠物跑了，就可以很容易地找到它。 有了从他的发明中获得的版税， 华沙的余生不用再工作了。 但他愿意以每年一美元的价格在华盛顿五角大楼担任顾问 美国对他很好。 他想回馈一些东西。 华沙医生是个长相古怪的人。 他当时还很年轻——只有三十岁——但他看上去像个老人。 他穿着宽松的棕色西装，戴着软呢帽，仿佛从20世纪40年代的黑帮电影中走出来。 他瘦得很，有点驼背。 他眯着眼睛，就像一个人在短暂的生命中花了太多时间盯着电脑屏幕，而不是在现实世界中与人交流。

Smoking two packs of cigarettes a day didn't help any. Oh, Dr. Warsaw had tried to quit. Lots of times. He tried hypnosis and acupuncture and patches and gums and just about every over-the-counter cure-all on the market. But nothing worked. He had to have a cigarette in his hand at all times, even if he wasn't smoking it. Lucky for him. It was the pull of that addiction that made Dr. Warsaw step out of his Pentagon office at 9:38 a.m. on September 11, take the elevator down from the third floor, and walk outside into the parking lot for a quick smoke. He had just flicked his Bic when the horrible roar of jet engines caused him to jerk his head upward. That sound was way too close. Planes weren't permitted to fly anywhere near the airspace above the Pentagon, the Capitol, the White House, or any top-level government building in Washington. But there it was, a plane diving out of the sky and heading toward

每天抽两包烟也没有任何帮助。 华沙医生曾试图戒烟。 很多次。他尝试了催眠、针灸、贴片、牙龈以及市场上几乎所有的非处方万灵药。 但是没有任何效果。他必须随时拿着一支烟，即使他不抽烟。 他很幸运。正是这种上瘾的吸引力，让奥巴马博士。 上午9点38分，华沙走出五角大楼的办公室。 9月11日，从三楼乘电梯下来，然后走到外面的停车场抽支烟。 他刚弹了弹他的比克，就听到喷气发动机可怕的轰鸣声，他猛地抬起头来。 那声音太近了。 飞机不允许在五角大楼、国会大厦、白宫或华盛顿任何高级政府大楼上空飞行。 但就在那里，一架飞机从天空中俯冲下来，朝

him. One second later, American Airlines Flight 77 from Washington Dulles Airport—a Boeing 757 —clipped a light pole at 350 miles per hour and slammed into the Pentagon less than fifty yards from where he was standing. He covered his eyes to shield them from the light and heat. It was terrifying. The plane hit the building with such force that it was literally swallowed up by the Pentagon itself. It entered so cleanly that for years afterward conspiracy theorists were claiming that no plane had even struck the building. They said it had to be an inside job: the government must have purposely set off a bomb. But Dr. Warsaw knew what happened, because he saw it with his own eyes. The nose of the plane tore right through his office. If he had been sitting at his desk at that moment, he would have been dead instantly. A huge fireball erupted, and the Pentagon was in flames. One hundred and twenty-six people

他。一秒钟后，从华盛顿杜勒斯机场起飞的美国航空77号航班——一架波音757飞机——以每小时350英里的速度撞上了一根灯杆，并在距他站的地方不到50码的地方撞上了五角大楼。 他蒙上眼睛以遮挡光和热。 太可怕了。飞机撞向大楼的力量如此之大，以至于它实际上被五角大楼吞没了。 它进入得如此干净，以至于多年后，阴谋论者声称根本没有飞机撞到这栋建筑。 他们说这一定是内部人员干的：政府一定是故意引爆了炸弹。 但是华沙医生知道发生了什么，因为他亲眼所见。 飞机的机头直接撞穿了他的办公室。 如果他当时坐在办公桌前，他就会立刻死去。 一个巨大的火球爆发了，五角大楼陷入了火焰之中。 126人

in the building died that day, plus sixty-four people on the plane. Less than an hour earlier, two planes had hit the World Trade Center towers in New York City. If there were still any doubts that America was under attack, they were gone. In a few short minutes, history would have to be rewritten. Dr. Warsaw sank to his knees involuntarily and looked at the cigarette in his hand. His life had been spared. It was at that moment that he made a firm commitment to devote the rest of it to his country. As the sirens began to wail and the fire trucks pulled up outside the Pentagon, an idea flashed through Dr. Warsaw's brain. It was fleeting, one of those ideas that could have been lost in a moment if he had been distracted. But it was an idea that would change the world. Dr. Warsaw pulled out the little digital recorder he kept in his pocket just for odd moments like this when inspiration struck. As smoke and flame spewed out of the ruins of the

那天楼里的人死了，加上飞机上的64人。 不到一小时前，两架飞机撞上了纽约市的世贸中心大楼。 如果还有人怀疑美国受到了攻击，他们已经走了。 在短短的几分钟内，历史将被改写。 华沙医生不由自主地跪了下来，看着手里的香烟。 他幸免于难。就在那一刻，他坚定地承诺要把剩下的时间奉献给他的国家。 当警笛开始鸣响，消防车停在五角大楼外时，一个念头闪过他的脑海。 华沙的大脑。这是一种转瞬即逝的想法，如果他分心的话，这种想法可能会在一瞬间消失。 但这个想法改变了世界。 华沙医生拿出了他放在口袋里的小数码录音机，只是为了在这种奇迹般的时刻灵光一现。 浓烟和火焰从废墟中喷出

Pentagon, he pushed the RECORD button and started to make some quick, clipped, verbal notes.... "...nation under attack... multiple problems... nation divided... unsolvable... no agreement... society overwhelmed with complexity... cannot see forest for trees... older generation inflexible, stagnant... kids are moldable... figure out solutions... start over... geniuses... standardized test scores... find them..." These ramblings would have sounded like gibberish to anyone who happened to be listening. But later, Dr. Warsaw would sit down and synthesize his shorthand audio notes into a 434-page manifesto titled "The Only Way Out: The Simple Solution to America's Most Pressing Problems of the 21st Century." No, you can't find it at Barnes & Noble. Don't bother looking it up on Amazon.com. "The Only Way Out" was a top secret document that

五角大楼，他按下记录按钮，开始做一些简短的口头笔记.... “…遭受攻击的国家… 多个问题……国家分裂…… 无法解决的……任何协议…… 社会充满了复杂性…… 只见树木不见森林…… 老一代僵化、停滞…… 孩子是可塑的……找出解决办法…… 重新开始…天才……标准化考试成绩…… 找到他们……”这些胡言乱语对碰巧在听的人来说就像是胡言乱语。 但后来，华沙博士坐下来，将他的速记音频笔记合成成一份434页的宣言，题为《唯一的出路：21世纪美国最紧迫问题的简单解决方案》。 不，在巴诺书店是买不到的。 不要费心在亚马逊网站上查找了。 《唯一的出路》是一份绝密文件