"Frank Herbert - The White Plague" - читать интересную книгу автора (Herbert Brian & Frank)

Much later, John would look back on those few minutes at the bank manager's
"first-floor" window and think how another sequence of events had been set in
motion without his knowledge, an inescapable thing like a movie film where one
frame followed another without ever the chance to deviate. It all centered
around Francis Bley's old car and a small VHF transmitter in the hands of a
determined man watching from an open window that looked down on that corner
where Grafton met St. Stephen's Green.

Bley, patient as always, eased along at the traffic's pace. Herity, in his
window vantage point, toggled the arming switch of his transmitter, making
sure the antenna wire dangled out over the sill.

As he neared the Grafton corner, the crush of pedestrians forced Bley to stop
and he missed the turn of the traffic light. He heard the tour bus gain clear
of traffic off to his right, trundling off in a rumble of its heavy diesel.
Barricades were being erected on the building to his left and a big
white-on-red sign had been raised over the rough construction: "This Building
to be Remodeled by G. Tottenham Sons, Ltd." Bley looked to his right and
noted the tall blue-and-white Prestige Cafeteria sign, feeling a small pang of
hunger. The pedestrian isthmus beside him was jammed with people waiting to
cross over to St. Stephen's Green and others struggling to make a way through
the cars stopped on Grafton and blocking Bley's path. The crush of
pedestrians was particularly heavy around Bley's car, people passing both
front and back. A woman in a brown tweed coat, a white parcel clutched under
her right elbow and each hand grasping a hand of a small child, hesitated at
the right front corner of Bley's car while she sought an opening through the
press of people.

John Roe O'Neill, standing at the bank manager's window, recognized Mary. He
saw her first because of her familiar tweed coat and the way she carried her
head, that sleek cap of jet hair. He smiled. The twins were screened from
him by the hurrying adults but he knew from Mary's stance that she held the
children's hands. A brief break in the throng allowed John a glimpse of the
top of Kevin's head and the old Ford with the driver's brown-sweatered elbow
protruding.

Where is that damned bank manager? John wondered. She'll be here any minute.

He dropped the heavy lace curtain and looked once more at his wrist-watch.

Herity, at the open window above and behind Bley, nodded once more to himself.
He stepped back away from the window and toggled the second switch on his
transmitter.

Bley's car exploded, ripped apart from the bottom. The bomb, exploding almost
under Bley's feet, drove him upward with a large piece of the car's roof, his
body crushed, dismembered and scattered. The large section of roof sailed
upward in a slow arc to come crashing onto the Irish Permanent Society
Building, demolishing chimney pots and slates.