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

It was not a large bomb as such things went, but it had been expertly placed.
The old car was transformed into jagged bits of metal and glass -- an orange
ball of fire peppered with deadly shrapnel. A section of the car's bonnet
decapitated Mary O'Neill. The twins became part of a bloody puddle blown
against the iron fencing across the street at St. Stephen's Green. Their
bodies were more easily identified later because they were the only children
of that age in the throng.

Herity did not pause to glance out at his work; the sound told it all. He
tucked the transmitter into a small and worn military green pack, stuffed an
old yellow sweater onto it, strapped the cover and slung the pack over his
shoulder. He left the building by the back way, elated and satisfied. Barney
and his group would get this message!

John O'Neill had looked up from his wristwatch just in time to see the orange
blast envelop Mary. He was saved from the window's shattered glass by the
heavy curtains, which deflected all but one of the shards away from him. One
small section of glass creased his scalp. The shock wave staggered him,
driving him backward against a desk. He fell sideways, momentarily
unconscious but getting quickly to his knees as the bank manager rushed into
the room, shouting:

"Good God! What was that?"

John stumbled to his feet, rejecting the question and the answer that rumbled
through his head like an aftershock of the blast. He brushed past the bank
manager and out the door. His mind remained in shock but his body found its
way down the stairs. He shouldered a woman aside at the foot of the stairs
and lurched out onto the street where he allowed himself to be carried along
by the crowd rushing toward the area of the blast. There was a smell of burnt
iron in the air and the sound of cries and screams.

Within only a few seconds John was part of a crush being held back by police
and uninjured civilians pressed into service to keep the area around the
explosion clear. John elbowed and clawed his way forward.

"My wife!" he shouted. "I saw her. She was there. My wife and our
children!"

A policeman pinned his arms and swung him around, blocking John's view of the
tangled fabric and bloody flesh strewn across the street.

The groans of the injured, the cries for help and the shouts of horror drove
John into insensate rage. Mary needs me! He struggled against the policeman.

"Mary! She was right in front of . . ."

"The ambulances are coming, sir! There's help at hand. You must be still.
You cannot go through now."