The Sundering
Page 44
A sonic boom rattled windows, and Sula almost jumped out of her skin. But the sound had clarified the situation somehow, and she raised a hand to her head and deliberately combed her fingers through her short, black-dyed hair.
Across the street, Macnamara pressed the switch on the detonator in his jacket pocket.
In the Grandview apartment, the explosive that Macnamara’s carpentry had concealed in the furniture went off, blasting ahead of it a storm of steel ball bearings and roofing nails. To minimize casualties in nearby apartments the explosive force had been deliberately directed in a swath from the interior of each room toward the outer wall. The windows blew out in a red blaze of heat and horror, and Sula heard screams as debris rained onto the street below.
Ramps slammed down from two large gray vehicles nearby, and Naxid police charged out, racing for the apartment where flames were now lapping from the windows.
“Ah. Hah,” Sula said.
She turned and walked away. Her feet seemed to sink deep into the pavement, as if it were made of soft rubber.
Hong had been captured, then, in the wake of the Axtattle fiasco, and had been forced or persuaded to give up the procedures by which he contacted his teams. Others teams besides Sula’s would be betrayed. She had to assume that she and her team were now the only members of Action Group Blanche now at large.
She and her team were alone in the city, inhabiting false identities, without allies, few resources, and with no way to contact her superiors.
Caroline, Lady Sula, had limited resources to cope with this situation. What was needed was another person, with a different set of skills.
It’s my war now, Gredel thought, and kept walking.
About the Author
WALTER JON WILLIAMS is a New York Times-bestselling author who has been nominated repeatedly for every major SF award, including Hugo and Nebula award nominations for his novel City on Fire. His most recent books are The Praxis, Destiny’s Way, and The Rift. Mr. Williams lives near Albuquerque, New Mexico, with his wife, Kathleen Hedges.
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Praise New York Times bestselling author of
THE PRAXIS
Book One of DREAD EMPIRE’S FALL
“A great read.”
Times of London
WALTER JON WILLIAMS
“A first-rate writer.”
Washington Post Book World
“One of science fiction’s most celebrated names.”
St. Petersburg Times
“Williams’s writing is always lean, lively, and engaging…[He] understands that science fiction can breath life into language.”
New York Times Book Review
“With each novel, he tries something completely different.”
Seattle Times
“Williams is a skillfully literate addition to the stylish new generation of science fiction writers…His fictive universe is grounded in the real possibilities of today.”
Chicago Tribune
Also by
Walter Jon Williams
DREAD EMPIRE’S FALL: THE PRAXIS
THE RIFT
CITY ON FIRE
METROPOLITAN
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
THE SUNDERING: Dread Empire’s Fall. Copyright © 2004 by Walter Jon Williams. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © SEPTEMBER 2005 ISBN: 9780061809613
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