State of Independence
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
The Mardi Gras brought hundreds of thousands of people to the city, huge crowds lining the streets at any one time to jostle for position and obtain the choice view. They were fun seekers and party lovers and the entertainment on show was second to none. Hundreds of floats filled the streets, exotic creations of many wide ranging themes. The music was loud as the marching bands led the way in festive dress. The dancers moved to their beat, their costumes bright and colourful, every shade of the spectrum displayed for the wild crowds of revellers that had come out into the night to enjoy the show. New Orleans had painfully suffered her share of misery over the past few years and the people had come to laugh and forget their troubles, to relish in the party atmosphere around them. The Emerton hotel was one of the finest in the city and stood less than half a kilometer from the midpoint of the route the carnival took as it snaked through the winding streets. Like every other hotel in the city it was fully booked for the whole of Mardi Gras week. Rooms had been snapped up months in advance by patrons from around the globe at hugely inflated prices. You had to think a long time ahead to obtain accommodation at this time of year. Welch was one of those who had done just that. The Penthouse suite at the top of the sixteen floor hotel had set him back an exorbitant eighteen hundred dollars for the single night. Ordinarily he would have seriously toyed with the idea of strangling the smiling receptionist with her own hair as she had shamelessly debited his card but he had calmly smiled back at her as he had collected his key card and headed for the elevator. There were no better views to be had of the city than from the sixteenth floor of the Emerton and tonight he would have paid triple the price for this vantage point. He was stood at the open window where he had been for over an hour, the lights off behind him as the sound of the approaching procession in the distance reached his ears, idly watching the parade like the thousands of others he could see leaning from their own windows. The Emerton rose from the corner of Royal and Toulouse and his vantage point afforded him a view straight along the length of Toulouse to the junction where it intersected the main street of Dauphine. It was there that the train of lights and colour passed and Welch put the binoculars he had brought with him to his eyes to bring the celebration closer. It was the first time he had witnessed the carnival, even his black soul amazed at the crowds it attracted, the energy it emitted and he followed the floats as they slowly passed one by one, impressed with their size and intricacies. One of the largest floats of the night held his attention as it rolled into view. It was shaped as a giant swan, the graceful neck angling high into the air, its man made feathers glowing in white and gold on the trailer that carried it above the ground. The sight of it made his heart beat faster and his breathing quicken but it wasn't the beauty of it that affected him. He looked down to his hand at the minute radio transmitter he held. It couldn't be more basic, only a single button rising from its surface. He flicked a small switch on its base and a green light winked on as power surged through its circuits and without another thought he moved his thumb over the button and pressed it. The instantaneous explosion brought a whole new range of colour and atmosphere to the night air. .The canisters of liquid HMX hidden beneath its garish decoration came to life with all the shattering efficiency they had been manufactured to do, changing from inert Chemical to the deliverer of chaos in a millisecond. It erupting with the all the deadly force its seller had promised Welch it would, the explosion in Panama on the tape he had been shown a mild pop in comparison. The light was blinding through the amplifying glasses and he pulled them away from his eyes as he felt the edge of the searing heat the blast created even from his lofty and distant position. The float was there one second and then it was wasn't, gone forever from existence and utterly disintegrated in a momentary flash. Where it had been a crater would later be found in the road stretching eighty feet across and as deep as the float had been high. The shockwave surged outwards in every direction, first hitting the closely packed crowds gathered around. They were smashed backwards by the unseen hammer, a tide of broken bodies hurtled from their feet, the heat igniting their clothes and melting the skin from their innocent bones mercifully before they were even aware of their imminent deaths The buildings either side of the blast for hundreds of yards imploded and collapsed like fragile houses of cards. Broken glass and shattered masonry shredded the occupants inside before they were even aware death was coming to claim them. Foundations crumbled and the structures collapsed, dropping to the ground to crush the dead and dying inside and out. Welch watched with rapt fascination for a few more minutes. The power had gone off across the city and he found himself mesmerised by the flames licking upwards, amply fuelled by the severed gas lines beneath the destruction and the only illumination for miles around....
Formats
Book Details
About the Book
FBI special Agent Patrick Roth was a rising star in the Bureau and tagged to go all the way to the top. However, a spate of violent robberies he was investigating was a growing weight on his shoulders and a building case load that refused to crack. Alone with his theory, all Roth's roads were leading to the door of the Preacher, a mysterious and charismatic figure who led his backwater community in the deep south with an iron hand. To outsiders it was a closed shop, fear and hatred building a wall of silence even the FBI couldn't penetrate. Roth's case though was barely touching the tip of a far larger, more widely reaching conspiracy. A threat to the nation that would roll all the way to the door of the White House. Louisiana was a burning powder keg just waiting to explode with racial tension and cultural violence growing to a level unseen for over a hundred years. Roth needed a way in to the Preachers world, a face that would fit without suspicion and Kent Logan was going to be his key. First Roth needed to convince him to go back. Then he had to keep him alive… There was a storm brewing in the south that threatened to blow across a fragile America. Now the future of a nation lay in the hands of two men. The countdown had begun and lives were going to be lost . Would it be theirs?