The Sky is Falling
Now available in ebook format.The Sky is Falling contains all the elements which make Sidney Sheldon’s works impossible to put down: power, money, greed, lust, corruption… and a strong female central character. In this instance it is a TV anchorwoman from Washington DC. All her investigative instincts tell her that a brutal series of murders are linked – and she travels the world to prove it. But the closer she comes to uncovering the truth the more she realizes her own life is in jeopardy. However, she is not about to give up – the hunter becomes the hunted.As readers navigate the twists and turns of the plot, they’ll know they must anticipate the unexpected – Sidney Sheldon’s hallmark. And they won’t be disappointed.
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SIDNEY SHELDON
THE SKY IS FALLING
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2000
Copyright © The Sidney Sheldon Family Limited Partnership 2000
Sidney Sheldon asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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 ebook 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 ebooks
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication
Source ISBN: 9780007101887
Ebook Edition © JUNE 2012 ISBN: 9780007386840 Version: 2017-01-09
For AlexandraThe Angel On My Shoulder
Table of Contents
The sky is falling! The sky is falling!
–Chicken Little
Show me a hero and I will write you a tragedy.
–F. Scott Fitzgerald
CONFIDENTIAL MINUTES TO ALL OPERATION PERSONNEL: DESTROY IMMEDIATELY AFTER READING.
LOCATION: CLASSIFIED
DATE: CLASSIFIED
There were twelve men in the heavily guarded underground chamber, representing twelve far-flung countries. They were seated in comfortable chairs set in six rows, several feet apart. They listened intently as the speaker addressed them.
‘I am happy to inform you that the threat with which we have all been so deeply concerned is about to be eliminated. I need not go into details because the whole world will hear about it within the next twenty-four hours. Rest assured that nothing will stop us. The gates will remain open. We will now begin the auction. Do I have a first bid? Yes. One billion dollars. Do I have two? Two billion. Do I have three?’
She was hurrying along Pennsylvania Avenue, a block from the White House, shivering in the cold December wind, when she heard the terrifying, ear-splitting scream of air-raid sirens and then the sound of a bomber plane overhead, ready to unload its cargo of death. She stopped, frozen, engulfed in a red mist of terror.
Suddenly she was back in Sarajevo, and she could hear the shrill whistle of the bombs dropping. She closed her eyes tightly, but it was impossible to shut out the vision of what was happening all around her. The sky was ablaze, and she was deafened by the sounds of automatic-weapons fire, roaring planes, and the wump of deadly mortar shells. Nearby buildings erupted into showers of cement, bricks, and dust. Terrified people were running in every direction, trying to outrace death.
From far, far away, a man’s voice was saying, ‘Are you all right?’
Slowly, warily, she opened her eyes. She was back on Pennsylvania Avenue, in the bleak winter sunlight, listening to the fading sounds of the jet plane and the ambulance siren that had triggered her memories.
’Miss – are you all right?’
She forced herself back to the present. ‘Yes. I’m – I’m fine, thank you.’
He was staring at her. ‘Wait a minute! You’re Dana Evans. I’m a big fan of yours. I watch you on WTN every night, and I saw all your broadcasts from Yugoslavia.’ His voice was filled with enthusiasm. ‘It must have been really exciting for you, covering that war, huh?’
‘Yes.’ Dana Evans’s throat was dry. Exciting to see people blown to shreds, to see the bodies of babies thrown down wells, bits of human jetsam flowing down a river of red.
She suddenly felt sick to her stomach. ‘Excuse me.’ She turned and hurried away.
Dana Evans had returned from Yugoslavia just three months earlier. The memories were still too fresh. It seemed unreal to walk down streets in broad daylight without fear, to hear birds singing and people laughing. There had been no laughter in Sarajevo, only the sounds of exploding mortars and the anguished screams that followed.
