Category 7

by Evans, Bill; Jameson, Marianna

  Monday, July 23, 3:45 A.M., a CIA safe house in rural

  Northern Virginia

  Kate had a mug of coffee in one hand and was rubbing the sleep out of her eyes with the other as Jake logged onto the Web and then to the weather sites he subscribed to.

  A pit formed at the bottom of his stomach as he watched the spreading streaks of red, orange, and yellow spiraling across the western Atlantic and trailing across the mid-Atlantic seaboard. With a tight eye and well-formed wind bands, Simone had achieved wind speeds that put her squarely into Category 5 and she was still moving along the predicted northerly track, although at a slightly higher than expected forward speed of 12 miles per hour. It could be worse—storms in the Gulf Stream had been known to move much faster—but it still wasn’t a good sign. The warming Gulf Stream waters were potent fuel. If the water got any warmer, it could turbocharge the storm.

  “Are you sure you’re awake enough for this?” Jake asked.

  “Yes. Go ahead. I’m all here.” Kate forced a smile and looked at the screen with squinty eyes that widened as she realized what she was seeing. “Good God.”

  They’d been awakened five minutes ago with the news that Tom Taylor would be arriving in thirty minutes and would want a full briefing on what Jake had been able to piece together. Candy had agreed that it was time to fill Kate in on some of the background in order for her to help them fill in the gaps.

  Logging onto a classified area of the NOAA site, Jake began to download the footage of the storm’s buildup over the last twenty-four hours, half-hoping that further investigation wouldn’t reveal the same artificial pulses that had preceded the other storms. Every other storm had been over land, short-lived, and in rural areas. If they had been tests of weather manipulation, they had been successful ones.

  Which meant this was more than likely the real thing.

  He looked back to the screen displaying the live satellite feed. With the exception of coastal Maine, all of the northeast coast was now under mandatory evacuation orders. Although forecasters wouldn’t know for the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours if Simone was going to make landfall or begin to dissipate, the storm surge was breaking records all along the shore, sweeping multimillion-dollar homes into the sea and driving multimillion-dollar boats deep onto land.

  “There’s no way this thing’s going to disappear, Jake,” Kate whispered. “It’s the biggest thing I’ve ever seen. And it’s parked in the Gulf Stream.” She looked at him, her eyes huge and a little wild. “I was diving yester—Saturday—off the south shore of Long Island and the sea surface temperature was eighty-one degrees. That’s more than hospitable; that’s a recipe for a frigging disaster.”

  “Well, the industry took a beating last year because of all the warnings issued after Katrina and Rita. The public felt ripped off when there weren’t any big storms. Now they’re getting one,” he muttered as he watched the progression of the download and then opened the application that would let them view the days-old data at the appropriate level of detail.

  Three minutes later, he could feel Kate’s breath on his neck as she leaned over him. They both stared at the screen, watching as the seconds counter flashed numbers.

  “What are we looking for?” she asked quietly, as if any noise would disrupt the operation.

  “Wait a sec.”

  He slowed the pace as the counter approached the approximate time of escalation and seconds later was rewarded by a short burst of dark yellow on the monitor. His excitement faded as he realized that what he was looking at was unlikely to be caused by a laser. It wasn’t hot enough.

  “Damn it.”

  “What?”

  He sat back in his chair and looked at Kate, slightly stunned. “Did you see that burst of heat?”

  “The lightning? Yeah. What about it?”

  “All the other storms had a similar signature, but it wasn’t lighting. When you looked real closely, it turned out to be something else.”

  Kate looked at him like he was crazy. “Like what?”

  “It looked like an infrared burst from a laser.”

  She stared at him for a solid minute. “A laser?”

  He nodded.

  “And this one is different?”

  He nodded again. “Different signature. This was lower and occurred nearly at the surface. And it happened too many seconds before the escalation.”

  “It was the underwater thingy.”

  “The what?”

  “There was some underwater event. Not an earthquake or anything like that. Some vent burped or something.” She shook her head. “It will come to me. Richard told me about it.”

  She went quiet abruptly, as if the casual mention of his name had overwhelmed her. Jake looked back at the screen to give her some privacy.

  Clearing her throat, she continued. “That was the first escalation and it was minor, but go back to that and then tick forward a few more minutes. You’ll see the second escalation, the big one.”

  He did as she suggested, moving back through the file until the storm was just a slowly organizing cluster of clouds. He watched the swirls of pixilated color move in a rapid stop-action dance across the screen. And then, just as she’d said, he saw the first small flash, followed eighteen minutes later by a second burst of heat that appeared on the screen for mere seconds.

  His blood began pumping at speed as he replayed the footage, slowing it down even further. There it was. A streak of dark red commencing at an altitude of nearly fifteen hundred feet, shooting downward for less than three seconds, superheating the core of the storm and sending the ceiling of the storm cell soaring up a few thousand feet.

  “Son of a bitch. We’ve got you,” he murmured, then turned around to look at Kate, who was staring at the screen and the red streak that was stationary in the middle of it.

  “That’s it? That’s the laser?”

  “It is indeed,” he said triumphantly, standing up. “Kate, I could kiss you.”

  She held up a hand instantly. “Don’t even think about it. I never do that before breakfast, unless I’ve had dinner and drinks first.”

  He laughed, more elated than he’d been since getting assigned to the task force. “You’d better grab the shower before anyone else gets it. Tom will be here soon.”

  CHAPTER 40

  Monday, July 23, 4:30 A.M., a CIA safe house in rural

  Northern Virginia

  The nubby fabric beneath her backside certainly felt real, but Kate wasn’t at all sure that it actually was. Because if it was, that meant everything that she remembered happening in the last twenty-four hours was actually real, too, instead of a really, really bad hallucination. If the fabric was real, that meant she had just been invited to sit down next to Jake around a folding table in the living room of a remote farmhouse, surrounded by a few people in camo uniforms, a Twinkie-eating cheerleader who knew how to kill people, a dead-eyed guy named Tom who looked like he had killed people, and a lot of flat-screen monitors littering the table and every other available surface. It also meant that Richard was dead and that her parents were, she hoped, stewing in an evacuation center somewhere in Queens.

  “Ms. Sherman, we appreciate that you made the trip down here to talk with us.”

  Like I had a choice. She flashed a tight smile and said nothing. The expressionless guy gave her the creeps, and Jake, in describing him, hadn’t said anything reassuring like He’s really a great guy or He’ll warm up once he gets to know you. Which meant he was a jerk and likely to remain one.

  “How much has Jake told you about the situation?” Tom asked.

  “Not much. Just that there appears to be some weather manipulation going on and that the storms I wrote about in my paper are storms that he—you, I mean, are also studying.”

  “Anything else?”

  What the hell am I doing here? “He showed me the laser signature on Simone. Look, I choke on tests, okay?” she blurted, partly annoyed and partly just plain scared. “I don’t mind a
nswering your questions, but I haven’t had much sleep and I’m still trying to absorb the fact that a good friend of mine was murdered, so I’m not operating on all cylinders. If you could just ask me what you want to know, this would go much better.”

  He wasn’t amused, but the ruddy-faced general sitting next to him seemed to be, if the twitch at the side of his mouth was any indication.

  “This is not a test, Ms. Sherman.” Tom leaned back in his chair and focused his gaze directly into her eyes. “There is weather manipulation going on. Jake is convinced that Simone”—he jerked his head slightly toward the monitors displaying the various views of the storm—“is at least partly manufactured. We cautiously agree with him. If he’s right, that could mean that the other storms, the smaller storms, were test runs and Simone is going to be a ‘statement.’ Unfortunately, we’re still not entirely sure who is executing these operations nor are we sure what the target is.” He leaned forward again, his voice shifting to a softer note. “Tell me about Carter Thompson’s foundation.”

  “I don’t know much about it. There’s a woman in our office who’s doing some in-house research for a biography. She mentioned that Carter funds a foundation that studies desertification and reforestation. I mentioned it to Jake only because I thought that asking Carter might be a shortcut to finding out who has rainmaking capabilities.” She paused. “I imagine you’d need to be able to create rain if you want to replenish rain forests and turn back the desert,” she finished weakly.

  Tom stared at her for a moment. “What’s this woman’s name?”

  Oh, she’s going to love me for this. “Elle Baker. I think her real first name is Eleanor. She used to work in the White House.”

  The room was silent except for the tapping of a few keys on his keyboard. When he hit Enter, or more likely Send, he glanced up at her again. “What else did she tell you about the foundation?”

  “Nothing. I just told you everything I know about it.”

  “Did she tell you anything else about Carter Thompson?”

  “Like what?”

  “I’m not interested in his golf handicap, Ms. Sherman.”

  She glared at him. “She said she found some citations to papers he wrote about weather manipulation.”

  “Go on.”

  “That’s about it.”

  “Were they how-tos? Were they political?”

  “I didn’t read them and I’m not sure she did, either. I think she said that the citations indicated that he didn’t think it was beyond the realm of possibility.”

  “What was?”

  “Weather manipulation.”

  “How long ago were these papers written?”

  “I don’t know. Elle made some reference to a Cold War mindset. The fifties, maybe?”

  He looked down at his computer and typed for another minute or so, then looked up at her again. “What made you look into those storms?”

  “I—”

  “Shit.”

  Kate turned to look at Jake and could see from the corner of her eye that everyone else at the table had, too. Looking more grim than she’d ever seen him, Jake pointed to the largest of the monitors, and Kate, holding her breath, did the same.

  The spiral that had been compact and mostly yellow the last time she’d looked had widened, the rain bands taking up more of the screen. It had also taken a slight northerly shift.

  Every new projected track included New York City.

  “Holy Mother of God,” she breathed as the new storm track predictions appeared on an adjacent screen. Philadelphia, Long Island, and New York City all lay within Simone’s possible landfall paths. Each was a heavily populated area with lots of rivers and estuaries and shoreline to transport storm surges inland. Each was already in the grip of panic and chaos.

  “Sustained winds are one hundred and sixty-two miles an hour,” Jake said, looking at a different screen.

  “So does that make it a Category 6 now?” one of the uniformed guys at the end of the table asked.

  “There is no Category 6,” Kate said weakly. “There was never a reason for one.”

  “Looks like there is now,” the officer said. “Might as well make a Category 7 while we’re at it. This bitch isn’t going to die without a fight.”

  “Welcome to Hell, people,” Tom said softly.

  Monday, July 23, 6:00 A.M.,

  Upper East Side, Manhattan

  The sky had changed.

  From her place against the headboard, Elle had been watching the sky for a long time. The artificial colors on the signs had dimmed when morning came and deepened again as night fell. That had happened at least once since she’d crawled into her bed. Maybe twice.

  She blinked. Her eyes, sore, heavy, and unable to close for very long, narrowed as her brain struggled to decide what day it was. In the end, it didn’t really matter. She blinked again and looked away, her fingers working at the sheet beneath.

  I have to leave.

  She felt the threads pull away easily, the fabric shredding and gathering into a damp clump in her palm as the thoughts chased themselves through her head again.

  I have nowhere to go.

  Her hands kept working at the fabric.

  Win will be here soon. He called and said so.

  She closed her eyes.

  Hadn’t he?

  Her eyes shot open again as her fingers moved farther along the sheet to pick at threads still clustered in an orderly weave.

  A sharp knock at the front door stilled her hands as her heart seemed to explode in her chest.

  Win.

  She moved slowly, her legs not responding well to her brain’s demands. She tried to stand, but her legs wouldn’t support her and pain flamed from her feet to her thighs as she landed in a heap on the carpet, bracing herself with her hands. At impact, a cry ripped from her throat. Elle lay on the floor, stunned, crying, her dress twisted around her hips.

  There were sounds in her living room. Male voices, but none of them Win’s. They sounded concerned. She looked helplessly at the still-closed bedroom door. Hot needles shot through her feet and calves as she tried to move.

  I can’t get up.

  Men she didn’t know burst into the bedroom with guns drawn and then stopped, staring at her in dull shock.

  “I can’t get up.” She held her hands out to strangers, seeing her raw, bloody fingertips for the first time.

  “My hands,” she whispered in horror, and swung her head slowly toward the bed she’d been in for—since she’d gotten home from dinner with Davis Lee.

  The sheets were smeared with blood, some dried and brown, some bright red and still wet. Piles of threads lay around where she’d been sitting, a vile rat’s nest built of vintage Porthault linen and fresh, overwhelming guilt.

  Strong hands were beneath her arms, lifting her up. She could not tear her gaze from her hands. Most of her nails were gone, the fakes Win liked and the real ones beneath. What was left looked like the carcasses of skinned animals, like the pictures that came in the envelopes from PETA.

  “Ma’am. Ms. Baker. Are you all right? Are you alone?”

  “My hands.”

  “Ms. Baker. Ms. Baker.” The hands holding her up gave her a hard shake and her head snapped back.

  She didn’t recognize the face in front of her.

  “Are you alone?” he repeated.

  She nodded and started to cry. “My hands hurt.” She brought one hand to her face to wipe away the tears that felt hot on her cheeks, but the man stopped her. Sitting her on the side of the bed, he pushed her hand away from her face and wiped her cheeks with a handkerchief he’d pulled out of a pocket.

  “Thank you,” she said automatically. “Did Win send you?”

  “Win?”

  She looked up at the man, then past him to the stone-faced one behind him. “Win,” she repeated. “Win Benson.”

  The man in front of her straightened up. “No, ma’am, he didn’t. We need you to come with us, Ms. Baker. We need t
o talk to you.”

  She tried to smile at him, but his face wouldn’t remain in focus. “I can’t leave. Win is coming. He told me. I think he did. I have to be here. He’ll be so angry if I’m not.”

  The one closer to her studied her for a minute, and when he spoke again his voice was gentle. “It’s all right if you come with us. He won’t mind. Ms. Baker, it’s important that we talk to you now.”

  “Are you sure he’s not coming? He said he would.” She closed her eyes. “I think he did. Who are you?”

  “We’re from the government.”

  It was an effort to open her eyes. They were so heavy. “I know that. What do you want?”

  “We need to speak with you about Carter Thompson. We need you to come to our offices.”

  “I don’t work for him anymore. Davis Lee fired me.”

  “Can you stand?”

  She put her hands on the bed to push herself up. Pain knifed from her fingertips through her body and she screamed. The agent grabbed her wrists and yanked her to her feet, barking something over his shoulder at the other man. A moment later, cool, wet towels were wrapped over her hands.

  “Keep your hands up, Ms. Baker. We’ll take you to get help.” As he spoke, the agent lifted her and carried her out of the apartment.

  Traffic had been horrendous. So had the rain. Cars on the road, some of them anyway, had pulled aside to let the agents through. The shrill whine of a siren had accompanied them most of the way, and lights had been flashing so much that she’d just closed her eyes against them.

  They’d taken her to a hospital and, to her surprise, they hadn’t had to wait even though the scene was a blur of bright light and loud noise. There was a lot of screaming and shouting going on around her, but the men with her kept their voices low and official. She’d kept her eyes closed, not wanting to look at her hands or the men she was with, not wanting to see any more of the looks people were giving her. She opened her eyes for a moment when the woman doctor had insisted. Then there had been some injections that the doctor had said would wear off, and they’d done things to her hands.