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  When he’d been tapped to head the task force, the DNI’s staff had briefed him with everything they knew at the time, which was basically the what: The weapon of mass destruction under discussion was the weather. The sinking feeling in his gut had been offset by an adrenaline burst.

  It was a damned big weapon to hide. And yet someone was hiding it all too effectively.

  For the last two years, the attacks had been scattered, small-scale, and on foreign soil. They had been test runs most likely, but too damned effective and too damned subtle to prevent or even discover ahead of their execution. Whoever was behind them knew how to lay low and how to get people to keep their mouths shut.

  The pace of the investigation had picked up when fresh intelligence gave the task force a reason to believe that over the last few months operations had moved inside the U.S., indicating the increased probability of an attack. Despite being armed with that knowledge, the task force had quickly run into an impressive set of dead ends. To a small degree they’d narrowed down the where to the western U.S., but after three months they still had no strong leads on the who, the when—as in when the next strike would be—or the why, although on the surface, the latter was pretty simple to figure out.

  If you controlled the weather, you controlled the world.

  The U.S. had been trying to achieve that for decades. So had its enemies. And one of them was succeeding where the rest had failed.

  Tom realized the general was glowering at him.

  “Mr. Taylor, I’m sure you’re familiar with the laws of thermodynamics, but let me refresh your memory anyway. The first law of thermodynamics states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed; it can only be transformed from one state to another, from potential to kinetic and back again. The second law states that the potential energy in a system will always be less than the initial state. What you’ve caused us to do, to put it bluntly, is to shortchange the system. Over the last five weeks, we’ve prevented an immeasurable quantity of potential energy from being converted, or released into the atmosphere as storms and other weather events. But we can’t keep doing that.”

  Tom glanced down at his notes. “There have been small storms scattered around the country in the last five weeks. And the Atlantic has been active earlier than usual. There have been twenty-two named storms so far, including two that happened before the official start of hurricane season, but none of them have done much more than generate headlines and a little heavy surf. That hardly sounds like you’re holding back anything, General. Who’s responsible for those storms?”

  Colonel Patricia Brannigan, the general’s aide, had been quiet until now. She broke into the conversation. “We are. We had to bleed off energy where we could, when we could. Holding that much energy more or less stationary put us at increasing risk.”

  “Of what?”

  “A disaster, Mr. Taylor. With a cool upper-level high parked over the center of the country, the Gulf air has nowhere to go, so it just stays there and gets hotter. And the water beneath it gets hotter. Right now, the Gulf is averaging eighty degrees Fahrenheit, which is significantly warmer than it should be at this time of year. Hot water heats the air and the hot air rises. If a hot spot of sufficient intensity develops, with all that latent energy behind it, a column of air could burst through the system’s cap like a volcano.”

  “Without the ash and fumes,” Tom pointed out dryly.

  She didn’t even blink. “No ash. No fumes. Instead, you’d have violent weather at altitudes not naturally available to storm systems. Convection cells would be moving at unnatural speeds backed by unnatural pressure, creating hurricanes that could spread for thousands of miles in all directions and throw off tornadoes, waterspouts, and severe thunderstorms. Airplanes would be blown out of the sky, ships caught in transit would be sunk, and communications would be disrupted all over the northern hemisphere. There would be massive flooding, heavy hail, strong winds—Would you like me to continue?”

  “No, I get the picture.” He reached for the coffee cup at his elbow and glanced into it. Empty. He met her eyes. “As dreadful as it sounds, Colonel, that outcome relies on a fair bit of speculation, doesn’t it?”

  The general leaned forward across the table with something close to bloodlust in his eyes. “Listen, you fucking spook,” he said, his voice dropping to a steel-edged rasp. “We’re talking about the weather. There are too Goddamned many variables to predict exactly what will happen, but any one of the probable or improbable scenarios we’ve come up with would be enough to give the DNI a laundry bill. Read my lips. The energy is building. We’re treating the upper atmosphere as if it’s some big battery, but even the atmosphere has its limits and at some point, a point we may reach very soon, we are not going to be able to keep Nature from taking its own course.”

  “What does that mean, General?”

  “It means that unless we begin to dissipate that energy on a larger scale now, while we can still control the rate of dissipation, we could have a hemisphere-wide disaster on our hands.”

  Tom held the general’s eyes. “No.”

  The general leaned forward again. “Mr. Taylor, perhaps I’m not making myself clear. We have to stop this operation now.”

  “I understand what you’re saying, General Moore, but we can’t stop the operation,” he replied calmly. “We’re going to continue Operation DOWNPLAY as planned until an anomaly occurs that isn’t of our making. And when that happens, we can have this conversation again.”

  Colonel Brannigan leveled a grave stare at him. “Mr. Taylor, please try to understand that we’ve already moved beyond any models we’ve designed. The bottom line is, as the general said, that we don’t know how much longer we can continue to deconstruct and diffuse the natural weather patterns, nor do we know how much longer we can contain the energy those disruptions are producing, nor do we have a plan for dissipating the energy currently stored.”

  The military admitting defeat. There’s something you don’t hear every day. Tom watched the aide’s face, keeping his own expressionless despite the furious churn in his gut. “Did I hear you correctly, Colonel? You don’t know how to release the energy?”

  “Yes, Mr. Taylor, you heard me correctly.”

  “Here’s a suggestion. Continue bleeding off the energy as you said you’ve been doing. Brew up some bigger storms if you need to. Just don’t do it over the continental United States. Cuba and Venezuela come to mind as convenient targets.” He spoke softly and glanced at the general’s face, which had deepened toward a more purplish-red hue.

  “You can’t move massive cells of energy like they are pieces on a chessboard, Mr. Taylor,” Colonel Brannigan replied before the general could open his mouth. “As the general said, we’ve taken a dynamic system and rendered it static for the last five weeks. We’ve essentially cranked a powerful engine far beyond its capabilities. There is no place to release the energy other than right where it’s stored.”

  “Surely there’s some natural mechanism—”

  “For releasing an artificially created, supersized energy field? No, there isn’t. This situation has never existed before.” She folded her hands in front of her on the table and stared him down with a cold smile. “Naturally, Mr. Taylor, the Russians, NATO, and most of our allies already suspect we’re up to something, and they’re not happy. Neither are the Chinese. We’re scaring the heart out of them because their physicists can’t explain what’s happening by any natural means. Neither can ours, other than those perpetrating it. Nor can any climatologists. No one has ever seen anything like it, or read any theoretical work suggesting something like it. But, without knowing anything about this operation, people are hypothesizing about energy gradients being radically out of alignment, which is not a situation that has ever been produced except in computer models. Conspiracy theorists are having a field day, particularly those with HAARP in their crosshairs.”

  Tom raised an eyebrow. “Thank you for sharing that with us, Colonel Brannigan
.” He shifted his attention to her left. “General, please keep me apprised on the situation.”

  The general leaned back in his chair and fixed his eyes directly into Tom’s. “I don’t know if you’re a religious man, Mr. Taylor, but you may want to become one. Asking God to have mercy on us all for what we’ve done may be the only option open to any of us now.”

  Tom stood and gathered his papers into a neat stack, slipped them into his briefcase, and met the general’s eyes. “I’m not, General Moore, but I’ll take it under advisement. Good day.”

  He nodded at Colonel Brannigan and left the room. The nearest men’s room was fifty feet down the hall. He managed to make it into a stall before losing his breakfast.

  Depleted and shaking, he leaned against the cool metal wall of the stall and closed his eyes.

  Those assholes had better make a move soon. Damned soon.

  A couple of splashes of punishingly cold water snapped his spine back into place before he left the washroom. He didn’t make it ten feet down the hall before he heard the colonel’s cool voice call his name.

  Swearing under his breath, he stopped and turned around to watch her walk toward him with a stride more appropriate for a body encased in desert camo and combat boots than a tight Army green skirt and low-heeled pumps. She came to an abrupt halt a foot away from him.

  “What can I do for you, Colonel?”

  “Issue the order to release the jet stream,” she replied bluntly. “There was an inexplicable cloudburst near Death Valley less than an hour ago. I think it’s the anomaly you’ve been waiting for.”

  He let a few seconds tick over as he stared into the icy blue of her eyes, not quite ready to believe her, not quite trusting the triumphant burst of adrenaline flooding his veins. “Let’s go back to the conference room and you can tell me about it.”

  And you had damned well better be right.

  CHAPTER 5

  Tuesday, July 10, 11:00 A.M., Campbelltown, Iowa

  Meteorologist Kate Sherman stood at the edge of the large, crowded tent watching the warm early-summer rain fall steadily in front of her. Her mind, for once, was not on the weather. She was wondering if making the mad ten-foot dash to the next tent and getting soaked to the skin was a reasonable trade-off for remaining within earshot of the endless drone coming out of the face of Ted Burse, a network security guy and indisputably the most boring human being ever to come out of a mad scientist’s petri dish. She was convinced Ted had. There was no way the man could have been produced by a force of nature. He was that bad.

  Glancing to her right, she gave Ted a polite smile, the same one she’d been giving him every ninety seconds or so for the last ten minutes, which was when he’d cornered her. Enduring situations like this was just one reason she despised company parties, especially the ones held outdoors in the rain in Iowa. Campbelltown, Iowa, population 416, where there was nothing but the weather on people’s minds and nothing but farm fields in every direction. The only bump on the horizon in any direction was the low-slung, unassuming headquarters of Coriolis Management, the company she worked for, the company that had paid her to sit on a train for two days to come out here for one day and would pay her to begin the return trip to her office in Lower Manhattan and real civilization the following morning.

  Imminent salvation appeared fifty yards away in the business-casual-clad body of Davis Lee Longstreet, global director of strategy for Coriolis and her boss. Envious, Kate watched him do the executive weave in and out of the crowded, colorful tents, his progress through the drizzle-soaked landscape as smooth and easy as that of a shark through calm, dark water. Kate knew from experience that Davis Lee never got stuck talking with one person for too long.

  That was about to change. He was going to be stuck with her for as long as it took her to get the hell away from Ted.

  Kate stuck out her arm and grabbed Davis Lee as politely as she could without attracting the attention of the many Secret Service agents and private security personnel milling around on the corporate campus. He stopped and, with a single look, absorbed the situation.

  His Princeton-Yale Law-Kennedy School brains well hidden—as usual—behind a charming, Southern façade, Davis Lee slung a casual arm around her shoulders and gave her a crooked grin that made his attractive face even more handsome.

  “Well, if it isn’t my favorite weather bunny,” he drawled in his best Green Acres voice. Kate forced a smile and refrained from stepping on his foot. Hard. “How you doin’, Miz Kate? Never can bring myself to say your last name. It would set too many of my relations spinnin’ in their graves.” He sent Ted a smile that stopped just short of vacuous. “Hey, Ted. I didn’t know y’all knew each other.”

  Ted smiled back and was on the verge of replying when Kate pre-empted him. Once the man got started, he was impossible to stop.

  “Hi, Davis Lee. I’m so glad we bumped into each other. We need to talk. About that report,” she added meaningfully.

  “What report would that be? This is a social occasion, Kate, or didn’t you get the memo?” He sent Ted a conspiratorial wink that, as Kate could have predicted, was lost in translation. Ted was that dense.

  “I’m here, aren’t I? And you know what report I’m talking about. The report.” She paused, waiting for him to quit playing dumb, to jump in and back up her lie.

  He didn’t, and she knew it was deliberate.

  Great. “The report on episodic fluctuations of rainfall patterns in the Gobi Desert. I believe you needed help with some of the vocabulary.” There was just enough New York saccharine in her smile to make his eyes narrow although his smile never dimmed. That was permanent, just like a shark’s.

  “Oh, that report. I just plumb forgot, what with the excitement of gettin’ to meet the president again and all.” Davis Lee extended his hand toward Ted. “Kate and I have to have a chat, Ted. I’m sure you’ll excuse us.”

  They weren’t ten steps away when Kate glanced up at him. “How do you do that?”

  “Do what, darlin’?”

  “Seem sincere and sappy at the same time.”

  Davis Lee steered her out of the tent and through the wet grass to the asphalt, sheltering her under his golf umbrella. They were heading across the main parking lot to the building where their boss, Carter Thompson, would be meeting with the President of the United States in a few minutes. Kate wondered how close to the building she would be allowed to get before the swarm of beefy men in dark windbreakers detached her from Davis Lee.

  “Well?” she prodded.

  He paused for a heartbeat, then looked down at her. “You ever been accused of being subtle?”

  “Never,” she replied. “I’m from Brooklyn. We don’t do subtle.”

  “Now that’s just too damn bad, honey. My mama might like you if it weren’t for that.”

  Kate rolled her eyes. “Quit channeling Jethro Bodine. I need to talk to you, Davis Lee.”

  He grinned. “See now, Kate, I just follow J. R. Ewing’s basic rule of life. ‘Once you can fake sincerity, you can achieve anything.’ It’s a Southerner’s eleventh commandment, at least when dealing with y’all.”

  Kate shot him an exasperated look.

  Davis Lee just laughed and snugged her against him for a second, then dropped his arm. “So, how’s things, darlin’? Looks like you’re having some trouble these days.”

  “Uncharacteristically, yes, I am. And I can’t figure out why.”

  “Maybe your voodoo dolls have too many pins stuck in them.” He lifted a hand in greeting to someone Kate didn’t recognize.

  “Voodoo is for people, not weather,” she snapped. “I’m serious, Davis Lee. And seriously pissed off. I missed a hailstorm in Montana, a flood in Minnesota, and a straight-line windstorm in Oklahoma. Three events in three states in three months.” She shook her head. “It makes no sense. I’ve reviewed the data from the land stations and satellites. Cross-checked everything. I don’t know how I missed them. And don’t try to make me feel better by
saying everyone else missed them, too. It won’t work. I’m better than everyone else and we both know it.”

  “I can’t disagree with you there. You’re damned good.” He took a sip from the bottle of beer he held. His hand completely covered the label, but she knew it was nonalcoholic. Davis Lee didn’t like mistakes—his own or anybody else’s.

  “Don’t stop there,” she said dryly. “What about the storms?”

  His eyes were still on the crowd when he said, “It’s not an exact science, is it?”

  The offhand comment took her by surprise, and she swallowed a tart reply. “No, it isn’t.”

  He glanced down at her. “You rollin’ over and playin’ dead so soon?”

  “What’s the likelihood of that?” she replied, forcing a grin. “I intend to find out what went wrong.”

  “Let me know when you do.”

  Here goes. “It might be sooner than you think. I wrote a paper about those storms and submitted it to a conference. It was chosen for presentation. You don’t mind, do you?”

  He studied her for a moment and then said, “I don’t know. Do I? What conference is it?”

  “An annual conference on severe local weather.”

  “Local where?”

  She gave a silent laugh. “Anywhere. Everywhere. Look, you send me to it every year—”

  “I do?”

  “Yes, you do. Do you remember what it is I do for you, Davis Lee? I study local weather and make forecasts.”

  “And y’all have conferences about it?”

  Great. Jethro’s back. “We do,” she replied patiently.

  “So with this paper you’ll be contributing to the body of knowledge?”

  “Yes. But you don’t have to say it with such skepticism.”

  Smiling, he bobbed his head. “My apologies.” He paused. “You’ve done some pretty good things for us, Kate, with that streaming data going straight from those feeds into those woo-woo databases you made. You’re not going to give away the farm, are you? Or tell all your secrets?”