A Category 4 hurricane, with winds of up to
155 miles per hour, tears roofs off buildings, smashes
windows and doors, and can send floodwaters up to the second
floor. Evacuation is suggested for up to six miles inland.
Hurricane Katrina was a Category 4 when she made
landfall.
Hurricane Simone is a Category 7—the
biggest, strongest storm in recorded history. When she hits
New York City, skyscrapers will fall. Subways and tunnels
will flood. Lower Manhattan and much of Queens and Brooklyn
will disappear under more than thirty feet of water.
All along the Eastern Seaboard, towns and cities are
being evacuated as wind-driven rain lashes the coast and
storm surges crash through seawalls. Roads are packed with
fleeing motorists whose cars are jammed with every personal
possession that can be crammed in, plus family members,
friends, and beloved pets. A huge natural disaster is
brewing in the Atlantic.
Except that Simone isn’t
natural. She’s the product of rogue weather science being
wielded by billionaire Carter Thompson as part of a personal
vendetta against US President Winslow Benson. Once Carter
wanted to bring rain to the desert and feed the starving
peoples of the planet. Now he wants to show Benson—and the
rest of the world—just how powerful wind and water can
be.
If technology created Simone, perhaps technology
can stop her. It’s up to Kate Sherman, once a member of
Carter’s weather team; and Jake Baxter, a weatherman for the
CIA, to try, using a secret US Navy weapon. The catch? It
has to be deployed inside the hurricane.