Seduced by the Storm (5 page)

It
was time to take back his life, to find a way to deal with the man named
Alek—who was not only his biological father, but the mastermind behind Itor
Corp, ACRO’s rival agency—once and for all. The one who’d almost taken the
agency Dev’s parents had built from the ground up—and nearly taken Dev’s soul
with it.

But
first, it was time to stop a man-made hurricane from wiping out a major U.S.
city, and after that possibly the entire free world.

"Devlin,
it’s nearly time." Sam, ACRO’s most respected psychic, one who’d been with
the agency since its inception, stood in the doorway, and automatically, for a
split second, he thought about using his controlled remote viewing to see her—a
habit that was hard to break, since his psychic gifts were as strong as they
were before he’d gotten his sight back.

Sam
had known his parents, had worked hard with them to ensure the agency’s
success. She did so again when she’d taken care of him over the past months,
helping to shield his mind from Alek, so the head of the enemy agency couldn’t
learn any more of ACRO’s secrets.

Like
the fact that one of ACRO’s operatives, Ryan Malmstrom, had infiltrated Itor.
And hadn’t been heard from since Alek announced last May that he knew about the
spy, something that ate at Dev like acid. He’d tried to use his CRV to get an
image of Ryan, but after one clear, disturbing impression of the operative
strapped down to a medical table, he’d only been able to conjure fuzzy,
distorted images that grew darker and more distant with every try.

"I’m
getting up," he told her, rising to look out the large window overlooking
the acres of land where the Animal Division horses roamed freely, and wondered
if he could take up one of the small Cessnas this afternoon, a spin through the
wild blue yonder…

"You
have too much work to do to think about flying today," Sam teased.

"There’s
never too much work to stop flying," he said, and the thought of being
able to get into the cockpit as more than just a passenger heated his body with
excitement.

"You
still need to keep your mind shielded as much as possible," Sam told him.
"You know I believe in the power of the mind over the power of
drugs."

Still,
she handed him the bottle of pills specially developed by a team of ACRO
scientists to totally and completely block Dev’s mind from being read or broken
into. A way to control the dreaded mind rapes that I-Agents had no compunction
about utilizing at whim, leaving their victims nearly paralyzed with pain and
violated memories.

"You’re
ready, Devlin."

"I
know, Sam, I know. But you’re going to miss winning our nightly poker
game," he teased. Ever since he’d been here, he hadn’t been allowed near
op reports or other agents, save for a handful of psychics. In fact, he hadn’t
done this much of nothing since forever—but the return of his sight smoothed
out many of the rough edges.

"Oz
saved your life by getting rid of the spirit who haunted you," Sam
continued. "We owe him."

"But
I’m sure the rest of the agency is giving him a hard time." Dev knew Oz,
his longtime, on again/off again lover and the love of Dev’s life, was strong
enough to take it, to handle the role of leader in Dev’s stead. But Oz had been
gone for so long from any sort of teamwork environment, Dev knew he had to be
squirming.

"Is
he staying?"

"Oz
is staying, Sam." For four long months, his memories were the only way he
had of communicating with Oz. Memories full of restless, inherently forceful
sexual urges that comforted him—because that meant Oz was thinking of him,
dreaming of him. Sharing the memory. "I don’t know if he’ll continue to
work at ACRO, but he’s staying." Dev wasn’t going to make that mistake
again, wasn’t going to let Oz take off into the night.

When
the ghost, the tortured spirit of a murdered ex–Itor agent named Darius, began
haunting Dev years ago and then returned for more this past spring, he hadn’t
been sure he had the strength left to deal with it. Both times, Oz was the one
to help him—and now that issue was literally dead and buried.

And
Dev needed to get back and deal with the most pressing issue, the one that had
been weighing on his mind heavily—the weather machine that was still in Itor’s
hands. Although, if his calculations were correct, Wyatt would be ready to take
it down.

Still,
he never expected things to happen that easily, and he had a strong sense of
dread that this time he was right.

"HALEY,
WE HAVE all the forecast models you asked for." Jeremy Bondy, ACRO’s
hydrometeorologist, stood in Haley Begnaud’s office doorway. Nervous energy had
him bouncing on his toes, his shaggy red hair sweeping into his eyes.

"Thank
you," Haley said. "Great work." Better than great, considering
that just an hour ago she’d burst into the weather lab’s workstation and
shouted out a list of demands that had ended with
"I need it yesterday.
Move it!"

"Your
husband and Mr. O’Malley are here."

"That
was fast." She grabbed her laptop and various charts and hurried through
the weather station, where several meteorologists worked on the
state-of-the-art equipment she’d brought in since taking over as station chief
a year ago.

"Are
you going to let us in on what’s going on?" Melissa Abel, her
climatologist, asked as Haley breezed by.

"As
soon as I can."

Which
probably meant that she’d be telling everyone about the weather machine the
moment the meeting ended. She’d been studying weather patterns for months,
trying to determine how many of the machines might exist, all the while hoping
the transmissions from Wyatt would help. She knew he’d been sent on a recon
mission only—until last week, when she’d finally concluded that the machine
sitting on the Atlantic oil facility was probably the only one in operation.
Now his assignment was to destroy.

But
he might have been sent too late.

She
entered the briefing room, where Remy and Dev waited at the twelve-person oval
table. She barely glanced at Dev; she hadn’t seen him in months and rumor had
it that he’d regained his sight, and she didn’t want to stare. Remy, though…him
she stared at plenty. After nearly a year of marriage, she still drooled over her
dark-haired, blue-eyed husband when he wore his black BDUs.

Well,
she drooled no matter what he wore—or didn’t wear. But the BDUs gave him an
even more commanding presence, which set her libido on fire—it was crazy,
considering that when she’d met him she’d hated military men. Now she sometimes
asked him to wear his uniform at home. Maybe tonight…

"I
guess this means you broke the code." Dev leaned back in his chair and
folded his hands over his abs.

Snapping
out of her lust, she pulled an Atlantic map down from its roller on the wall.
"It wasn’t that difficult. Your cryptographers were thinking like secret
agents, not meteorologists. It was modified synoptic code. How did Wyatt get it
anyway?"

Haley
was one of the few people who knew that Wyatt was alive and well, and while she
had no idea why the deception was so critical, she did know that he had somehow
transmitted a code he’d come across a couple of weeks ago while on the oil
platform.

"I
don’t know how he got it. What does it mean?"

Haley
spread out the charts she brought with her—hurricane predictions, forecast
models and climate data. "Remy, remember when you asked me why we’ve had
such a quiet hurricane season?"

He
nodded. "Itor could have pounded us. Why haven’t they?"

"I
couldn’t answer that until today. See, I’ve been watching every tiny
disturbance that popped up in the Pacific, the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico.
Some of the storm development contained weather machine signatures, easy to
spot now that I know what I’m looking for. Those storms were bizarre in their
behavior, almost like Itor was playing around. The conclusion I came to is that
their machine has limitations. For instance, it can steer a storm or it can
strengthen one, but doing both strains the machine’s capabilities. Hurricane Katrina
is an example of that."

Dev
frowned. "Katrina was an Itor storm?"

"Absolutely.
And I’m sure New Orleans was the target. Thing is, she should have weakened
more than she did. I think Itor tried to keep up the intensity, and doing so
caused a problem with steerage. The storm slid east instead of striking New
Orleans head-on. The irony is that Itor’s mistake actually caused more damage
overall than a direct strike would have done. The way it turned out, the city
still took massive damage because of the levy failures, and everything to the
east was devastated in a way that might not have happened if Itor had gotten
its way."

"Bastards,"
Remy growled. Louisiana was his home state, and the bayous, food and people
held a special place in his heart. After the time she’d spent with him there,
the state was in her heart as well.

"So
what’s the bottom line?" Dev leaned forward, and finally Haley allowed
herself to meet his sharp gaze.

She
could barely contain an astonished gasp. The man had always been striking, but
there was a new spark about him, a glint in his seeing brown eyes. She wanted
to tell him how great he looked after his sabbatical, but her relationship with
him had always been extremely professional, much more so than he required.

She
cleared her throat. "Basically, I believe that in order for the Itor
machine to achieve maximum effectiveness, its operators have to wait for the
perfect atmospheric and oceanic environments. That’s what the synoptic code was
about. Normally, synoptic code communicates existing weather conditions, but
this code was more of a plan of optimum conditions. And unfortunately for us,
the optimum conditions for a strike are taking shape." She moved to the
map she’d unrolled. "Right now there’s a minimal hurricane in the
Atlantic, moving toward Florida."

"So
you think they’re going to strike, what, Miami?"

"No.
I believe the plan is to make us
think
they’re going to hit
Florida." Dev tapped his fingers on the table as though annoyed, so she
hurried on. "Late-season hurricanes are often East Coast strikes. The
storms can move fast. Terrifyingly fast. If all the conditions fall into the
perfect alignment suggested by Itor’s code, Itor is going to aim a hurricane at
Florida, and while everyone is watching the south and resources are diverted,
at the last minute Itor will slide the storm up the East Coast. They’ll
strengthen it here"—she pointed to a spot on the map—"and here, and
here."

She
took a deep breath. "This sucker will move so quickly that no one will
have time to get out of the way. We’re talking a matter of hours."

"Jesus,"
Dev muttered.

"Where
are they going to bring it in?" Remy asked, but his tight expression told
her he already knew the answer.

"New
York City."

Dev
pegged her with a hard look. "Is that possible? That a hurricane could hit
New York?"

"Powerful
storms are rare, but they happen. And New York is due. The last bad one struck
in 1938, a category three that killed six hundred and changed the landscape
around Long Island. The geological impact is still being felt today. In 1893, a
minimal hurricane wiped an entire island off the map." She pointed to
Manhattan. "The area is far more built up and populated now. Imagine what
will happen if Itor brings in a category five, or even what could amount to a
category six hurricane. It’ll flood the city, the subways. Wind will funnel and
strengthen between the high-rise buildings. Tens of thousands will die. Maybe
more. It’ll take years to recover. This will be the most devastating occurrence
in the modern history of North America. Wyatt needs to destroy that machine.
Fast. If he doesn’t do it before the hurricane crosses this point"—she
pinned a tack to a spot on the map—"it won’t matter if the machine is
destroyed or not. We need to put a backup plan into motion."

Dev,
face pale and appearing a little shaken, turned to Remy. "I don’t know how
easy it’s going to be to contact Wyatt. Looks like you’re our backup
plan."

"I
can’t affect man-made weather. As long as the machine is controlling the
hurricane, I’m useless. We found that out the hard way."

Haley’s
gut clenched at the memory of how Itor had used their tiny prototype weather
machine against Remy—an act that had nearly cost both of them their lives.

"True,"
Haley said, "but Itor will use existing natural conditions to maximize the
effects of the hurricane, and the thing is, those same conditions can be Itor’s
enemies. I know you haven’t done anything this big, but our only hope is for
you to drive faster a front coming from the west. Itor won’t be able to maintain
the storm’s strength if it has to push against the front, which means that if
they manage a direct strike, the storm will be weakened. The problem is that
even if Wyatt destroys the machine after the point I showed you, the storm will
have become self-sustaining and will still be a threat to the eastern seaboard.
In that case, you’ll have to nudge the hurricane itself out to sea."