Synopsis

A Russian diplomat disappears while Doc is tagging great white sharks in South Africa, and members of a criminal brotherhood, Bratva, don’t think it’s a coincidence. They track the biologist to Dinkin’s Bay Marina on the west coast of Florida, where Brotherhood mercenaries have already deployed, prepared to pillage and kill in the wake of an approaching hurricane.

No one, however, is prepared for a cataclysmic event that will forever change the island and leaves Doc to deal with escapees from Russia’s most dangerous prison, including a serial killer—the Vulture Monk—who has a taste for blood. His only ally is an enigmatic British inventor whose decision to ride out the storm might have more to do with revenge than protecting a priceless art collection.

Doc has a lot at stake—the lives of his fiancée, Hannah Smith, and their son, plus the fate of his hipster pal, Tomlinson, whose sailboat has disappeared in the Gulf of Mexico. The greatest threat of all, though, is a force that cannot be escaped—a Category Five hurricane that, minute by minute, melds sins of the past with Florida's precarious future.

Chapter 1 Excerpt

I returned an arcane Station Six pistol to the US Consulate in Cape Town, South Africa, unaware a storm that would forever change Florida had gathered to the north, fueled by a mirror that is the Sahara Desert.

In a world of electronic intrusions, I'm too often deafened to the silence of atmospheric tides, saltwater and sunlight-dynamics that can ignite a cataclysm six thousand miles away.

"Has this weapon been fired?" the consulate armorer asked.

The strange bolt action pistol lay on a table. Its bulbous barrel (an integrated sound suppressor) had the utilitarian aspect of a ballpeen hammer.

"At the range a few days ago. Five rounds," I said.

"But not in the field."

"Nope."

"A few practice rounds. That's all?" He sounded disappointed.

"With a bolt action single-shot, five rounds was four too many."

A Cold War assassin's tool was an ironic weapon to issue me, a marine biologist in Africa under the guise of tagging great white sharks.