Page 33 of Pressure Point (Lantern Beach Blackout: Detonation #2)

CHAPTER

THIRTY-THREE

Atlas stood on the beach, waiting for the police and FBI to arrive and investigate Dr. Hartwell’s death. His team had already documented things for themselves—just in case.

The approaching storm clouds created an ominous backdrop. They needed to protect Hartwell’s body until the property authorities could get here. But the weather was making that complicated.

In the distance, a sleek vessel cut through the choppy waters. It wasn’t a fishing vessel. It was more of a luxury watercraft.

Something about it made his tactical instincts flare to life.

The boat was maybe two hundred yards out, moving parallel to the coastline at a speed that suggested surveillance rather than casual boating. Something about it was too deliberate, too focused.

Atlas squinted against the wind. He noted the way the vessel seemed to be maintaining a perfect distance from shore. It was close enough for observation but far enough to avoid easy identification.

That wasn’t a coincidence.

“Quinn.” His hand instinctively moved toward his weapon. “We need to?—”

The first muzzle flash from the boat’s deck cut off his words.

“Get down!” Atlas tackled Quinn to the sand as bullets whined overhead.

The beach erupted in geysers of sand around them as fire from automatic weapons dotted the ground.

Atlas rolled, pulling Quinn behind a piece of driftwood while rounds splintered the wood above their heads.

Hudson and Jake dove toward the rocks near the lighthouse base while Maverick and Kyle dropped behind an old, overturned boat.

His team returned fire, their disciplined three-round bursts a sharp contrast to the sustained spray coming from the offshore vessel.

“Stay down!” Atlas commanded Quinn.

She remained pressed flat against the sand beside him.

He rose just enough to return fire.

Were the gunman shooting to kill?

Or were they trying to send a message? To distract them even?

That was what they needed to figure out.

Quinn’s heart hammered against her ribs as the attack continued.

Sand kicked up around them, stinging her face and sending grit into her mouth. The crack of gunfire filled the air, along with the whine of ricochets. Shouts also sounded as Atlas’s team yelled instructions.

She pressed herself deeper into the sand, trying to make herself as small a target as possible while her mind raced.

Why were they shooting? What did these people want?

The gunfire continued for what felt like hours but was probably only minutes. Then, as suddenly as it had started, the shooting stopped.

Quinn cautiously raised her head. The dark boat accelerated away from shore, its wake cutting a white line through the gray water.

Her ears rang in the sudden, relative quiet.

“Is everyone okay?” Atlas called out, scanning his teammates as they emerged from their scattered positions.

“All good here.” Hudson wiped the sand from his pants, a scowl on his face.

“Fine here,” the rest of the team muttered.

No one looked happy—and rightfully so.

What had that been about?

Had those guys just wanted to scare them? To make a statement? Maybe even just to distract them.

That explanation made the most sense. They’d wanted this body to be discovered. They’d waited for the crew to show up. Then they’d made a statement by firing at them.

She was glad no one had been hurt.

She sat up slowly, her hands shaking as adrenaline coursed through her system.

Before they could talk anymore, Jake’s phone rang.

He listened before lowering his phone and turning toward them.

“That was an urgent weather alert. Hurricane Delilah has strengthened to Category 4 status and is moving faster than predicted. Landfall now expected in eighteen hours, and all coastal areas should begin immediate evacuation procedures . . .”

Something clicked in Quinn’s mind as she listened to the update.

“It’s just as I feared,” Quinn murmured. “The timing, the rapid intensification, the accelerated forward speed—none of it is following natural hurricane behavior.”

“What can we do about it?” Atlas asked.

Quinn remained quiet a moment before asking, “Atlas, can I use your phone?”

He hesitated only a minute before unlocking his device and handing it to her. She quickly searched the latest weather data.

Atlas’s watchful gaze remained on her. “What are you thinking?”

“Hurricanes don’t strengthen that quickly unless . . .” She trailed off, her meteorological training connecting dots that made her stomach clench.

The numbers on her screen told an impossible story.

Delilah’s central pressure had dropped twenty millibars in six hours—a rate of intensification that should have been physically impossible over the relatively cool waters off North Carolina.

“Unless what?” Atlas moved to look over her shoulder.

“Unless someone’s artificially feeding energy into the storm system.”

“What do you mean?” Jake asked. “That sounds awfully science fiction to me.”

“It’s been in development by governments for years,” Quinn said.

She pulled up satellite imagery, pointing to the storm’s structure.

“See how the eye wall is perfectly symmetrical? Natural hurricanes are chaotic, asymmetrical. But if you were using aircraft to seed the storm with silver iodide, or heating the ocean water in its path to provide more energy . . .”

“You’re saying someone’s controlling the hurricane?” Disbelief rocked Maverick’s voice.

“Not controlling—enhancing,” Quinn corrected. “Hurricane manipulation has been theoretically possible for decades. Project Stormfury in the 1960s tried to weaken storms by cloud seeding. But if you reversed the process, if you wanted to strengthen a hurricane instead of weakening it . . .”

“They can do that?” Jake asked.

She gestured to the data on the phone. “Small interventions at critical moments can create massive changes in storm behavior. Heat the water temperature in the storm’s path by just a few degrees.

Introduce nucleation particles to encourage more efficient energy transfer.

Alter the upper-level wind patterns to reduce wind shear. ”

Quinn looked up at the darkening sky, understanding flooding through her with terrible clarity. “They failed with the hurricane in the Bahamas. Now someone is trying again here with Delilah.”

“They needed you to perfect their plan,” Atlas said.

“When I escaped, they decided to proceed anyway. Which, in some ways, might be even more dangerous. They could lose all control of the storm and . . . I don’t even want to think about what that would look like.”

Nausea roiled in her stomach at the thought.