Storm Rising

Awkward, we share this house, so maybe I should have cleared it with you first. It's not like you brought home a stranger, it's McCord, and I saw this happening two months ago. Meg regarded Kara as much best friend as younger sister, and waggled her fingers in a give it to me gesture. Now stop being stingy with the details. Just because I knew him first doesn't mean I don't want all the sisterly dirt. She leaned in close so she could drop her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. How was he? At that, Kara laughed and flopped back onto the couch beside Meg, turning her head toward her sister. The glint in her eye answered Meg's question before she spoke. Absolutely fantastic. Meg grinned at her slyly and sat back. I would expect nothing less. Kara turned sideways on the sofa, snuggling into the soft cushions, some of the tenseness relaxing from her frame. While we're on the subject of sisterly dirt, what about you and Todd? An image of the firefighter paramedic in question sprang into Meg's mind. Tall and dark, with the muscular build of a man used to sprinting upstairs wearing 60 pounds of gear with 100 pounds of fire hose tossed over his shoulder. They'd met last May when a vengeful man had acted on his personal grudge by blowing up government buildings with C4 loaded drones, uncaring of the innocent bystanders inside who ended up as collateral damage. DC Fire and Emergency Medical Services had been called in, along with any available teams from the FBI's Human Scent Evidence Team, Meg and Hawk among them, to rescue the live victims and recover the dead. Together, Meg and Lieutenant Todd Webb had saved the life of a young girl, and a bond had been forged. Getting close, but we're not quite there yet. Meg's tone was easy. I've been away so much in the last few months, out in California helping with the mudslides, and then in Colorado after that avalanche, not to mention local deployments. Add into that his schedule at the firehouse and things are moving slowly, which is fine for both of us, we're not in a rush. Sometimes that's the best way. Does he know you're headed out of town again? He knew it was likely, but I haven't talked to him since Craig made it official. Craig Beaumont, supervisory special agent for the Forensic K-9 Unit's Human Scent Evidence Team, had only called an hour ago with their orders. I wanted to pack first, Meg continued. Then I'll give him a call and let him know we're headed to Virginia Beach. Kara shifted to look back at the TV. The scene had changed from the sand dunes of Nags Head to the charming, pastel three-story houses of Hatteras. The white cap-topped churning sea roared up to smash in front doors, while the wind screamed and torrents of rain fell at a steep angle. This is going to be bad. It is. Meg's attention was drawn across the room where Hawk stood up and stretched after his nap and then wandered over to her. Hi, buddy. How's my boy? She stroked a hand down his glossy black fur and he sighed in pleasure. They're saying this one could be up there with Sandy. The only good thing is this time they had a better handle on the track of the storm from the beginning and got the appropriate warnings out earlier. But you know we're going to lose people despite all the warnings and evac orders. East Coast weather forecasters had been talking about Hurricane Cole for almost a week, their concerns becoming more strident as the storm approached. It was early in the season for a storm of this ferocity, but the talking heads were already discussing the impact of climate change on extreme weather events. A particularly warm Caribbean Sea and its evaporating water helped produce the dense cloud system that spun into a tropical storm before forming a hurricane. At first, they were hoping the storm would do what 19 out of 20 Atlantic hurricanes do, curve east and burn out over the Atlantic. However, the usual high pressure system over Bermuda that blocks and turns those storms hadn't materialized, and the hurricane had hugged the US coast, running parallel up the eastern seaboard following the warm Gulf Stream. Then a blocking high over Greenland paired with an undulating jet stream over the continental United States and Canada drove the storm westward, where it rolled over the barrier islands of North Carolina and onto land. The governors of North and South Carolina and Virginia had given evacuation orders for communities on the coast. But as always, some inhabitants refused to leave their homes, preferring to take their chances with Mother Nature rather than risk all their to looters, taking advantage of a natural disaster. Those who'd opted to stay had been warned that after a certain point, they were on their own. Emergency services couldn't risk the lives of first responders coming to rescue them if they got into trouble because of their decision to stay, and yet, they remained. Those were the people Meg and her teammates would be sent in to.