Freddie wasn’t the only person having sleepless nights because there was a killer on the loose.

    All over the planet, eyes were watching. Radars were spinning. Way up in space, satellites were gazing down. TV channels were broadcasting updates all day and all night. Aircraft were providing extensive aerial surveillance.

    The chase was on.

    Everyone was jumpy.  Even though they’d been half-expecting him.

    His hunting season usually lasted from the beginning of June until the end of November and, now, it was mid-July.  So, really, it had just been a matter of time before he made his grand entrance.

    At first, the killer had been nothing but a small, slow-moving red blip on the live satellite picture Freddie was now studying.  But, within a couple of hours, he’d grown in size and picked up speed. Then he’d headed straight for Miami.

    His killing ground was vast – an area that stretched all the way from the Gulf Coast of the United States in the north to the Caribbean in the south. Sometimes, he even strayed into the Eastern Pacific all the way up to California.

    The killer knew every inch of the area. But so did Freddie. He’d tracked many others just like him across exactly the same territory.

    Their names would be imprinted on his memory forever. Dennis. Emily. Rita. Nate. Wilma. It was a roll call of death. The images of the terrible things they’d done came flooding back into his mind. The overturned cars.  The wrecked houses. The lifeless, decaying bodies littering the streets.

    That was the bloody legacy they’d left behind.
   
    They were vicious and without conscience –  in their attacks, as relentless as starving jackals.
   
    They were one of the biggest threats the world had ever known.

    Hurricanes.
    
    Over the past few years, they’d begun appearing in record numbers. Freddie swivelled his chair towards his computer keyboard and accessed the website of the National Oceanographic & Atmospheric Administration at www.noaa.gov/  the main weather-data gathering agency in the United States. Then he clicked through to the micro-site for the National Hurricane Center. They had responsibility for monitoring all tropical storms, depressions and hurricanes in the North Atlantic. In  2003 there had been seven hurricanes in the area. In 2004, that had increased to nine. But 2005 was the busiest hurricane season ever. There had been fifteen hurricanes in total, the biggest number since 1944.
   
    It was like a plague.

    And every new hurricane seemed to be bigger and more powerful than the last.
Freddie took a folder from the pile on his desk and flicked through its pages until he found one headed The Saffir Simpson Hurricane Scale.  This was the official table used to rate a hurricane’s intensity.

Category	Definition-Effects
1	Winds : 74-95 mph Damage to unanchored mobile homes and trees.  Coastal flooding, piers and light structures threatened.
2	Winds : 96-110 mph Roofing material, door, and window damage. Mobile homes at risk. Flooding causes small unprotected sea-craft to break their moorings.
3	Winds : 111-130 mph Some structural damage to small residences, utility buildings and outer walls. Mobile homes are destroyed. Flooding near the coast  causes floating debris hazard. Terrain may be flooded well inland.
4	Winds : 131-155 mph More extensive outer wall failures with some complete roof structure  failure on small residences. Major erosion of beach areas. Terrain may be flooded well inland.
5	Winds : 155+ mph Complete roof failure on many residences and industrial buildings.  Some complete building failures with small utility buildings blown over or away. Flooding causes major damage to lower floors of all structures near the shoreline. Massive evacuation of residential areas may be required.

    
    Running his finger down the page, Freddie didn’t see facts and figures. He saw a chart of death and destruction.

    He cast his mind back to the TV news pictures of the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina throughout Louisiana and Mississippi in August, 2005.  She’d been Category 5 and in her brief two day visit had killed over 1,300 people and caused over a billion dollars worth of damage.
   
    No wonder everyone was keeping an eye on this latest arrival. They were all asking themselves the same question. What if he turned out to be the biggest killer yet? Bigger even than Katrina? Freddie’s stomach flipped at the thought.

      The latest data showed that the killer was now spinning at speeds in excess of 80 miles per hour, had grown to over 200 miles wide and 10 miles high.

    He was already a Category 1 hurricane.  Which was bad enough.

    What on earth would happen if he reached Category 5?
   
    Freddie checked his live satellite feed.

    Normally, a satellite image of a hurricane showed a huge white circular cloud-formation spinning round and round like candy-floss being made, the strands binding together around the stick, growing thicker and thicker.  There was always a small, empty, circular spot in the middle where there was no movement at all – the so-called ‘eye’.

    But this killer was completely black, like a vampire’s cloak swirling in the wind. And his eye … it gave Freddie the creeps. It was bright red, like a blazing lump of coal. And something else was very strange.

    It seemed to be moving, just like a curious human eye.

    First, it looked to the left.  Hesitated for a moment. Then looked to the right. Could be a glitch in the satellite signal, thought Freddie. He adjusted the picture-definition. But, as he brought up the enhanced image, the eye quite clearly moved again.

    As if it were alive.

    And then it looked straight at him.

    Freddie reeled back from the screen in surprise.
  
    That just wasn’t possible.
   
    Was it?