PROLOGUE

What if you could control the weather?

 

“What if one man could control the weather?”

“Only Allah can control the weather.”

“Not true.”

Thousands of miles away, in Iran, the ayatollah snorted with derision.

“You think you have the power of Allah, now? You think your billions of dollars make you God? This is heresy.”

“Not heresy. Technology. I can make it rain. I can stop the rain. I can harness the power of the storm and I can magnify it. I can bring the Flood. I can wash away hillsides, destroy homes; I can take a swath of some of the most expensive real estate in the United States and I can rain down upon it the wrath of Allah at the infidel.”

“You would wage jihad by weather?”

“Does it not say in the holy Quran, we helped him against those who rejected him. They were surely a wicked people, so we drowned them all. Is it not a beautiful idea?”

“When will you do it?”

“When the right storm comes. Then I shall magnify it. I will give California the ARk Storm of their nightmares.”