Category 5 by Paul Mark Tag

About the book

It's the summer of 2007 and the year's hurricane season is like none other. Dr. Victor Mark Silverstein, a black man raised as an infant by Jewish parents, is the Navy's preeminent meteorologist. He suspects his old college roommate, Cameron Fitzby, is behind the unusual weather; twenty-five years earlier, Fitzby proposed using a satellite-based LASER to control hurricanes. Silverstein abhors the thought of encountering Fitzby. In 1982, Silverstein discovered that Fitzby raped his girlfriend, who then committed suicide.

Fitzby, a genius but failed Ph.D. student, has for years searched for funding for his eccentric theories. He finally teams up with a shadowy Middle East group, called Blade of the Sinai. His Egyptian contact, Ghali, provides him unlimited funding.

Fitzby sets up operations in Bermuda and forecasters there become suspicious. The CIA becomes involved, complicated by the fact their agent, Hector Lopez, an old friend of Silverstein, is married to Dr. Barbara Lopez, a specialist in Artificial Intelligence. Barbara has no idea her government sponsor is secreting her research out of the country. Once she completes the software Fitzby needs to steer a hurricane, the Blade decides on a plan -- a terrorist act in which a Category 5 hurricane sweeps up Chesapeake Bay to Washington D.C.

Silverstein and his feisty female assistant, Linda Kipling, search for Fitzby. At Fitzby's insistence, the Blade makes two attempts on Silverstein's life. In the second, Kipling saves him in an act of bravery Silverstein will remember forever.

In the end, Silverstein, Kipling, and Barbara Lopez fly to Bermuda in a chartered jet. To land, they must survive a hurricane Fitzby has positioned off the island. They arrive at Fitzby's control center only to be captured by Ghali. With the clock ticking and little time left to divert the monster hurricane bound for Washington, D.C., the ensuing struggle pits Silverstein against both global and personal evil.

About the author

Paul Mark Tag was born and spent most of his childhood in southwestern Pennsylvania. He received B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in the field of meteorology from the Pennsylvania State University, the last in 1977. Except for a coincident six-year stint in the Air National Guard, Paul worked for the Navy as a research scientist for his entire career, most of it in Monterey, California. His work spanned a variety of research areas, including weather modification, computer weather forecasting, satellite meteorology, and Artificial Intelligence. All of these disciplines come to play in his first novel, Category 5.

Paul retired from government service in 2001 to write fiction full time. Prior to that, he specialized in short stories. He has been published in StoryBytes, Potpourri, Green's Magazine, and The Storyteller.

Paul lives with his wife, Becky, in Monterey. He dabbles in magic, and enjoys watching movies and morning walks with his wife. He is hard at work on Prophecy, the sequel to his first novel.