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After the devastation Hurricane Zelda had left behind in Jamaica, everyone on board was aware that this storm was unprecedented. Its power was not just awesome-it was indescribable. Rivers' throat, to use an expression Gardenia himself might use, felt as dry as a mummy's jock-strap.
        'I've flown missions in our own C-130 Hercules, but never into anything like this.' He took a sip from the beaker, glad of the coffee's heat. For a moment there a chill had run through him that had nothing to do with altitude-most of the scientific team wore short sleeve shirts, and crew members were in light, blue uniform overalls.
        Gardenia's stubby hand clamped his shoulder. 'Don't worry, buddy, we've never lost a Brit yet. You may even enjoy it.'
        The NOAA aircraft momentarily dipped a wing and Gardenia's fingers dug hard. His other hand grabbed the edge of the fixed desk. 'Just a coaster ride, Doc.' He grinned, his porcelain-coated teeth rendered even whiter by the thick black moustache above.
        Keeping the coffee level, Rivers stared down into the deep waters below and wondered how this one had started. Over Africa? Winds colliding near the Equator, producing low pressure zones? Six out of a hundred might evolve into storms of something like this magnitude, air drawn in and spinning, the Earth's own rotation driving it faster, giving it power so that as it drifted it picked up moisture from the warm sea, eventually pulling up energy into the atmosphere from the ocean itself, feeding the storm, the clouds becoming ever more turbulent, forming an inner wall that would become the hurricane's core, its centre, the eye.
        'Jamaica and the tip of Cuba are wrecks,' Gardenia remarked as the aeroplane straightened again, 'and it's still only a category four. Let's hope it'll wear itself out soon.'
        'What was the last satellite eye measurement?'
        'Twenny-five, twenny-six miles across before it made landfall, about ten now it's back over the ocean. It appears to be reducing rapidly.' His forehead puckered. 'Let's see… we're around twelve miles away right now, so I figure it'll be more like seven or eight miles across when we reach it.'
        'It's shrinking that fast?'
        ''Pears to be.'
        'And we go straight through.'
        'Uh-huh. Our pilot doesn't like to manoeuvre too much in that kind of space, particularly when it's getting smaller all the time. There's some hard convection inside the eye, and it's pretty intense around those walls.'
        'Thunderstorm updraughts?'
        'You got it.'
        Rivers decided to risk a scalded throat and finish the coffee before the aeroplane took a beating.
        A figure in sweater and chinos came along the aisle towards them. He rested an arm against the bank of monitors where the British climatologist was seated.
        'Need to take over, Jim. Our skipper's playing it safe and going in at 10,000.'
        Rivers rose, taking the drained beaker with him, and Joe Pusey, the flight meteorologist, slipped into the seat. 'Strap yourselves in, guys, things are gonna get rough.'
        The climatologist took a seat opposite, placing the beaker by his feet. As an observer from the British division of the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change, he was not directly involved in this particular operation; he could only sit back while the American scientific officer and his team gathered data and relayed it back to the Hurricane Centre on the mainland. Their prime purpose was to pinpoint the storm's exact centre so that its progress and direction could be charted by the forecasters and warnings to coastal and inland areas could be issued. Probes and sensors mounted on the outside of the plane recorded air pressure, humidity, temperature and wind speeds, while radar showed wind and rain patterns, necessary for predicting the height of the storm surge and assessing potential damage when Hurricane Zelda struck land