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SYNOPSIS

Hurricane Diane is a monster storm that has targeted Virginia Beach as her stepping-stone onto the U.S. mainland.  Her impending arrival has interrupted the lives of everyone in the Tidewater Virginia area and prompted the disaster preparedness authorities to order the evacuation of the cities of Virginia Beach and Norfolk. On September 12, 1991, the outer fringes of the storm have arrived, and emergency evacuation routes from the city are hopelessly jammed with outward bound traffic, presenting an unpredictable and precarious situation for those residents who have delayed evacuating. Greg and Kate Randolph, along with their three children, find themselves in that dilemma and decide to ride out the storm in their home at Plantation Cay, an upper middle class neighborhood located on the eastern branch of the Lynnhaven River.

Carlos Suarez is the powerful and ruthless leader of a Colombian drug cartel that supplies the eastern seaboard of the United States with the huge quantities of cocaine demanded by the insatiable masses of drug addicts in the urban centers and adjacent suburbs. He is traveling on one of the cartel's drug smuggling coastal freighters to a critical rendezvous with his brother, Eduardo, who directs the cartel's east coast drug operation. While the freighter, Cortez, off-loads its shipment of cocaine onto two sport fisherman boats operating out of Virginia Beach, Carlos disembarks to join Eduardo who has accompanied the boats.  The brothers plan to travel with the drug shipment to the cartel's transfer point on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, but Hurricane Diane's early arrival forces the drug traffickers to seek safe haven in Virginia Beach. Relying on the skills of Ron ASplash@ Mann, a Vietnam veteran and local fisherman, the two boats find shelter in a small cove on the Lynnhaven River just as the storm hits with full strength.

While the full might of the storm descends upon the resort city, the Randolph family members huddle in the master bedroom for mutual protection and support. Greg, a retired naval officer, hears the sound of breaking glass at the opposite end of the house and goes to investigate what he thought would be storm damage. Suddenly, he is fighting for the survival of his family, but not against the hazards from Hurricane Diane, rather against unknown and deadly intruders. Supporting him in this violent confrontation is his impetuous daughter, Jackie, a senior at the University of Virginia. Belatedly, Carlos arrives at the Randolph house to discover the body of Eduardo. His every emotion cries out for reprisal against those who killed his only sibling, but he is wise enough to realize that now is not the time to fight this unknown force.  Before departing the bloody scene, he stands over his bother's body and swears revenge.

Miraculously, the Randolphs survive their terrible ordeal and are highlighted in the news media as heroic hurricane survivors who bravely fought off a gang of drug traffickers that broke into their home and attacked them during the height of the storm. Carlos and the remnants of his gang manage to evade the police dragnet looking for them and escape to New York City. There, he boards the Cortez for the return trip to Colombia and to the safe sanctuary of his ranch in the Eastern Highlands.

Diane's wrath has unleashed a chain of events that will affect the Randolph family for years to come. While the family members are recovering from their traumatic experience and returning to normal lives, Carlos patiently plans his revenge.  Now, four years later, his plotting and scheming bear fruit and he exacts a terrible reprisal against those who took his brother from him. The Randolph children are left to pick up the shattered pieces of their lives. The beautiful and resourceful Jackie, now an undercover DEA agent and frustrated at the slowness of the police investigation, takes the initiative and follows a trail of evidence that leads to excitement and intrigue. The trials and tribulations that she goes through to seek retribution require her to resort to the inner most strengths of personal fortitude. If Jackie’s search is successful, she faces a moral decision: Will her quest end with "an eye for an eye," or will she rely on a questionable legal system to right the wrongs done to her family? As she commences her journey, she has come to understand all too well that WHEN DESTINIES COLLIDE fate will be the hunter.