unappealing as possible. She sat up slowly and watched in her own mirror as four black men jumped out of the bed of the truck. They wore smart-looking jeans with fitted t-shirts, not the ragged old military uniforms she had seen on other rebel fighters around Goma.
One of them jogged up to the Land Cruiser and rapped against the hood with the butt of his rifle. The whites of his eyes seemed far too big as he stood there grinning at her.
“Out!” He shouted suddenly. “You must get out now.”
ATLANTA, GEORGIA
6:17 a.m.
Bill Shackleton poured a generous helping of milk over his cereal and sat down in front of the laptop. The morning routine. He’d been eating Wheaties for thirty years, ever since General Mills first signed on as his only sponsor for that ill-fated rookie season. The company hadn’t stayed loyal to him, after the torn ACL and botched repair, but he was a man of simple needs and saw no reason to mix things up. He unconsciously glanced up at the framed box cover hanging above him. A much younger and leaner looking version of Willy Shackleton, first-round NBA draft pick, smiled down at him. It had been a fleeting taste of the high life, and he didn’t miss it.
The injury forced him to move on, and he finally found what he was looking for. Work that actually meant something in the grand scheme of life.
Chief, Viral Special Pathogens Branch.
The title had a certain ring to it, something that made people react with a slight shiver when he told them what he did. It also meant he was responsible for tracking and stopping the scariest diseases the world had ever known. Ebola, hantavirus, Kyasanur forest disease, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever. And of course, smallpox. Bill Shackleton held the key to one of the world’s two known remaining stockpiles of the otherwise extinct virus. It was a weighty calling, and he was proud to bear it.
Shackleton knew he didn’t have to check his work e-mail at home, but he felt a sense of duty that had grown over his years at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. If he wasn’t available around the clock, who would be? He had worked hard to get where he was, and he wasn’t going to drop the ball on the American people.
The dining room windows lit up with a bright white flash, and he paused with the spoon halfway to his mouth. One, one-thousand, two, one-thousand.
Crack! His hand shook, spilling milk on his khakis. Damn, and I was expecting that one. So the storm had arrived. Good thing, since that’s all anyone could talk about on the news last night. Keep those guys in business one more day. Lightning in a hurricane, though? That was a little out of the ordinary.
He scanned through the inbox, almost hoping for something that actually needed his attention. There were always reports from the regional offices and teams working out in the field. But it had been a quiet couple of months. Yes, that was good for the public health. Good for all the people who weren’t dying scary deaths from mysterious diseases. But it wasn’t ideal for ensuring that his office got appropriate federal funding for the next fiscal year. He needed to prove that his unit was doing something worthwhile in order to maintain the allocation of money they would need in the case of a real emergency. Just another inefficiency that came along with working for the government.
And quite simply, he was bored. Bored with a slight trace of nervousness. As an infectious disease epidemiologist and veterinarian used to chasing the worst of the worst from one global hotspot to the next, Shackleton didn’t like to sit around twiddling his thumbs.
He clicked on the filtered folder titled, “ProMED,” and smiled as the messages loaded up. Five years as moderator of the zoonotic and vector-borne disease list had given the online disease reporting system a special place in Shackleton’s heart. It wasn’t just an e-mail list—the community it represented was a treasure-trove. Where else could you
One of them jogged up to the Land Cruiser and rapped against the hood with the butt of his rifle. The whites of his eyes seemed far too big as he stood there grinning at her.
“Out!” He shouted suddenly. “You must get out now.”
ATLANTA, GEORGIA
6:17 a.m.
Bill Shackleton poured a generous helping of milk over his cereal and sat down in front of the laptop. The morning routine. He’d been eating Wheaties for thirty years, ever since General Mills first signed on as his only sponsor for that ill-fated rookie season. The company hadn’t stayed loyal to him, after the torn ACL and botched repair, but he was a man of simple needs and saw no reason to mix things up. He unconsciously glanced up at the framed box cover hanging above him. A much younger and leaner looking version of Willy Shackleton, first-round NBA draft pick, smiled down at him. It had been a fleeting taste of the high life, and he didn’t miss it.
The injury forced him to move on, and he finally found what he was looking for. Work that actually meant something in the grand scheme of life.
Chief, Viral Special Pathogens Branch.
The title had a certain ring to it, something that made people react with a slight shiver when he told them what he did. It also meant he was responsible for tracking and stopping the scariest diseases the world had ever known. Ebola, hantavirus, Kyasanur forest disease, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever. And of course, smallpox. Bill Shackleton held the key to one of the world’s two known remaining stockpiles of the otherwise extinct virus. It was a weighty calling, and he was proud to bear it.
Shackleton knew he didn’t have to check his work e-mail at home, but he felt a sense of duty that had grown over his years at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. If he wasn’t available around the clock, who would be? He had worked hard to get where he was, and he wasn’t going to drop the ball on the American people.
The dining room windows lit up with a bright white flash, and he paused with the spoon halfway to his mouth. One, one-thousand, two, one-thousand.
Crack! His hand shook, spilling milk on his khakis. Damn, and I was expecting that one. So the storm had arrived. Good thing, since that’s all anyone could talk about on the news last night. Keep those guys in business one more day. Lightning in a hurricane, though? That was a little out of the ordinary.
He scanned through the inbox, almost hoping for something that actually needed his attention. There were always reports from the regional offices and teams working out in the field. But it had been a quiet couple of months. Yes, that was good for the public health. Good for all the people who weren’t dying scary deaths from mysterious diseases. But it wasn’t ideal for ensuring that his office got appropriate federal funding for the next fiscal year. He needed to prove that his unit was doing something worthwhile in order to maintain the allocation of money they would need in the case of a real emergency. Just another inefficiency that came along with working for the government.
And quite simply, he was bored. Bored with a slight trace of nervousness. As an infectious disease epidemiologist and veterinarian used to chasing the worst of the worst from one global hotspot to the next, Shackleton didn’t like to sit around twiddling his thumbs.
He clicked on the filtered folder titled, “ProMED,” and smiled as the messages loaded up. Five years as moderator of the zoonotic and vector-borne disease list had given the online disease reporting system a special place in Shackleton’s heart. It wasn’t just an e-mail list—the community it represented was a treasure-trove. Where else could you
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