During their fellowship, EIS officers often worked in the field, on the front lines of outbreaks. During the 2014 Ebola outbreak, every one of the 158 EIS officers deployed. They served in seventeen countries, eight states, Washington, DC, and the CDC’s Emergency Operations Center. During that time, they collectively contributed 6,903 days of service—almost nineteen years combined. Peyton hoped for everyone’s sake that the current outbreak would be concluded much more quickly.

Peyton was the CDC’s leading field epidemiologist, and she was also an EIS instructor. She took both jobs very seriously. The EIS officers she was training could well be making the calls during the next major outbreak or leading the first response at the state level or overseas. Alumni from the program included the current CDC director, past and current acting surgeon generals, branch and division leaders across the CDC, and state and local epidemiologists across the country.

She hadn’t had a chance to work with every fellow in the current class, and this might be a good opportunity. She began browsing through the personnel files, assembling her team.

At seven a.m., Peyton stood at the podium in Auditorium A of Building 19 on the CDC campus. A fourth of the EIS officers were deployed at local and state health offices; they had dialed in to the presentation. The officers who worked at CDC HQ were assembled in the room. One hundred and twenty faces stared down at Peyton.

“Good morning. I’m about to brief you on an outbreak of what we believe is a viral hemorrhagic fever in a small town in Kenya. Pay close attention. Some of you will be deployed today; we’ll fly to Kenya this afternoon. Others will support our field operations from CDC HQ, for now. Depending on how things go, some of you may end up deployed to the field at a later date. Take notes, ask questions, and learn all you can. Your lives may depend on it. And so could someone else’s.

“Okay. Here’s what we know so far…”

Chapter 8

At eight a.m., the EOC’s conference room was overflowing. Employees from several CDC divisions as well as representatives from the State Department and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) were on hand.

Peyton sat at the table next to Elliott Shapiro. The EIS agents she’d selected for the deployment were in Auditorium A, watching the conference on a projection screen.

After introductions, Elliott led a briefing on the current situation. The State Department representative, Derek Richards, spoke next.

“From our perspective, this is an outbreak in the worst possible place at the worst possible time. Let’s start with some background.”

Richards clicked his mouse, and an image of a badly burned building appeared.

“August, 1998. Truck bombs exploded outside the US embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. In Nairobi, 213 people died. Four thousand were injured. The attack was linked to al-Qaeda. In fact, it’s what caused the FBI to put bin Laden on the ten-most-wanted list for the first time. Less than two weeks later, the Clinton administration launched cruise missiles at Sudan and Afghanistan in Operation Infinite Reach. The hit on bin Laden failed. In response, the Taliban renewed their commitment to harbor him, and the rest is history.