Peyton pulled her shoulder-length black hair into a ponytail and smoothed out her rumpled uniform. She straightened the silver oak leaf that designated her rank and walked to the whiteboard.

Sixty-three faces focused on her. She saw nervousness and excitement and, above all else, trust—absolute trust in her ability to guide them through the coming deployment, to keep them safe, and to teach them what they needed to know. She felt the weight of their trust and the burden of her duty. She was an epidemiologist, but she considered her most important job to be that of a teacher. As an EIS instructor, it was her job to prepare her students for whatever they might encounter after their fellowship. The men and women who sat before her were the next generation of public health leaders. And one day, one of them would likely be standing where she was: leading a future CDC mission, or a state or city health department, or conducting vital research for the National Institutes of Health.

Being a teacher was a role she relished, because it was so important, and because along her own career path she herself had been lucky enough to have good teachers who cared. Fifteen years ago, Peyton had been sitting in a crowd like this one. She had been one of these faces, and it had been Elliott standing before them, giving a similar talk. She remembered how nervous she was during her first deployment. She still felt a hint of those nerves. Sometimes she wondered if there was a little excitement mixed in—the thrill of the mission, the stakes, the chase to find the origin of the outbreak and stop it before a catastrophe occurred. She had come to live for days like these. Being in the middle of a crisis almost felt more natural to her than the downtime she spent in Atlanta.

Since it was a long flight and they would need to adjust to the eight-hour time difference between eastern Kenya and Atlanta, Peyton had decided to divide her briefing into two parts. The first would be background—information many of the full-time, seasoned CDC personnel knew by heart. Many of the EIS officers did too, but a refresher was prudent, and it was a great way to break the ice. This was the first foreign deployment for many of the officers, and Peyton knew they were nervous. Going over what they already knew would give them a boost of confidence.

She grabbed a blue marker from the whiteboard’s tray. “Okay, let’s get started. As you know from the preliminary briefing, we’ll be splitting up in Nairobi. Eleven of you will be assisting with operations there; the remainder will join me in Mandera and will likely travel to the surrounding areas. However, I want each of you to be versed on our PPE protocol for the deployment, and I want to share some basic background information. We’ll cover mission-specific directives once we get closer to landing.”

She quickly covered their PPE, which included gowns, coveralls, hoods, goggles, boot covers, gloves, and other items used to protect against infectious material.