Staff at the WHO’s Global Outbreak and Alert Response Network (GOARN) filed the alert along with others they received from around the world that day.

Chapter 18

From his office, Elim watched the soldiers patrol the perimeter. Inside, figures dressed in protective suits roamed the halls. They had spent hours interrogating him, his staff, and his young American patient, Lucas Turner. They were relentless.

The British patient had died four hours ago. His death was quite messy. The man had been barely conscious since arriving, his fever and fatigue rendering him listless. In his final hours, however, he’d tried to rise from the bed and escape his room, shouting, confused, inconsolable. Elim had begun to suit up to enter the room, but they had stopped him. Instead, the suited team entered the patient’s room. They placed a camcorder on a table in the corner and left without offering help, sealing the room again until the patient fell quiet. Then they marched to their trucks, returned with a body bag, and placed the man inside unceremoniously.

When the group had first arrived, Elim had thought the hospital was saved. Now he suspected they were all prisoners here, and they would leave the same way the British patient had.

Chapter 19

When the Air Force transport plane was two hours away from landing in Nairobi, Peyton again walked to the whiteboard.

“Listen up. We’ll be landing soon, so let’s go through a couple of procedural guidelines. We still don’t know what this pathogen is. We may not know for another five days, maybe more. We’re going to proceed as if we’re dealing with Ebola.

“For those working in Nairobi, be in your hotel room at least one hour before sunset. I suggest you eat your meals together, do a head count, and retire to your rooms. Lock the door and wedge something under it. If somebody is missing or late getting back, call them immediately. If they don’t answer, or if anything sounds amiss, call the US embassy and the EOC. Kidnapping and ransom is a possibility in Kenya.

“The security situation in the field may be fluid; consult the deployment briefing handout for SOPs and observe any updates from me. A word on food for those in the field: only eat your MREs. The people you’ll encounter are often very hospitable and will likely be extremely grateful for our help. They may offer you food. It may be the only thing they have to offer. And it may well be safe to eat—but you are ordered to decline. Tell them that your supervisor requires you to eat only the government-issued food and that you’re sorry.

“Any questions?”

Silence fell over the group for a few seconds, then one woman asked, “Are we doing anything organized for Thanksgiving?”

The question caught Peyton off guard. She had already forgotten about Thanksgiving.

“Uh, yeah,” she said. “For those of you in Nairobi, there’s probably something at the US embassy and/or CDC Kenya. I’ll check into details and relay that to your team leaders. We’ll need to arrange security. For the teams in the field with me, we’ll figure something out. Other questions?”