While she recognized that public awareness was an important component of her job, Lopez never imagined that these community public-health forums would consume so much of her time. When the thirty-two-year-old epidemiologist had landed the coveted job of officer at the EIS, the Pacific Northwest Epidemiological Intelligence Service, she had envisioned a life of exotic outbreak control and vital infectious-disease surveillance. She pictured herself managing an outbreak of the avian flu, SARS, or some brand-new, emerging pathogen that hit Seattle or one of the other urban centers under her watch. And Lopez knew she could manage such a crisis well—certainly well enough to earn her a job back at EIS’s central command in Atlanta at the Centers for Disease Control. To Lopez the CDC represented the Vatican City of communicable-disease response, and EIS headquarters its Sistine Chapel.

Her frustration with her current assignment of West Nile Virus surveillance was that the bug had yet to reach the Pacific Northwest. As a result, she had nothing to track. She felt as if the only use she lately had for her thirteen years of postgraduate training—including medical school, a masters program, and an epidemiology residency—was in reassuring retirees and terrified mothers that the killer mosquitoes had not swooped down on them and their children.

“Dr. Lopez? Wouldn’t you agree?” David Warmack’s question jerked her out of her daydreaming.

Lopez could tell from the wry smile on Warmack’s face that he knew she hadn’t paid attention to the question or his answer. You old bastard, she thought affectionately. She had a soft spot for Warmack, whose looks and deep resonating voice, she thought, bore a striking resemblance to Gregory Peck. And though Lina had no tolerance for the male colleagues who eyed her with barely concealed desire, she never minded that the happily married old fox shamelessly flirted with her.

Lopez flashed him an “up yours” smile and playfully kicked his foot under the table. “Dr. Warmack, I don’t think I could possibly agree more. After all, as you constantly point out to me, you’re never wrong.”

“Finally, we agree on something!” Warmack said.

The scattering of laughter allowed Lopez to duck the answer. Not wanting to risk a follow-up from the man at the mike, she quickly pointed to a woman waving her arm from the fourth row of the packed auditorium. “Yes. In the red sweater. Ma’am, you have a question?”

Without looking for a microphone, the woman belted out: “I’m still not clear. How do you know if you have West Nile Virus?”

“Most times you don’t know,” Lopez said. “For example, after the first North American outbreak in 1999 in New York, there were only a few hundred cases reported, but a random sampling of the population in Queens suggested that roughly five hundred thousand had been infected.”

“Oh my God!” the woman said, as if she were suddenly stricken with the virus.