This book describes events between 1967 and The second angel poured his bowl 1993. The incubation period of the viruses in this into the sea, and it became tike the blood book is less than twenty-four days. No one who of a deai-mon. suffered from any of the viruseJ or who was in contact with anyone suffering from them can catch -APOCALYPSE or spread the viruses outside of the incubation period. None of the living people referred to in this book suffer from a contagious disease. The viruses cannot surive independently for more than ten days unless the viruses ur" pr-es"*"d and frozen with special procedur"s arrd laboratory equipment. Thus none of the locations in Reston or the Washington, D.C., area described in this book is infective or dangerous. TO THE READEII This book is nonfiction. The story is true, and the people are real. I have occasionally changed the ,,Charles names of characters, including Monet,, and "Peter Cardinal." When I have changed a name, I state so in the text. The dialogue comes from the recollections of the participants, and has been extensively cross- checked. At certain moments in the story, I describe the stream of a person,s thoughts. In such instances, I am basing my narrative on interviews with the subjects in which they have recalled their thoughts often repeatedly, followed by fact- checking sessions in which the subjects confirmed their recollections. If you ask a person, ,,What were you thinking?" you may get an answer that is richer and more revealing of the human condition than any stream of thoughts a novelist could invent. I try to see through people,s faces into their minds and listen through their words into their lives, and what I find there is beyond imagining. RICHARD PBESTON NIGERtA t*- cHAD Tf '\ (.---._._.-./ .,"-r'"",j ./ -'/ ,-/ i L*. !- /.\ l/ 1 t;,*"I' 1'/ ,,)- -?;"' I u o.i '}* ETHroprA ":;;;:r: I CENTRAL N \''$1\''4a .fi AFRICAN ir' L. l:] \ .sa !,::; ; ,; ,:t . JX REPUBLIC t/ \ t\. \l \ l-* 4 I .,.. ..1 \ t ul* . M"tai i l.! NerrC-1 . ir't\ i { r". A'i,' t..,- ./ i:}- \ .\ ^ ,/\.\ Ii:;; llrl s Tri,n-rV 1^. ^ L(\!!\ -J\- -' i lii tttfr . t ri \ 'i ]i:i, -'\'L / v A t. r. r, r.i., ,_vl'F a.rtp:lYpA) i. {ig KENyA ffi$ffi s\i:,;,.'#r s:i,.ItIoa;:,il'Ioaft ) \ ' +:t, E lg -}, f.:.ift:.itla;/A: E m.tr"'- l*f.$r/, op!rtJ<x ; *. coo, ffi;:"^"::".'#iii::. INFECTIOUS AREA ilO UTIAUTHORIZED ENTRY TO OPEN THIS DOOR, PLACE ItT CARD ON SENSOR. Lock Unlock , trBoc€ssrN.G,,. .,' YOU AAE GLEARE,D TO ENTCN. 8.UITE AA-5 t'- .*"' t','. ,,,r., INvESTIGATOH; COt. NAIUCY JAAX AGENTS IN USE: UIU KilOWN :{ t{] ; ri , ilaj:l,'.; li'i , rrr' : : ; ' PROCEEE FONWABD. BIO.SAFETY LE,UEL BI,OTSAFETy LEVEL LOCKER R.OOM r"i 1,..' ,' CAUTION: STATUS: ULTRAVIOLET LIGHT FEMATE . REMOVE EVERYTHING TOUCHING THE SKIN: , CLOTHING, RINGS, CONTACT LENSES, ETC. CHANGE INTO STERILE SURGICAL SCRUBS. VOU ARE CLEARED TO ENTEE. ... BrosaFETv tElrEL CAUTION STAGING AREA BIOHAZARD ALARMS: EIIIABLED BIOSA FETY LEVEL SPACE-SUIT STATUS: gt N EAOY DOOR,/DECON SHOWER ENTER WITHOUT WEARING SPACE SUIT ID CODE FLEASE? ANE CTEANED TO ENTER. PART ONE iti: ,:::i::!ii::i. ;4 j'{'1:i:iiir,.:t.r.+::iiii .,r :iti: : u ..:i '1 '+:::lir ,::: I iilti! : ..: .-:.f::l.ri:r::.r,..' THE SHADOW OF MOI..INT ELGON SOMETHIIUG IN THE FOREST T 5gO NEW YEAR'S DAY [,'harlts Monet was a loner. He was a Frenchman wlru livctl by himself in a little wooden bungalow otr llrt: private lands of the Nzoia Sugar Factory, a plerrlnlion in western Kenya that spread along the Neoin Rivcr within sight of Mounf Elgon, u li.rg", lnlilary, extinct volcano that rises to a height of ft.rurtectr lhousand feet near the edge of ttre Ritt \fslley. Monct's history is a little obscure. As with ftr nrnlty expatriates who end up in Africa, it is not elear whirt brought him there. perhaps he had breerr in some kind of trouble in Fran-e, or per- hapr lrc htd been drawn to Kenya by the beauty of ttte nrrrrrlry. I-lc was an arnateur naturalist, fond of hlllr arrtl irrrimals but not of humanity in general. He was lil'ty-six years old, of medium height and tttcrllunr build, with smooth, straight brown hair; a guorl'hxrking man. It seems that his only close f-tlertd:r wero women who lived in towns around thc trtorrlrlirin, yet even they could not recall much ehrul lrirn ftlr the doctors who investigated his rleallr. llin joh was to take care of the sugar fac- 4 THE HOT ZONE EliMFIIIING IN rHE FOFEST 5 tory's water-pumping rnachinery, which drew wa- R lriuls;17,;",1 slxrcc suit while handling blood in- ter from the Nzoia River and delivered it to many ler.lr-rl wrllr rrrv. miles of sugar-cane fields. They say that he spenr Mnrrrt workcd hard in the pump house during most of his day inside the pump house by thc ilre wt,r,k. ;rrrtl orr his weekends anC holidays hJ river, as pleased if it him to watch and listen to wurrlrl vrsit lorcstccl areas near the sugar faitory. machines doing their work. f le wnrrlrl lrr ing lbod with him, and he would scai_ So often in a case like this, it's hard to pin lFt il ntoulrrl ;rrrd watch while birds and animals down the details. The doctors remember the nle i1 I lc t;ould sit in perfect stillness while he clinical signs, because no one who has seen the people rirrervrrl ;rrr irnimal. who knew him re_ effects of a Biosafety Level 4 hot agent on a hu- eallerl tlr;rl lrc was affectionate with wild rnonkeys, man being can ever forget them, but the effects tlrtrt lrr lrrtl a special way with them. They siid pile up, one after the other, until they obliterate th:rt lre worrkl sit holding a piece of fbod while a the person beneath them. case The of Charles titrrlrLe-y rrp;rroached him, and the animal would Monet emerges in a cold geornetry of clinical fact cal ltorrr lris lrancl. mixed with flashes of horror so brilliant dis and lir tlrt. cvc:rrings, he kept to himself in his bun_ turbing that we draw back and as are blink, if we pakrw llt: lr;rtl a housekeeper, a woman named staring into a discolored alien sun. Jnlttuiir., wlro clcaned up and prepared his meals. Monet came into the country in the summer of lle wac tt.;rclring himself how to ldentify African 1979, around the time that the human immu- hlrtle A cokrny of weaverbirds lived in airee near nodeficiency virus, or srv, which causes eros, made hls hnrrnr, ;urrl hc spent time watching them build a final breakout from the rain forests central of anrl rrririrrl;tin their baglike nests. They say that Africa and began its long burn through the human ane rlay rrrrrr' (llrristmas he carried a sick bird into race. Ans had already failen like shadow a over hiE hurrlqr,, whcl.c it died, perhaps in his hands. The the population, although no one yet knew ex- it bilrl rnAv ltrrvc bccn a *eavetbird-no one knows isted. It had been spreading quietly along the Kin- atttl ll rrriry lravc clied of a Level 4 virus_no one shasa Highway, a transcontinental road that wan- *nrrxq llt. ;rlso had a friendship with a crow. It ders across Africa frorn east to west and passes *ar n lrir.rl ('row, il black-and:white bird that peo_ along the shores of Lake Vctoria within sight of ple ln r\!r'rt.ir sornctimes make into a pet. This Mount Elgon. Hrv is a highly lethal but not very F!nt+ wnr ;r l)'icrrrlly, intelligent bird that liked to infective Biosafety Level agent. not 2 It does petrll un llrc lool of Monet's bungalow and watch travel easily from person to person, and does it ltle rrrss11ssp,1' rrrrrl goings. When the crow was hun_ not travel through the air. You don't need to wear gry, lt woulrl lirrrtl on the veranda and walk in_ 6 THE HOT ZONE doors, and Monet would feed it scraps of foocl from his table. He walked to work every morning through the cane fields, a journey of two miles. That Christmas season, the workers had been burning the fields, and so the fields were scorched and black. To thc north across the charred landscape, twenty-five miles away, he could see Mount Elgon. Thc mountain displayed a constantly changing face of weather and shadow, rain and sun, a spectacle of African light. At dawn, Mount Elgon appeared as a slumped pile of gray ridges receding into haze, culminating in a summit with trvo peaks, which arc opposed lips of the eroded cone. As the sun came up, the mountain turned silvery green, the color of the Mount Elgon rain forest, and as the day prcl- gressed clouds appeared and hid the mountain from view. Late in the afternoon, near sunset, the clouds thickened and boiled up into an anvil thun- derhead that flickered with silent lightning. Thc bottom of the cloud was the color of charcoal, and the top of the cloud feathered out against the up- per air and glowed a dull orange, illuminated by the setting sun, and above the cloud the sky was deep blue and gleamed with a few tropical stars.