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like a tank.
    “Approximately two hours ago, CDC fielded a call from a general practitioner in Fort Walton, which is on the coast about ninety miles west of Tallahassee. The physician—a Dr. Mayer—was reporting the death this morning of a fifty-three-year-old male who collapsed in the clinic where she works. Dr. Mayer indicated that the dead man presented with symptoms consistent with those of three other patients she had already examined this morning.”
    Porter paused for a moment.
    “And here’s worse news, people. Dr. Mayer says her waiting room was full of people with upper-respiratory complaints—an unusually high number, she believes.”
    The surgeon general spoke up.
    “Can we confirm it’s our virus?”
    Porter shrugged. “I’ve got a team in the air now”—he glanced at the wall clock—“and they should be landing in a few minutes. We’ll get swabs of the dead man and the three other patients, and run a field antibody test. My prediction is it’s H1N1. If that’s the case, I have no doubt that we will find others. It’s only a matter of time.”
    From the chair beside Beck, Krewell’s voice was hard, uncompromising.
    “Time,” he said, loud enough for the room to hear, “may be what we have the least of.”
    All eyes swiveled to Krewell. There was a silence for a moment, an appraisal of sorts. Then the senator spoke.
    “Dr. Krewell, with all due respect, we’re aware of your position. I’m certain the Special Pathogens Branch is sincere in its concern. But three or four cases of the flu—most of them not even confirmed—don’t make for an emergency.”
    “This isn’t just ‘the flu,’ Senator,” Krewell said. “Not this variant of H1N1.”
    “Pardon me.” Beck spoke up, feeling like a man come late to the party. “I don’t know anything about this . . . H1-what- ever.”
    “Sure you do,” Krewell said. “Maybe not by that name.”
    “The form of H1N1 we’re looking at doesn’t exist in nature,” Porter said. “At least, we believe it hasn’t for more than eighty years. But when it was making the rounds, back in 1918, it was called the Spanish flu. And now it’s back.”
    “Jesus Christ,” Beck said softly. “My great-grandfather died from that.”
    “Really?” Porter said. He spoke in a voice intended to carry throughout the room. “So did forty million other people.”

Chapter 3
    Fort Walton Beach, Florida
July 21
    It was gloriously hot on the beach, moderated only slightly by the steady breeze that blew in from the sea. Gulls swooped in, hovering to investigate a scrap of bread crust on the sugar white sand before banking away in search of fresher sustenance. A sandpiper, either hungrier or less choosy than his larger cousin, darted in comically on its stiff bird legs and snatched up the morsel in his beak. Outside the surf line, fifty yards from shore, the occasional mullet broke the sun-dappled surface in fancy or in flight.
    Katherine Casey—Katie to her friends—stretched languorously in the bright sunlight. She lay on her back, eyes closed, one knee carefully bent in a way she hoped displayed her fifteen-year-old charms to her best advantage. This, despite the fact that there were no teenage boys within view and only a handful of older male specimens in evidence. And most of them must have been thirty, maybe thirty-five—if not absolutely ancient, she told herself, then at least teetering on antique.
    Still, Katie thought, savoring the sensation of warm sun on mostly bared flesh, it doesn’t hurt to practice.
    “Sure beats hanging around Arlington, doesn’t it?”
    The voice came from Carly Holmes, who at seventeen constituted the adult supervision for the trio. Carly had the car, a Chinese red LeMans; she had the credit card, a Gold American Express belonging to a mother both absent and indulgent; and she had the supreme self-confidence that came of past consequences habitually avoided. In this, she was the most experienced among her companions.