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truer blue than the camera made them to be. With each syllable he uttered, his bushy white eyebrows sailed up and down like horses on a carousel. I could see now how he’d held his seat in Congress for forty years: He was a marquis of middle-America, a man who gracefully accepted the foibles of aging—stooped back, knotted hands, skin thinned from years of sun—without succumbing to them. It would have taken a mighty foe to unseat him, one with an invincible war chest of the sort yet to amass in his New Orleans district.
    “Well, then, Dr. Moon-Oz,” he said. “Without further ado, I ask you to take a moment to summarize your professional background for my colleagues.”
    “A pleasure, sir,” Muñoz said. “I was born and raised in Peru but came to the United States after medical school to train in internal medicine and infectious diseases at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Following that, I assumed the job I hold now at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. My work there focuses on dengue virus, a pathogen transmitted by mosquitoes that causes, among other things, a bleeding disorder called dengue hemorrhagic fever or dengue shock syndrome that shares similarities with the illnesses we’re seeing with XK59.”
    “Which is why we recruited Dr. Moon-Oz in the first place,” McCloskey interjected. “Some initially thought dengue virus might be responsible for the illnesses.”
    “Not all of us,” Congressman Peter Shaker objected. He looked at McCloskey with defiance. “It would be most unusual for dengue virus, transmitted as it is by mosquitoes, to strike simultaneously in various regions of the U.S. given its virtual absence from our country for decades.”
    Flagstaff whispered into my ear: “Shaker’s a physician, too. He practiced for decades before coming to Congress.”
    “A valid point,” Muñoz relinquished, “but with global warming we may see more domestically-acquired mosquito-borne infections.” He pointed to me. “Dr. Krispix can attest to that. The virus he’s working with, West Nile, abruptly entered the U.S. in 1999 and has been spreading throughout the Americas since.”
    Bird, disquieted it seemed for being excluded from a doctor-to-doctor exchange, added: “So, before we discovered XK59 in the victims, we considered a wide array of diagnoses. That’s why we tested the victims for more than forty viruses known to produce fever and bleeding.” He nodded at Muñoz, who, taking the cue, started his slide show.

    “This is just a partial list of viruses we checked the victims for,” Muñoz noted. “But none were present, including dengue.” He turned to me. “West Nile’s not listed because it doesn’t cause bleeding.”
    “Which leads us to XK59,” Bird said, moving Muñoz along.
    “Yes,” Muñoz agreed, displaying a look of irritation for being prodded. “So, let’s define what I mean by a ‘case of XK59 poisoning.’ ”
    He advanced the slide.
    “As you can see, it’s any person in the U.S. who, beginning as early as three weeks ago, experienced abrupt bleeding and exhibited XK59 in one or more tissue specimens.”
    “Did you quantify the level of XK59 in the victims?” I asked.
    “That’s under way at—”
    “—our lab,” Bird spurted. “We should have the results shortly.”
    Another slide
…

    “This is what epidemiologists call an ‘epidemic curve,’ ” Muñoz explained. “It plots the cases by date of onset of illness, location, and whether they survived or died. As you can see, there are twelve victims we know about so far from around the country, all hospitalized. Three have died. The latest fell ill a little more than a week ago on July 20th.”
    I flinched at the location of the most recent fatal case:
Marinero, CA
.
    Congressman Kosta stirred. “Had the victims gathered at a common site any time—at a conference, airplane, or wedding, for example?”
    “No,” Muñoz replied, “which leads me to ask Dr.