It all began with another 'local difficulty' in Central Africa.

Many fled, gathered across three borders in make-shift and increasingly insanitary camps. Inevitably, disease and malnutrition ran ahead of the limited aid. Red Cross, Medicin San Frontieres and the others did the impossible, kept the death rate down to the usual grim toll.

When a nurse took ill and died of a high fever, a hemorrhagic fever, no-one really noticed. What's one such tragedy among thousands ? Close ranks, work on. Then two more nurses and a doctor succumbed. It happens. Three more fell ill. That week put a dozen aid-workers in body-bags. The flares went up...

CDC took point, with a dozen HotZoners plus support. MSF sent seven. SOTM spared three-- Su, Jayne and me. We staged through Cameroon, who provided logistics and Blue Helmets. Our convoy cut across the disputed corner.

The first camp was the stuff of nightmare: Dead and dying everywhere, medics down to a couple of exhausted nurses and volunteers, stores looted and trashed. Those who could walk had fled, spreading disease. The only good news was the victims included most of the local bandits and militias. Gang-raping contagious patients had had Darwinian consequences...

That camp gave us end-stage data. We left a burial detail, moved on. Second camp was worse. Death-rate was peaking. CDC tried to find the agent. Rest of us did what we could, mostly triage...

Then half of us moved to Camp #3, which was reaching collapse. Rest of that month passed in a blur.

We did find the agent, a resistant Pneumococcus with a mutant Phage hitch-hiker -- Like Legionnaires' on steroids. Specialised antibiotics would quell the bug, viral inhibitors would stop the phage. But, this was a triply contested corner of central Africa. Our Blue Helmets faced five or six factions of assorted lawlessness and dubious provenance. Budget 'relief' drugs were few, those new drugs were fewer, and each convoy was 'tolled' four ways.

Then we caught it, too. Blue Helmets went down like flies. Us Hot Zoners were luckier, we'd had umpteen vaccinations. We got an immune response. The only drug we had in quantity seemed to be stale Aspirin, so we took that for our fever and worked on...

Blue Helmets lost half their number. CDC bagged four good people, med-evac'd five. MSF bagged three. Two more never worked HotZones again. Su scraped through. Jayne got a bleeding ulcer, worked until she dropped, carried on with a drip running. I lost 50 pounds and my hair...

The Blue Helmets and quarantine contained the outbreak: too virulent, it killed its carriers...

Yes, I've seen the conspiracy theories. None of them hold even a figment of truth. It certainly was not a BioWar test-run. CDC checked for gene-splices, found nothing un-natural. Whole mess was another 'Out of Africa' event, like Lassa, Ebola or SIV...