Summary

In the Prologue, Barry introduces his readers to Paul Lewis, a first-generation medical scientist who was brought into the Navy as a lieutenant commander to help diagnose a strange sickness spreading among sailors in Philadelphia.

Barry next describes the symptoms of the strange disease as being violent coughing, bleeding from noses and ears, terrible headaches, and body aches. The disease was also spreading rapidly even though the military was isolating sick people and their contacts. In a Navy facility in Boston, the number of sick had risen from 19 in one day to 600 three days later.

Lewis, whom Barry describes as being a hero and warrior in the medical field, was tasked with identifying the pathogen making the men sick and creating a vaccine. Lewis did not like the way he was forced to work quickly because he had to abandon science...