Three years ago I wrote a 'novel'. Even got as far as getting an agent, and by golly my timing was good. It was a story about a new infectious disease spreading worldwide and the bungling US response. But in the end what the process demonstrated is that I should probably stick to non-fiction. If you can't sell umbrellas when the skies are fast-darkening, maybe it says something about your umbrellas. One editor's response from January 2020: "I thought the story had a certain resonance that might appeal to readers worried about real-world pandemics, but I didn’t always feel the plot had a fresh enough hook." That was kind: there are parts that I already cringe at having written. Still, I find it of minor personal historical interest, --not least that there were things I though were stretching plausibility in fiction that turned out to happen in real life a few months later. Here it is.