In 1989, a shipment of 100 monkeys arrived at a biomedical supply company in Reston, Virginia. There, in a small complex across from a McDonald's and a playground, the animals began to get sick. Their intestines turned to the consistency of gumbo. One by one they died a grisly and horrible death. Too late, the custodians realized the culprit was Ebola, one of the deadliest of all known viruses. The Hot Zone reads like the finest fiction but is actually the true story of how this horrifying virus came to the suburbs of Washington, D.C. potentially exposing the unaware population.