Dr. Peter Mallow, a university scientist working on a virulent bird flu, becomes concerned when his brilliant research student, Jorge, "freaks out" during a routine autopsy of a drowning victim. Mallow decides to record his feelings about the troubled young researcher in a lab notebook. Jorge, obsessed with vehicular drownings, persuades Mallow to confront a board of auto-industry safety executives with damning evidence, but the senior scientist is ruthlessly dismissed and his career threatened. Mallow's notes take us into the downward spiral of his scientific career, a devastating hurricane and, eventually, the deadliest pandemic in history. Will Mallow and his notes survive? Can the virus be stopped? And who will receive a Nobel Prize in Medicine?