Hatfill's novel depicts bioterrorist attack

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The plot reads like a late-night, made-for-TV movie -- a mysterious deadly illness, a determined terrorist with murky international ties and an intrepid American researcher who battles the bureaucracy to solve a medical riddle in the nick of time.

But this tale doesn't come from a movie. It is the plot of "Emergence," an unfinished novel by Steven Hatfill, the former federal scientist described by law enforcement officials as a "person of interest" in last year's deadly anthrax attacks.

CNN has reviewed the novel, which is a copyrighted item at the Library of Congress even though it is unfinished and unpublished.

The novel does not involve an anthrax attack. The bacteria in the book is a fictional, contagious malady called Yersinnia Pestis, which causes sore throats, dementia and eventually death.

Hatfill's book begins in Antarctica, where a group of researchers drilling ice samples are exposed to the bacteria and begin dying.

Rescuers, including a researcher from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are sent in, but the polar team is dead before they arrive.

The medical investigation is then quashed by the U.S. State Department and the government of South Africa, which runs the Antarctic base.

The book then flashes forward eight years to Washington.

A Palestinian terrorist with the research skills of a cancer specialist, Dr. Ismail Abu Asifa, uses fleas from prairie dog tunnels and mice to culture the Yersinnia Pestis bacteria in hotel rooms. He cooks up deadly cultures using commonly available materials for only $387.

Asifa, whose misdeeds have been financed by Iraq, then goes on a public tour of the White House, using a specially equipped wheelchair to spray the bacteria culture on the carpet.

Soon, the president, his staff, members of Congress and the general public begin coming down with sore throats and dementia.

The terrorist, too, is infected, and dies at a hospital where he is taken after being hit by a D.C. cab driver.

The CDC researcher from Antarctica is then put on the case. He goes back to the drilling site and solves the medical mystery, though members of his team get infected and die in the process.

In the very sketchy end of the novel, the United States drops a nuclear bomb on Baghdad.

Russian mobsters also take delight at the fact that the U.S. intelligence apparatus is so preoccupied with thwarting chemical and biological weapons that they have a free hand to market drugs.

Hatfill is one of 20 to 30 people described by law enforcement officials as a "person of interest" in last fall's anthrax letter attacks, which killed five people. But he has not been named a suspect, and he has strongly denied any involvement in the mailings.

Hatfill is a former bioweapons researcher at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, or USAMRIID, at Fort Detrick, Maryland, where anthrax research is among several projects related to creating medical defenses against biological threats. Hatfill has said he never worked with anthrax.

His novel features long and detailed scientific passages and talks extensively about the Soviet Union's bioweapons program. It is set in several locations familiar to Hatfill, including Fort Detrick, the Washington metro area (where he now lives) and South Africa (which he has visited.)

It also makes the point that a single terrorist would have formidable hurdles to overcome in launching such an attack.

In the book, the CDC is described as suffering form poor leadership and budget constraints with an irrational focus on industrial accidents and inner-city violence.

The government bureaucracy is also characterized as being unable to respond to the crisis because of the number of agencies involved in the effort.

-- CNN Correspondent Jeanne Meserve and Producer Carol Cratty contributed to this report.