After spending six months bored in retirement, Bob Stevens, a jovial 63-year-old master photo retoucher, had recently returned to his desk at American Media Inc., a tabloid world where whatever was wrong or ugly could just be erased.

His pals at The Sun liked to tease him about the time he once edited a picture of Lillian Carter, the mother of former President Carter, to take out wrinkles.

One of the best times of day was when Ernie Blanco came by with the mail cart. The Cuban grandfather was a full decade older than Stevens, but never considered quitting, even when the overflowing cart was heavy to push. A man should work, he'd say.

The editors and writers at AMI took pleasure in the weirdest letters, passing them around for everyone to enjoy. Stevens was one who could never resist the wacko stuff, although his poor vision required him to hold papers against his nose to read them.

It was all harmless fun, right?

How could any of them have known letters could be so dangerous?

Stevens and Blanco were about to become the first casualties in a terrorist biological weapon attack on the United States. A country that spends $2 billion on a single Stealth bomber was under assault by an enemy whose weapons delivery system is a 34-cent pre-stamped envelope.

The assault would spread to other media offices and to the centers of power in Washington, where by the end of last week anthrax spores had been found in congressional offices and in mailrooms serving the White House, State Department, CIA and Supreme Court. The South Florida cases were just a first alert.

A thousand miles north in New York City, more danger was lurking on the desk of NBC news assistant Erin O'Connor. She was opening mail on the third floor of 30 Rockefeller Plaza, overlooking the famous skating rink.

One envelope, heavily taped, was postmarked Trenton, N.J. It was addressed in childlike block lettering to her longtime boss, anchorman Tom Brokaw.

When she tore it open, a sandy material showered the desk. O'Connor, 38, swept it into a trash can.

The misspelled letter read, "This is next. Take Penacilin. Death to America. Death to Israel. Allah is Great." She tossed it onto a pile marked "Hate Mail."

She didn't remember the incident until early October, when a sore appeared on her chest.

Back in Florida, Blanco was feeling very tired. On Sept. 28, he couldn't face the afternoon mail run. A worried security guard drove him all the way back to North Miami.

On the same highway, Interstate 95, Stevens and his wife, Maureen, headed south, cutting short a vacation in North Carolina.

On Friday, he had huffed his way up to the giant American flag atop Chimney Rock near Asheville. But afterwards, Stevens felt washed out. By Monday, he and his wife were speeding back to their white ranch house in Palm Beach County.

Stevens went straight to bed, hardly resembling the vigorous man whom neighbors described as a "full-blooded English redneck" who might burst into song or dance a jig.

That night, he felt worse. At 1:30 a.m., Maureen drove him to the JFK Medical Center in nearby Atlantis.

"He was feverish, vomiting," recalled Dr. Larry Bush, an infectious disease specialist. The initial diagnosis? Meningitis.

They stuck a needle into his spine and drew cerebrospinal fluid. It should be clear, but under 1000x magnification, Stevens' sample looked like a train wreck: boxcar-shaped bacteria jammed and jumbled.

An hour south, Blanco's condition was worsening. His wife, Edna, drove him to Cedars Medical Center.

Doctors thought Blanco had pneumonia and started intravenous antibiotics.

At JFK, Stevens lost consciousness. Bush placed him on life support. Dying cells were secreting huge volumes of toxic proteins that were attacking his kidneys and his heart.

Bush squinted again at the bacteria boxcars. He recalled media speculation about bioterrorism after Sept. 11. Anthrax? He couldn't be sure. Like nearly every other American doctor, he had never seen a case.

He administered more antibiotics. He cultured Stevens' spinal fluid and overnighted samples to government laboratories. Thirty-six hours later, all of them bubbled with bacilli. DNA tests would later confirm: anthrax.

On Thursday, Oct. 4, Bush didn't sugarcoat the odds for Maureen: "Your husband probably will die," he said.

At 3:55 p.m. on Friday, Stevens' heart stopped.

Investigators sealed Stevens' home with yellow crime-scene tape and carted off clothes and other belongings in red biohazard bags.

His home would prove a dead end, but they soon found anthrax spores in the AMI mailroom and on the keyboard of Stevens' computer.

Even before Stevens' death, more mysterious symptoms were appearing -- this time in New York City.

At CBS, an assistant to Dan Rather started on antibiotics for a skin infection that would turn out to be anthrax. She doesn't recall opening a threatening letter, but traces of anthrax were later found around the anchorman's office.

The infant son of a news producer at ABC went to the hospital with a lesion on his arm and a raging infection. He had been with his mother at the network's offices the day before. His infection turned out to be anthrax; antibiotics and a blood transfusion saved him.

But investigators could find no anthrax at the network offices.

At NBC, Brokaw's assistant, O'Connor, developed flu symptoms and a black scabby lesion on her chest. Several days later, alarmed network employees were evacuated from part of the 70-story GE Building.

Health officials swabbed hundreds of noses in search of telltale spores. O'Connor's co-workers, including Brokaw, were given Cipro, a powerful antibiotic, just in case.

A police detective was exposed when he touched a contaminated letter barehanded. Lab workers were wearing protective gear, but they became contaminated, too.

"If you're smiling, maybe there's a little crease" in the face mask, explained Dr. John Kornblum, chief of the city's molecular testing laboratory.

Every day, it seemed hazardous materials crews were swarming around journalists, not the other way around.

The bombastic New York Post received two anthrax letters. Editorial assistant Johanna Huden opened one of them. By Sept. 22, she developed a hideous lesion on her finger.

Emergency rooms at three hospitals failed to diagnose the infection but gave her antibiotics anyway. A fourth hospital, Mount Sinai, confirmed anthrax.

"I've been kicking butt in this town for seven years," Huden raged to Post readers. "Am I quitting my job? Absolutely not."

The nation's most famous journalists shared her resolve.

"In Cipro, we trust," Brokaw told viewers, holding a pharmacy vial.

Rather went farther, defiantly refusing to take Cipro or even be tested.

But soon, there were Cipro runs at pharmacies. The government pressured drug maker Bayer to cut prices on the antibiotic.

In Miami, Blanco's doctors still had no definite diagnosis. Tests by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention didn't confirm anthrax until Oct. 15.

Blanco couldn't wait for a definitive answer.

His blood pressure crashed, sending him into shock. His heartbeat raced to 3 beats per second. Doctors drained a liter of bloody fluid from his lungs.

"It was grave," said Dr. Carlos Omenaca. "I knew that if it was not anthrax, it was a very, very virulent bacteria."

Many Americans suspected a biological attack by Islamic terrorists. Blanco, however, muttered darkly about a plot by Fidel Castro.

"What do you expect?" his stepson said. "He's been in exile for 40 years."

The deserted tabloid headquarters where Blanco had worked was sealed as decontamination proceeded, office by office. Stripping off his biohazard suit, National Guardsman Joe Cardenas said it was creepy inside AMI: "It just looked like everyone went to lunch."

The county health department ordered tests for 1,000 people who had worked at or recently visited AMI.

Grace Kjelden, 34, was not among them. She was discharged from the Army before her unit in Operation Desert Storm received the anthrax vaccine. Now she works a mile from the tabloids.

"I'm about to lie and tell them I work at AMI," she said as she lined up at the health department for Cipro. "I mean, it's your life you're talking about."

Nationwide, people were imagining anthrax everywhere.

The Baltimore airport was closed for two hours over a tan powder in the trash. Coffee creamer.

In Reno, Gov. Kenny Guinn said anthrax was suspected in a wrinkled envelope sent to a Microsoft office. Initial tests indicated anthrax, but eventually, the envelope proved harmless.

By Oct. 19, Philadelphia alone responded to 518 false anthrax reports.

On Martha's Vineyard, the Emergency Film Group was frantically duplicating its $295 training video, "Response to Anthrax."

Then, on Oct. 15, anthrax struck at the highest levels of the American government.

Aides to Senate majority leader Tom Daschle were opening mail at 9:15 a.m. in the Hart Senate Office Building. One letter, postmarked in Trenton on Oct. 9, was heavily taped. An aide ripped it open. A tan grit showered the table, and a powdery cloud hung in the air.

The letter read, in part, "You die now ... Allah is Great."

Soon, anthrax traces were found in Daschle's office, adjoining offices, two Capitol mail processing areas and a freight elevator.

All six congressional buildings were closed for testing and decontamination. Nearly 4,000 people on the Hill had their noses probed for anthrax spores.

"Think of vacation," doctors advised, swabbing with 8-inch Q-tips.

Twenty-eight came back positive.

Frightened lawmakers learned the Daschle anthrax was professional-grade. Small and pure. Made to waft in the air to be inhaled. And kill.

By now, law enforcement agencies were chasing some 300,000 terrorism leads nationwide. Health officials were stockpiling 12 million doses of anthrax-fighting drugs.

Homeland Security director Tom Ridge fumed as federal officials contradicted each other.

Was the Daschle anthrax weapons-grade? On Oct. 18, officials downplayed it as "run of the mill." Days later, Ridge was back to describing it as "highly concentrated. ... It is pure."

Alan P. Zelicoff, a bioweapons expert at Sandia National Laboratory, warned that an unknown enemy had mastered use of anthrax as a weapon. "They have the keys to the kingdom," he said.

Through the Capitol confusion, the clicking heels of evacuating congressional staffs echoed down polished corridors.

Burns Strider, chief of staff for Mississippi Democrat Ronnie Shows, cut through Statuary Hall. Glancing at the bronze and marble scowls of Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, he wondered, "What would they think of all this?"

A few days later, Sen. John Breaux of Louisiana quietly returned to his office to feed his goldfish.

The postal service hired a private company to sweep its facility on Brentwood Road, which handles mail for Congress and much of Washington. But the CDC declared there was no need for mail handlers to be tested.

Postmaster General John E. Potter even held a press conference at Brentwood.

Then, on Oct. 19, 47-year-old Joseph Curseen Jr. -- an avid runner who never took a sick day -- left his job at the Brentwood facility early.

"He didn't know what was wrong with him," says his father. On Saturday, at Mass, he passed out; he went to Southern Maryland Hospital Center at 2 a.m. Sunday.

The health insurance forms asked his occupation, but doctors don't see those papers and maintain Curseen didn't tell them. They sent him home.

The next day, he was rushed back to the hospital, but it was too late.

Another Brentwood postal worker, Thomas L. Morris Jr., 55, went to Greater Southeast Community Hospital in Washington early Sunday. Fifteen hours later, he was dead too.

Inhaled anthrax, both of them.

Postal officials closed Brentwood. On Monday, they received the consultants' report: Fourteen spots showed anthrax traces, in a place where 2,100 men and women handled 3.5 million pieces of mail each day.

Then, two more postal workers at the facility were diagnosed with inhaled anthrax; they are in stable condition.

Co-workers were furious that they were not tested and given antibiotics earlier.

"Where are the deaths? People handling the mail," said distribution clerk James Coe. "Nobody's died in Congress yet."

Authorities pleaded ignorance. Who knew anthrax could leak from sealed envelopes?

They ordered irradiating equipment to kill bacteria in mail. Mail handlers would wear masks and gloves. By week's end, 6,000 Washington postal workers were tested for anthrax and more than 1,350 had been given antibiotics.

Among them: the postmaster general. That Brentwood news conference had put Potter in the microbes' path.

By now, the FBI was devoting 7,000 agents to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the anthrax letters.

Letters are marked with bar codes designed to trace envelopes through the postal system. A strip of tiny dashes showed the Daschle letter originated in the Trenton, N.J., suburb of Ewing Township. For a time, search centered on a delivery route along Lower Ferry Road.

Working that route on Sept. 18: Teresa Heller, a letter carrier in her 30s.

"She's a doll," said apartment resident Irma Sauerman. "The mail is always too much for the box in the foyer, so she brings it up."

Where was Heller? Out sick. She developed an arm lesion on Sept. 27, and was hospitalized on Oct. 3 for skin anthrax.

For five days, investigators combed her route, ringing doorbells, seizing collection boxes and swabbing for bacteria.

Nothing.

Meanwhile, two New Jersey postal workers were hospitalized for suspected inhaled anthrax and two others developed skin anthrax.

Soon, Americans were prepping for mail handling like surgeons prepping for surgery, donning gloves and masks.

Wednesday brought some good news, finally. Blanco was discharged from the Miami hospital -- the first inhaled anthrax survivor in the Spore War.

"I've been feeling better, day by day," he said Thursday. He talked of returning to work. Back at AMI, the lonelyhearts mail awaits.

But anthrax isn't done with America. Not yet.

Toward week's end, more anthrax contamination was discovered at facilities handling mail for the CIA and the State Department. New suspected cases of anthrax among mail handlers were reported daily.

People on Cipro: 10,000.

Admitted Ridge: "We still don't know who is responsible."