Washington ? A draft novel by a scientist under scrutiny in the anthrax investigation describes a biological attack by a Palestinian terrorist on the White House and Congress, but the plot differs significantly from last fall’s attacks-by-mail.

The novel by Dr. Steven J. Hatfill has raised suspicions at the FBI, though the story involves neither anthrax nor mailings. It does, however, contain some on-target observations about how the nation would react to a bioterror attack.

The agent used in the attacks is the bacteria yersinia, which causes bubonic plague. It is first released in the White House through sprayers installed in a wheelchair, sickening the president, and it later spread to members of Congress. The villain is a Palestinian terrorist who is funded by Iraq.

Titled “Emergence,” the 198-page unfinished novel is on file at the U.S. Copyright Office. It was registered in 1998 by Roger Akers, a friend of Hatfill’s who said Tuesday that he proofread it for Hatfill and, with his permission, copyrighted it in both of their names.

The FBI also has a copy of the novel, which was stored on the seized hard drive of Hatfill’s computer. On Tuesday, a law enforcement official characterized the work as an “interesting coincidence at this point.”

Also Tuesday, the FBI in New Jersey showed merchants near a mailbox that tested positive for anthrax exposure the photograph of a man and asked if they had seen him in the area last fall. The identity of the man was not known.

Law enforcement officials say Hatfill, a biowarfare expert, is one of about 30 “persons of interest” in the investigation of last fall’s attacks, which killed five people. No other names have surfaced.

Hatfill’s novel centers on the epidemiologists who are trying to figure out the origin of mysterious illnesses in Antarctica and then in Washington. It opens in Antarctica, where 10 members of a South African research team die from the strange sickness.

“Eight years later, a similar disease sweeps with explosive ef-fect through the members of the U.S. Congressional House and Senate,” Hatfill wrote in the opening synopsis. “The nation’s leadership is paralyzed and panic ensues as members of the Executive Office begin to show symptoms.”

The novel’s villain is a Palestinian terrorist called Ismail Abu Asifa paid by Iraq to carry out a biological attack on Washington. Asifa buys supplies for $387 to grow bubonic plague bacteria “not a high price to strike terror in the government of a country this large.”

Hatfill’s villain infects the White House with the bacteria. The president is sickened, and within days the illness spreads to top congressional leaders.

In his plot, the White House becomes the “House of Death.”

But Asifa also infects himself and ultimately stumbles into the path of a car, dying six days later in a hospital.

“For all its wealth and power, the United States … was actually an incredibly easy target for biological terrorism,” Hatfill wrote.

He predicts the media reaction.

“Even if only a single person died in the attack, the sensationalistic-seeking news media could be trusted to whip the American public into a state of near total hysteria,” Hatfill wrote.

At the novel’s conclusion, the United States retaliates with a nuclear strike against Iraq.

The idea for the novel was hatched several years ago at a dinner party where a group of journalists and former military men got to talking about bioterrorism, said Pat Clawson, a friend of Hatfill’s who was there.

“We started kicking it around, that would be a cool novel to write let’s have a bioterrorism attack on Washington and Congress,” said Clawson, who is serving as Hatfill’s spokesman.