The Wuhan Mission

by Irving Waters

  “Please follow me. The Chairman is waiting.”

  The scientists followed the man, walking at a brisk pace along the sterile corridors of the airport’s administrative building. One of them quipped to the other next to him: “If I’d known that studying science would lead to International Travel, I…ahh”

  His voice trailed off as he realized that he didn’t have anything funny to say.

  They reached a door marked “Executive Office” with two guards outside, and the man knocked twice sharply and opened the door inward without waiting for an answer. He gestured for the three nervous men to enter, and shut the door behind them without following them in.

  “Welcome gentlemen” said the Chairman without getting up. “I thank you for coming to see me on this very auspicious day”.

  The scientists nodded and one of them mumbled almost inaudibly: “Thank you Sir.”

  “In sport, in the arts and indeed in all life, the best performers have the quietest minds during the moment of truth.”

  The scientists looked back at him, trying to guess where he would go next with his oncoming soliloquy.

  The Chairman widened his eyes for effect:

  “The King was loved.

  The people of his kingdom drank contaminated spring water.

  They went mad.

  ‘The King has gone mad’ they said.

  Until the King himself drank the spring water and went mad.

  ‘The King has regained his sanity’ they said.”

  The Chairman paused and looked at each man one by one, each completely bewildered by the Chairman’s parable.

  “China has bestowed great honor on each of you.

  Today, you will take three great gifts to the West.”

  The Chairman opened a brown leather folder and spread out three folders on the desk with the scientists’ names on them. He gestured for the men to pick them up and open them.

  “As you can see, you will all be going to America. One to Detroit, one to Los Angeles, and one to New York City. You will each take the virus through customs and go directly to the address in each of your itineraries. You will be told what to do then.

  We have a well paid network of highly respected professors, high level administrators and graduate students who are PLA officers, all embedded in the most prestigious universities of America. We have access to all of their research databases. Your academic connections will be legitimate because the Americans think that we are collaborating with them.”

  “The vials you will carry are labeled ‘antibodies’.

  If questioned, you will explain that you are part of an American cancer research team. Your visas are just tourist visas, so it is unlikely that you will be stopped. You should hide the vials in your luggage so that a cursory search will not find them. If an official opens your vial, do not try to stop him. This will be an acceptable way to start their spread of infection.”

  “Are there any questions so far?” asked the Chairman.

  “Sir, if I may, ah, we are probably very bad spies. Are we the best choice?”

  The Chairman blew a puff of smoke into the air above his head.

  “The Americans will not be expecting a bio-weapon. In any case, I am quite certain that all of you have at some time in your lives smuggled something. It is in our blood to bring our favorite food into places where it is not allowed. Am I right?” The Chairman’s eyebrows raised high above his bulldog-like bloodshot eyes.

  “You are all smugglers with some experience, am I correct in saying that?”

  “Yes sir.” they replied, almost in unison. Each man reflected back to a trip where he had taken some kind of stinky, fish sauce soaked delicacy in a ziplock bag and eaten it instead of buying official, overpriced food.

  “Your instructions are in your folders. Go now. Your commercial flights all leave before nightfall. Outside that door my secretaries have your suitcases already packed for you. They also have your hand luggage, your passports, and American cash. Now each of you take a vial out of one of these cases under my desk and pack it away somewhere in your checked bag.

  Good luck.”

  As the door shut behind the three scientists, the Chairman waved his guards to leave him alone. The moment he had the room to himself, he leaned back in his chair and smiling, let loose a long, loud, smelly, invisible cloud of flatulence.

  *

  Each of the three Chinese Government scientists boarded their flights to different American cities carrying the travel vials containing the Yellow Virus in their checked luggage.

  Their written directions instructed them to go to the address provided and hand their vial to the highly placed local assets who Chinese agents had given enormous bribes to over the last months to put the virus into play in such a way that the US Government would be held to blame. Stories would surface before long titled: “Virus made in America escapes laboratory”, “High Level University Official blamed for Virus Leak”. The American journalists would do anything for attention including blaming their own people.

  *

  Chapter 32

  Jimmy’s Mission

  Jimmy arrived at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and showed his high clearance Government ID card. The guard examined the ID and ushered him directly through, bypassing the metal detector. Jimmy walked past Xue Lin’s cubicle and gave her a very subtle wink. Xue Lin kept her head down, furious at Jimmy for taking such a stupid risk. Dr. Wu appeared at the door to the Biosafety Level IV and stared at Jimmy for a moment without shaking his hand. He recognized him from the back of his car. This was the man with the pistol who worked for the CIA. Doctor Wu’s mind raced. How could it be that the Chairman had sent a CIA agent to him to get the virus? It just didn’t make any sense.. unless.... he was working both sides!

  Dr. Wu led the way into his lab. Jimmy was astounded by the appearance of sterility. All of the sparkling clean glass walls and white cupboards and drawers, bright fluorescent lights...

  The Chairman had sent down the directive to Jimmy that today was the day that he must go to the lab for the immunization and follow instructions with the dispersion device Wu was to give him.

  Dr. Wu reached into the safe to pull out the green antidote vial for Jimmy.

  Jimmy looked around ignorantly, waiting on Dr. Wu’s instructions.

  “This is to protect you from the Yellow Virus. It is the antidote, and will make you immune to the virus that you will be releasing.”

  Dr. Wu opened an alcohol swab and offered it, looking tiredly at Jimmy, cocking his head to one side, looking at his forearm.

  Jimmy finally understood and rolled up his sleeve and swabbed his forearm area clean, while Dr. Wu prepared the syringe of the green liquid, tapping the air bubbles to the top and depressing the plunger slightly to expel the air. He administered the antidote, pushing the small dose into Jimmy’s arm.

  Jimmy winced. The sharp sting of an injection was never something he handled well. He hated needles more than most people did.

  Dr. Wu put a bandaid over the red dot, and began explaining the virus release protocol.

  “May I call you Jimmy?” he asked, still suspicious and confused.

  “Yes, Dr. Wu. Please.”

  “Jimmy, I am going to give you a small high tech, glass spray bottle containing a yellow liquid. The virus is in this liquid. Your directive is to go to the Wet Market and spray it on and around the bats at the bat stalls.”

  Jimmy looked back at Dr. Wu, silent for a moment, looking confused.

  “But Dr. Wu, there are no bats at the market. They are not sold there.” Jimmy explained, shaking his head.

  Dr. Wu frowned. “Oh! That’s unexpected. Well, I’ve never actually been in there. I detest open markets. So unhygienic. Nevertheless, that was the Chairman’s directive and I don’t think we should ask questions. His reasons have something to do with the genome sequence in my new virus, it has a lot in common with bat viruses. Well, never mind that. Let’s keep this to ourselves. No point in making the
Chairman angry.”

  Jimmy smiled, and nodded knowingly, saying:

  “So… where do I spray it?”

  “I suppose it serves the same purpose if you just spray it around some crowded food stalls. It will work the same way. Try to use all of it. It would be very bad for us if nobody gets infected, so spread it around the market.”

  Dr. Wu went back to the safe and gently took out the glass spray bottle. He looked at it grimly, knowing the havoc that it was about to wreak on Wuhan.

  “This” he said, “is the virus. Be careful with it. I will give you a little carry case for it. Just press this button to break the seal, then you pull the trigger to spray. You are supposed to do it without anyone seeing. The Chairman emphasised this. No-one sees you. I hope that is clear.”

  He put the spray bottle in it’s plastic case and handed it to Jimmy.

  Jimmy left the lab, this time without acknowledging Xue Lin, and drove straight to the market. He double parked and pulled the bottle out of its case. He paused for a moment, thought about whether he should do it or not. The consequences for disobeying would be ‘the firing squad’ but he may be facing death regardless of what he did now.

  He grimaced and opened the door and walked into the market holding the spray bottle in his right hand under his coat. The first food vendor he came to was seafood. It was busy and there were quite a few people waiting. Jimmy walked to the corner of the seafood display table and aimed the spray bottle into the air near a row of cuttlefish lined up side by side. He pressed the unlock button and pulled the trigger once. Nobody noticed the mist that spread across his end of the table. Jimmy looked at the people waiting to be served and he felt sorry for them. Some of them were quite old.

  Jimmy continued through the market spraying the virus around the wares of several vendors before he turned back and headed to his car, shaking his head, sickened by what he had just done.

  He drove off, glancing down at the spray bottle, noting that it was still half full. Jimmy opened the window and sprayed more of the bottle outside the car as he drove through the streets crowded with cyclists and motorbikes.

  It was mid-November. In a couple of weeks, from what he understood, people would start to come down with a new kind of flu. The Communist Propaganda Department would blame it on people eating bats, but eventually it would come out that there were no bats being sold at the market. There were holes in the story. A story that he was now an integral part of.

  “I need to get out of China before the shit hits the fan. They can trace this to me if Wu opens his mouth.” Jimmy thought.

  Jimmy drove straight home to call Roet.

  *

  “Yo Boss! Wuzzup ma man?”

  “Yes, hello Jimmy. What do you have for me?”

  “I need to make deal. I’m gonna be on a Party kill list soon. They will be cleaning up loose ends.”

  “Calm down Jimmy. What is it that you want?”

  “I need come to America. Things too hot here for me. I stay here much longer, I won’t be any use to you coz I catch a bullet.”

  Roet laughed. “Come on Jimmy, you’re being dramatic.”

  “I’m telling you boss, Wu gave me a virus to spread around market. It said: ‘SARS-COV-2’ on the case. I spray most of it, just like Chairman told me, but not all of it, I still have some. I keep for you. You guys might wanna test what’s in there. Could be very bad for you guys. He gave me antidote first though, so I’m all good. No infected.”

  Roet was concerned. This was unexpected. The Chairman was infecting his own people. He needed to get that virus analyzed State-side.

  “OK Jimmy, it’s a deal. You may as well come over here and spend all that money you have in the bank. Meanwhile, keep the virus safe. I’ll have Xue Lin’s handler inform her that she has a passenger. Maybe she will have two passengers if she can get Dr. Wu to come too. Don’t tell Xue Lin about the virus. That’s our secret. You got that?”

  “OK Boss.”

  “When you go to see your cobbler to get tools for Xue Lin and a new passport for yourself, go ahead and get one for Dr. Wu too.”

  “OK Boss. That’s gonna cost. Passports expensive. Five thousand US per passport.”

  “No problem Jimmy, I’ll put it in your bank account this afternoon.”

  Jimmy didn’t celebrate this time as things had suddenly become quite serious for him.

  *

  Chapter 33

  The Package

  Marcus fidgeted nervously as he waited for Sam to arrive at their park bench overlooking the river. Marcus had shown up early to think about what was about to go down in China. There was a lot on the line now and the Chairman’s actions were hard to predict.

  “Sam! Glad you could make it. Sorry for the short notice. I believe it’s time to think about getting them all out of China. Snow Forest too. I mean real soon.”

  “What’s going on?” Sam asked.

  “The package is a virus. I don’t know exactly what kind it is, but the Chairman just used it on his own people. It’s called SARS-COV-2”

  “Jesus Christ!” said Sam, suddenly worried about Xue Lin.

  “Yeah, I know. It’s bad. Could be much worse than 2003. I had two operatives there for that too. That time my people forced the scientist to change the virus so it couldn’t touch us white people. Did you ever hear about the Barbecue Couple?”

  “Yes, I did hear something about that. They got kicked out of China. Lucky they weren’t executed.”

  “Yeah, and I may as well tell you, they were the ones who adopted Xue Lin.”

  “Jesus, Marcus, why don’t I know this?”

  “Need to know basis, Sam.”

  Sam was silent.

  Roet continued: “Xue Lin has to bring both my assets with her, Jimmy and the Doctor. We need them both. Also tell her to grab whatever she can from Wu’s lab. Virus should be labeled ‘SARS-COV-2.’ Apparently there is an antidote too. She may have to coerce it out of Wu. He might not be so willing… after his daughter and the.. incident.”

  “Two passengers? You are shitting me right?” said Sam.

  “Wu is the foremost virologist in…”

  “Yeah I got it. You need Wu. I’ll tell her when she calls.”

  “They’ll need extraction if the shit hits the fan, which it probably will with two passengers, especially if any of them are already compromised, which is a possibility.”

  “I’ll have a team on standby” said Roet.

  “Good” Sam replied, “I’ll be going in with them. I’ll fly to Seoul tonight.”

  “Jesus Sam, aren’t you getting a bit old for this shit?”

  “I guess we’ll see.”

  *

  Jimmy thumped on the steel door of the Tool Man’s basement apartment. A few nights earlier he had put in Xue Lin’s order for a few more tools. He had also added his own list to the order.

  He squinted up at what appeared to be a piece of scrap barbed wire hanging to the right of the door. He knew that’s where the tiny security camera was hidden.

  The door opened and Jimmy walked in as the Tool Man closed the door quickly behind him.

  “I got almost everything you need. How about you? You got what I want?”

  “Jimmy smiled as he put his bag on the concrete floor and, one by one, pulled out several bottles of Johnnie Walker Blue Label. They had been a re-gift from Jimmy’s ex-boss, the Secretary, who had been given two cases by foreign diplomats, but didn’t drink Western Liquor on principle. The Tool Man loved Scotch Whisky.

  “Gooooood!” said the Tool Man, smiling, opening one, smelling the top of the open bottle. He grabbed two glasses, putting them on his wooden work bench, and poured two drinks, pushing one in Jimmy’s direction.

  “Gan Bei!” they both gulped the whisky.

  The Tool Guy’s face glowed. “You got the money too?”

  Jimmy threw a wad of Chinese currency on the bench.

  “I couldn’t get the whole amount because the whisky was so expensiv
e..” Jimmy lied looking at his feet.

  “OK, only coz we are old friends you cheap bastard.” said the Tool Man, pulling out an open cardboard box from under the bench.

  “Micro GPS tracker, home made. Very small eh? Peel the back off and it stick to anything.”

  Jimmy nodded.

  “Works with this phone. Very good phone. It was hard to hack.

  Plug in this long aerial, work like SAT-phone.

  To connect to satellite you have to tell the Americans the number on the back, they will understand.

  Date rape drug, rohypnol : 2 large doses, liquid form, fast action, out for 1 hr+” This for you Jimmy? … You good looking. You don’t need this.”

  Jimmy shook his head, smiling back at his cheeky friend.

  “Ceramic scissors. Won’t set off metal detector.”

  Jimmy figured that Xue Lin must have a special reason for those.

  “Flash-bang grenade. Hard to get. I made this one. Much better.” He lobbed it up in the air to Jimmy who had to strain to catch it, shaking his head and smirking at his friend.

  “Also, black backpack is Kevlar, bullet proof, more or less.”

  He passed it to Jimmy who noticed that it did have some weight to it for an empty backpack.

  “Two Chinese passports and ID cards. New names. No travel stamps.”

  Jimmy flipped each of the passports open, nodding, impressed with the workmanship as the Tool Man went to a long wooden crate in the corner of the room and lifted the lid revealing a sniper rifle and a vest. Picking up the rifle, he smiled at Jimmy, demonstrating the action.

  “Barret 50 cal sniper rifle, and PLA standard issue bullet proof vest, perfect size for pussy chicken shit.... also a very, very sharp tactical knife.” He tossed the knife high, spinning in the air. Jimmy watched to see if it would stick in the table. The knife bounced off the table and clattered to the floor.

  “Balance is a bit off.” The Tool Man mumbled. “That’s it” he looked at Jimmy. “I hooked you up bro!”

  Jimmy looked at him earnestly. “This is going to be a tight operation. I could really use your help with the tech. Might help me not get killed. I can make it worth your while.”