The Wuhan Mission

by Irving Waters

  “I didn’t know you smoked Xue Lin!”

  “I just started again” she said batting her eyelashes at him. Dr. Wu just noticed that she was wearing makeup for the first time since her job interview. She was devastatingly beautiful.

  “Sure, let’s go and smoke.”

  The two of them passed through the security turnstile next to the metal detector and walked out of the building immediately smelling the awful aroma of Wuhan smog.

  Xue Lin lit a cigarette and had a look at her countdown timer. She had seven minutes to finish the cigarette, take out the front security guard and then the remaining guard. It was going to be very tight.

  They smoked in silence. Dr. Wu seemed preoccupied as he powerfully inhaled his cigarette. Xue Lin waited until he finished and threw the butt on the ground.

  “Let’s go!” she said abruptly, throwing her half smoked cigarette a few feet into the bin.

  Wu followed her back into the building. She was moving briskly now.

  “You go ahead, I have to grab something from my locker” she said, ushering him ahead of her as she peeled off to the left.

  Dr. Wu went ahead through security, patting his pockets in search of his security card, and wondering why Xue Lin had become so matter-of-fact and hurried since their cigarette.

  Xue Lin went to her locker and grabbed the backpack, throwing it on, and then moved up the hall to the metal detector. The metal detector beeped obnoxiously as she walked through it. The security guard stood up and slowly came around the machine towards her.

  Xue Lin pulled her chopsticks out of her hair and took two large, rapid strides towards him, launching herself at him, taking him to the ground with her legs around his torso, pinning his arms to his sides. He tried to reach for his holstered pistol, but she plunged the chopsticks into his neck, and then with both hands she gripped the two chopsticks together and drove them into his heart.

  “One!” she said to herself under her breath, wiping her hands clean and getting up off the dead guard, extracting his pistol and extra clips from his belt, throwing them quickly into her backpack, then, tying her hair up again with the chopsticks as she moved quickly towards the security door where she could see Dr. Wu and one of the guards standing over the other guard who was already slumped on the floor.

  “What happened here?” She said as she approached the scene, seeing that the guard was reaching for his walkie-talkie.

  Xue Lin landed a fist to the front of his neck followed by a lightning fast spinning kick to the side of his head, taking him to the ground, unconscious.

  “Stay calm Dr. Wu, and you won’t get shot in the head” she said as she pulled zip ties and duct tape out of her backpack.

  “We are going in this door, and you are going to do exactly as I say. Is that understood?” she looked up at Wu, as she zip-tied the guards ankles together.

  “Ah yes, I understand. Who are you?” he asked her, with a look of total bewilderment.

  “I’m here to help you, but you have to help me first. Let’s talk in the lab” she indicated with her head as she finished securing the guard, who would be coming to soon enough.

  She put his walkie-talkie in her backpack, and picked up his machine gun, pulling the strap over her head so the weapon hung down her front. She grabbed the three extra clips from his vest, then moving on to the roofied guard, taking his clips and the magazine out of his weapon, also taking his walkie talkie.

  “Let’s go!” she said, sliding Wu’s security pass through the reader, opening the door to the Biosafety Lever IV area.

  The security door shut behind them. Xue Lin estimated that they had only ten minutes before the lab staff began arriving for work.

  “Doctor Wu, the Chairman wants you dead. I am taking you to America. You have become a loose end for him.”

  “Ah yes, I thought this would be the case. Do you know what I have been working on in this lab? You are CIA I assume?”

  “Yes, SARS virus.” She answered, ignoring the second question. “We need to leave now, but we are bringing the virus with us and the vaccine.”

  “Are you sure you can get us out of China? Are you working alone?”

  “I have a solid plan in place. Our chances are good. Open the safe” she ordered, taking her backpack off and unzipping it.

  “Wait, I need to give you the antidote. The virus has already been released in Wuhan. If you get sick, I can’t run on my own. You probably already have it, but this will cure you.”

  Xue Lin watched him as he opened the safe and pulled out a rack of vials and then the remaining loaded antidote syringe from the bottom shelf. She thought to herself that it might be something else in that syringe. Wu was no friend of the CIA.

  “Listen Dr. Wu, I’m sorry that Roet killed your daughter. He’s an idiot. I had nothing to do with it. My job is to save you, and these vials” she said, pointing to the rack of liquids. “Do you have travel cases for them?” she asked watching him prepare the syringe for her.

  “Yes, but first things first” he said as he took her arm, pausing for a second as he looked at her for approval. She nodded and he pierced her skin and pressed the plunger.

  Xue Lin’s phone buzzed in her backpack. As Dr. Wu withdrew the needle she reached in and saw that it was Jimmy calling.

  “Yes Jimmy?”

  “It’s time to move” he said.

  “I need a few minutes. Stall them!” she ordered.

  Outside, Jimmy got out of the stolen sedan and moved quickly to the front of the building. The first couple of workers approached the front door where he stood, holding his ID up, and the other arm out wide, shaking his head.

  “I’m sorry, the building is on lockdown at the moment, we have had a breach in the lab. You should go home.”

  The workers looked confused and didn’t move.

  As Dr. Wu put three vials into separate small, padded transport cases: first, the green one, then the clear vaccine vial, Wu thought to himself: “So Roet wants the viruses…. I’ll give him a virus!” and placed the red vial into the third case labeled SARS-COV-2.

  Xue Lin had now connected her bluetooth earpiece to her phone and was listening to Jimmy trying to turn people away.

  “Please move away from the area. It is not safe. The cleanup team is on its way. Please make your way back to your homes.”

  Xue Lin looked at Dr. Wu and yelled: “We have to go right NOW!” zipping up her backpack with the vials in their cases stowed inside.

  The security personnel in the main control room in the next building had started looking with curiosity, at the screen with the head scientist talking to the lab assistant. He had been there for a long time. The supervisor had come over to look at the screen. There was a sudden glitch in the video feed and both were gone. Something seemed off.

  “Go across the street and see what’s going on” ordered the senior officer.”

  Two officers holstered their pistols, put their PLA uniform hats on and started for the elevator.

  Xue Lin led the way past the unconscious security guards towards the metal detector area. Dr. Wu looked dismayed as he saw the pool of blood next to the dead guard.

  “Come ON!” she said to Wu. “You experiment on monkeys for God’s sake. Get over it!”

  They were now behind the glass doors at the front of the building. She could see Jimmy standing there still moving people away as they arrived for work. She was still on the line with him, so Jimmy could hear her yelling at Wu about monkeys. It made him laugh despite everything.

  “Jimmy, we are at the front door.”

  Across the road from the virology building, two PLA security officers got out of the elevator and headed out of their building. Crossing the street towards the Institute they could see someone official waving his ID, turning people away. They walked towards him.

  “I got company.” Jimmy’s voice sounded nervous in Xue Lin’s ear. “Two guards, not hostile yet. I will try to bullshit them. They look young. Come out now. Hide your weapons
.”

  “Copy. Headed out now. Dr. Wu is now on our team. Use that.”

  Xue Lin put her lab coat over the machine gun and buttoned it up. She put her backpack on again as started to coach Dr. Wu:

  “OK Doc, we have had a ‘breach’ and a ‘cleanup team’ is on the way” Xue Lin told him, using the ‘quote unquote’ sign. “There are security guys coming. You need to back up what Jimmy says and tell them not to call it in. If they call it in, I will have to start shooting.”

  Dr. Wu nodded nervously.

  Xue Lin turned the radios off in her backpack before walking briskly out of the building with Wu.

  Jimmy turned and saw that Dr. Wu and Xue Lin were headed his way now, as the security officers approached him.

  “What’s going on here?” one of them asked.

  Jimmy answered confidently: “We had a breach. It’s not safe to go in. The clean up team is on its way. I’m sending everyone home. You should get out of here too. I’ve had all the immunization shots, but you are both vulnerable. It’s a very nasty virus. You don’t want to get it.”

  Jimmy thought how weirdly true everything was that he had just said.

  As the security guys looked at each other with uncertainty, Xue Lin and Dr. Wu arrived at Jimmy’s side.

  Dr. Wu looked at one officer and said: “There has been a problem in Biosafety Level IV. It’s very dangerous inside. You should not even touch us or breath near us. We have been contaminated.”

  The officer took a few steps back as he responded: “I’ll call it in, just to make sure.”

  “I would not do that if I were you” said Dr. Wu, giving him a grossly exaggerated look that would have been more suited to a Chinese soap opera actor.” The Chairman will not want this to get out. You should keep this to yourself until the site is secure. Then you can report it.” Dr. Wu gave them another look. Jimmy and Xue Lin tried their best to go with it, adding their own stern looks.

  Jimmy took over: “You two stay here and stop anyone going in. The ‘BHCT’ should be here shortly.”

  They looked at him, confused.

  “The Bio Hazard Cleanup Team!” He yelled at them condescendingly, as Xue Lin did her best not to smirk at the bad soap opera that Jimmy was putting on.

  Jimmy continued: “I will drive these two scientists to the other facility for observation. Clear? You know what to do?” he looked at them, awaiting their hesitant nods.

  “Good work comrades. Keep it up!” Jimmy said, gesturing for Xue Lin and Dr. Wu to follow him. He walked stiffly, followed nervously by the two in lab coats, to the stolen black sedan. He opened the back door and they both got in, hearts racing. Dr. Wu was terrified, but Xue Lin was almost enjoying herself.

  “Nice work Jimmy! You are quite the actor!” she quipped.

  “It won’t hold for long.” Jimmy said as he pulled out into morning traffic.

  Jimmy reached into the glove compartment and pulled out Dr. Wu’s new passport and ID card.

  “Memorize your new details. All of our lives might depend on it if we hit a roadblock.” Jimmy said, passing them back.

  Xue Lin pulled out one of the guard’s walkie talkies from her bag and turned it on to monitor the scene at the lab. Very little was happening still and the subterfuge laid by Jimmy was holding. No-one wanted to enter the building to investigate and no-one was yet brave enough or smart enough to call it in.

  Xue Lin passed the radio to Jimmy saying: “Tell them the cleanup team is on route.”

  Jimmy smiled at her in the mirror: “Ah you are just not a pretty face!” and proceeded to make the transmission in an overly authoritative voice: “This is the B H C T … ah we are on our way. No personnel are to enter the lab. Repeat, nobody goes in. There has been a bio-contamination.”

  Jimmy threw the radio up on the dashboard, listening for the reply.

  “Copy that” the reply came from the nervous security officer outside the building.

  *

  Chapter 38

  On the Run

  Jimmy drove east crossing the Yangtze River and headed towards the edge of town where he’d parked the minivan. The violent theft of secret substances and the kidnapping of China’s top virologist would become the Chinese Government’s number one priority within the next 30 minutes or so. Jimmy drove efficiently without breaking the law too badly.

  Being rush hour, most of the traffic was headed into the city, so Jimmy’s navigation took them smoothly to the stolen minivan he had stashed on the street on the southern edge of town where there were no traffic cameras. He parked down the block and got out of the car.

  “Take off your lab coats. They draw attention” said Jimmy.

  Xue Lin stuffed Dr. Wu’s coat in her bag, and wrapped the submachine gun in her’s.

  She and Wu got out of the car as Jimmy grabbed his duffle bag from the trunk and led the way to the minivan.

  The radio in Jimmy’s hand squawked: “Change channel to next. Over.”

  “Copy” came the reply from the officer.

  Jimmy looked grimly at Xue Lin. “They have a channel change protocol when a radio goes missing. They must be inside the lab already.”

  “We just have to keep moving Jimmy. Let’s get on the road. We need to get to Shanghai ASAP.”

  Jimmy opened the back and retrieved his heavy bag, thinking that they might need access to its contents. The three of them quickly got in the minivan, Dr. Wu in the back seat, Xue Lin in front, and Jimmy started the engine and headed for the highway.

  Xue Lin, shaking her head, heaved a sigh. “Maybe I should have cleaned the scene.”

  Dr. Wu looked questioningly at her: “What do you mean?”

  “I could have put a bullet in each of those security guards. They can ID me as an assailant. I’m no longer an innocent bystander. They will be looking for a male and female fitting our descriptions, and a Government employee matching Jimmy’s description, though it may take them a while to work out who you are Jimmy.”

  “You are an amateur. Any good spy would have taken them out.” Jimmy scolded, miming a ‘gun to the head.’

  Xue Lin continued: “The Government probably knows who I am already. They bugged my apartment the day after I moved in. Perhaps killing two more guards would have accomplished nothing.”

  “You’re soft. CIA makes soft soldiers” Jimmy quipped as he sped up a ramp onto the highway heading east.

  The scene back at the Virology Building was already a mess. Three ambulances had arrived on the scene, along with half a dozen unmarked police cars and a military personnel van with Wuhan’s equivalent of a ‘quick response unit.’ The security guard who was conscious was being questioned by a plain clothed Government Investigator with a hateful looking face. He asked the guard basic questions about why he had been found zip-tied at his post, and why his colleague was out cold.

  “The pretty one kicked me in the head after my partner passed out at my feet. He came back from break and after ten minutes he just … fell down. She must have drugged him. That’s all I saw. Besides that, everything was normal, except….when I came-to, she had taken my weapon and ammunition…. and radio.” The guard looked very sheepish and had a badly swollen black eye and probably a fractured skull.

  The bloody body of the guard who had been operating the metal detector was taken to an ambulance on a stretcher. The roofied guard was taken to another ambulance and put on oxygen.

  The investigator pressed the ‘transmit’ button on his radio: “I need to get into Biosafety IV, and I’ll need access to any safe or lockbox inside. Send someone now!”

  He gestured at one of the policemen: “Bring me those two security officers from outside who can ID the driver.”

  Jimmy looked ahead at the highway, driving aggressively through the minimal traffic but only just over the speed limit.

  “Xue Lin, inventory check?”

  She looked at him, thinking: ‘Jimmy can be quite professional.’

  She went through her arsenal for Jimmy: “We h
ave one submachine gun with six extra clips. Two pistols with 7 clips and One...flash-bang, I .. suppose.”

  “OK, not bad.” He replied. “There is a Barret 50 cal sniper rifle in the big bag if we get into a tight spot. Ever used one?”

  “Yes, on occasion in training” replied Xue Lin, remembering how much she had enjoyed the big recoil on the rifle. But it really wasn’t the kind of rifle you could fire easily out the window of a moving car. It was large and heavy.

  Jimmy chimed in: “We also have a few other toys I picked up from the Tool Man. Oh by the way, Dr. Wu there is a wig and sunglasses in my bag. Put them on. You’ll look like a rock ‘n roller” said Jimmy smiling.

  While Dr. Wu adjusted his wig, trying to look in the mirror, Xue Lin reached into her own backpack and retrieved a long hair extension. She applied some dark gothic makeup, adding a mole to her upper lip.

  Jimmy turned around for a moment to look at them both: “You guys look like ‘gothic Sonny and Cher!”

  Jimmy reached over Xue Lin’s lap and opened the glove compartment.

  “Open one of those burner phones. I have to call the Chairman and tell him what’s going on.”

  Xue Lin smirked as she opened one of the phone’s plastic packaging and handed it to him. Lying seemed to be one of Jimmy’s greatest talents.

  Xue Lin took over steering from the passenger seat while Jimmy dialed the Chairman’s direct line.

  “Jimmy, it is lovely to hear your voice!” Boomed the Chairman.

  “Hello sir. I have activity to report. Biosafety IV was breached!” Jimmy said dramatically, gesturing with his free hand.

  “Thank you Jimmy. I just heard. We have an investigator on site.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Jimmy, do you know where Dr. Wu is?”

  “Sir, no sir. It seems that his phone is at the lab. I’m trying to track him down though. Do you know who is responsible yet sir?”

  “Our investigator has an idea of who is involved. I’ll let you know if I need anything from you Jimmy.”