The Wuhan Mission

by Irving Waters

  “Thank you sir.”

  Jimmy broke the burner phone and threw it out the window.

  The Chairman picked up his office phone: “Get me the investigator on site at the Wuhan lab.”

  The Investigator answered his phone: “Mr. Chairman, how may I be of service?”

  “I trust things are going well at the lab?”

  “Not really sir. One of the female lab assistants took out three guards all by herself, and apparently she left with a Doctor Wu. There may also be some material missing from the safe. They are calling her ‘the pretty one’ sir. Also, there was a driver at the scene but no-one has been able to identify him. He had a Government ID, but the security guys didn’t get a good look sir.”

  “Keep working on finding them. There’s something else: I need you to track down agent Jimmy Lin’s car. Does it have some kind of locator on it?”

  “Sir, all Government cars have beacons which we can turn on remotely from the ‘Third Department’ sir.”

  “Do it! Find him and take him into custody. You can question him when you are finished with the lab situation.”

  “Very good sir. Thank you sir.”

  *

  The investigator called the number for the 3PLA.

  After a pause and some static, the answer came: “This is the Third Department. Please sign in.”

  The Investigator gave them his code: “The time is three, ten.”

  There was a brief pause as the tech checked the sign in code.

  “Go ahead sir.”

  “I need you to turn on a car beacon. Name: Agent Jimmy Lin. Probable location: Wuhan or surrounding area.”

  “Turning on sir. Stand by.” The tech typed code into his terminal.

  “Yes sir, black Mercedes, registered in Wuhan. I have him sir. Would you like me to send tracking to your phone sir?”

  “Go ahead.”

  The investigator looked at the map on his phone. The car was still near Wuhan, but moving at speed.

  “Good, send this to the Team Leader of the Response Unit who is here on site at the lab.”

  “Yes sir, stand by.”

  The Team Leader picked up his radio to answer the investigator’s call.

  “Go ahead.”

  “I need you to pick up the driver and occupants of the black Mercedes who will be on your phone’s map locator in a few seconds. Take your team. He is government, but take him into custody. Let me know where you are holding him.”

  “Yes sir!”

  *

  Chapter 39

  The BBQ Couple

  La Jolla, California

  The corporate cleaning van pulled up and parked a few houses down from the BBQ couple’s house in La Jolla, California that overlooked Windansea Beach. The driver pointed to the flashing red dot on the GPS locator map.

  “Two locators..right..there! That’s them.”

  Inside the house, Xue Lin’s adoptive parents were having a cocktail while watching a documentary about the sleeping sharks of Mexico. They had been enjoying their retirement in California and had no reason to believe that they would ever be dragged back into the fray of international espionage. Their daughter had been given a new name at the CIA and their familial connection was classified, so almost no-one knew.

  The cool winter air blew off the Pacific Ocean. Four Chinese PLA operatives sat uncomfortably inside the van while the Team Leader, sitting on the front passenger side, looked through the thermal imaging scope that he had taken off his rifle to try to scan the house for ‘number of occupants’.

  “Drive past slowly so I can get a better angle” he said in Mandarin to the driver.

  The van passed by the house slowly. “I show two adults, both sitting in the front room, ground floor.” said the Team Leader, clicking his scope back on to his AR-15 rifle. “Pull over in front of the house and turn off the headlights. Keep the engine running. We’ll see you in four minutes.”

  The Team Leader turned to look at the four in the back.

  “They are probably not armed, but they are trained, so stay professional. Do not go loud unless they open fire. And if you do have to return fire, make sure to keep one alive. Otherwise, just cuff and bag them.”

  The sliding door opened and the team of five silently opened the front gate and approached the front door. The second in line came around and quietly picked the lock and gently swung the front door inward. Not a sound. The team entered the house, floorboards creaking. The couple, both in their mid-fifties were still watching TV. Both of them were startled by the Chinese intruders, but seeing all the barrels pointing at them, the couple slowly raised their hands without getting up.

  “Who are YOU guys?” the man in the chair said to the Team Leader. “We didn’t order any food.”

  Speaking English the Team Leader replied: “Just get slowly on the floor, face down, hands behind your back.”

  Neither of them moved a muscle, except to look at each other.

  “DO IT!”

  The couple complied and allowed two of the team to zip tie them and put a black bag over each of their heads.

  “Honey you really need to vacuum this rug” the husband commented.

  The Team Leader yelled “Let’s go!”

  The team exited the house quietly and packed into the van, unnoticed by the neighbors. The van’s headlights came back on as the van pulled out and drove away, headed for Highway 805 as the woman calmly threatened never to go to a Chinese buffet again.

  Before long, the cleaning van pulled into a back alley in San Diego’s Chinatown. A garage door slid up and the van pulled in.

  “Out! Time to renew your passports!”

  “I’ve been meaning to do that for ages” the husband said as they were both bustled out of the van towards what looked like a crude temporary photo studio in the corner.

  “OK! smile for the camera, or we have to take another one after pulling fingernail out. Harder to smile then!”

  The photographer lined each of them up, still zip-tied, and took their photos for their new American passports which were all but finished in front of the forger at his desk a few meters away.

  “Where are we flying to fellas?” asked the wife, after the camera’s flash went off capturing a sweet but momentary smile.

  “European holiday. You are meeting up with your daughter, but only if you behave. Otherwise Chinese agent kill her. So you be good. Don’t try to escape. Don’t try to hurt my men. Don’t alert airline staff. Just be good, and everything be fine. You see your daughter again. No problem.”

  She looked at her husband, worried now. He returned the look, nodding reassuringly. They both knew how highly trained their daughter had become. Their old case officer, Marcus Roet had kept them in the loop about her training, but they weren’t aware of any postings or missions she’d been given.

  The forger added their photos to the passports and ran them through his machine adding the embossing and glossy sealant. On the desk lay various fake credit cards and loose cash to put in the purse and wallet he’d put together for them.

  “Hand luggage!” the Team Leader yelled.

  Two small identical navy blue suitcases on wheels were opened in front of the couple.

  “Did you pack your suitcase yourself?” The Team Leader asked them, smirking.

  The couple poked through the contents of their new suitcases.

  “Normal things, your size. No worry. We take care of you.”

  “Wo-men chyu ba!” yelled the Team Leader, then yelling at the couple: “Let’s go!”

  Two of the team followed the couple back into the van. The leader and driver climbed in the front as the garage door opened and the van pulled out headed for LAX.

  *

  Milan

  The Lufthansa flight with the couple and their two Chinese minders on board landed in Milan without incident. They cleared customs and were met outside arrivals by two slightly more elegantly dressed Chinese agents. They were ushered quickly to a waiting minivan, where b
lack cloth bags were put over their heads and they were driven to central Milan where there was a very modest Chinatown.

  The Chinese agents had a safe house which occupied an old building in Chinatown. The van drove through the arched wooden doorway all the way into the building where two more agents held a hand up indicating for the minivan to stop.

  The couple were tired, having not slept during the twelve hour flight. They had paid attention to the time and apparent speed in which they had arrived at this Chinese safe house. As the black bags were removed from their heads, the couple looked around them taking in as much information as they could: six trained Chinese men, all armed. Security cameras inside and out with screens showing two angles on the street. The two windows to the street had been boarded up from the inside. No visible back entrance.

  The guards could possibly have been briefed that the couple understood Mandarin, having spent several years undercover in Beijing. More likely though, the men would forget and give away information that might help the couple escape, or in an exchange or rescue scenario.

  *

  Chapter 40

  On the Road

  Jimmy had been silent for a while. “So, Doctor Wu, you like America?”

  “I like anywhere they don’t want to kill me.” Wu replied sulkily.

  “They’d kill you in China for sure.” Jimmy agreed. “They have to cover up the truth. They will tell the world that ‘Chinese people eating bats’ caused the virus. The Government would never allow the scientist who engineered it to go free. You’re lucky to be escaping.”

  “What’s that now?” said Xue Lin. “Bats? Oh come ON!”

  Dr. Wu looked at her. “It is true. The Ministry of Propaganda is going to make the press say that the virus is from cross-contamination at the market. Bats!”

  “Wow!” Xue Lin retorted in complete disbelief.

  “What does the virus do exactly?” she asked.

  “Starts with dry, sore throat, maybe bad headache, tired, dry cough then lungs break down, die of heart attack, or no oxygen. It’s just like the SARS from 2003, but this one is contagious before symptoms appear. Therefore much more dangerous. No human testing though, only monkeys. Well we did accidentally infect one Doctor I know, but he was an asshole. He opened his big fat mouth and got himself killed.”

  The Investigator put out a general radio call that all police units should be looking for two men and a woman traveling together in a black sedan out of Wuhan. Roadblocks on all highways out of Wuhan were quickly put into place.

  The Quick Response Team closed in on Jimmy’s car. It was moving fast along the G70 toll highway. There seemed to be a driver and two passengers.

  “Lights!” ordered the Team Leader. The flashing lights on top of the armored van lit up.

  “He’s slowing down sir.”

  “Pull over to the side of the road!” ordered the Team Leader over the megaphone that sat behind the front grill of the van.

  The car came to a stop with the van directly behind it, the team readying themselves to take the car.

  “Put your hands out the windows and flat on the roof!”

  The Team Leader gave the hand signal to go, and the team of six surrounded Jimmy’s car, guns pointed at the three inside.

  “Slowly open the doors and get out of the car.”

  Three tattooed youths in their twenties got out of the car and looked nervously back at the men pointing high powered rifles at them.

  The Team Leader picked up the radio: “It’s not them. It’s just a bunch of kids. Must have stolen the car. Over”

  “Bring them in for questioning, just in case they know something. One of you drive the car. Check the trunk first” said the investigator on the other end.”

  “We did sir, just a bag full of pirated DVDs.”

  *

  The young Chinese computer tech timidly put his hand up to get the attention of his superior who was finishing a call with an unpleasant investigator at the Wuhan Bio Lab.

  He hung up, gave an order to another operator, and then walked over to the tech’s cubicle.

  “Yes?”

  “Sir, she has left Wuhan.”

  His superior officer looked quizzically at him. The mention of Wuhan had confused him.

  “Ah sir, you remember? You ordered me to inform you if she leaves Wuhan. The adopted girl. American parents, possible CIA, enemies of China?”

  “Yes, of course!” he said, mind ticking over, connecting this Jimmy Lin who was being looked into, and now the girl in Wuhan too.

  “Where is she?”

  “Sir, she is traveling east on highway G50.”

  “Watch her” he said, picking up his phone to call the investigator in Wuhan.

  The Investigator answered his phone, it showed that it was the Third Department calling.

  “This is the 3PLA. I have some new information that may be related.”

  “Go ahead, I’m listening.”

  “We are showing a chipped woman leaving Wuhan. She entered China four months ago, and has been in Wuhan since then.”

  “Anything else in her file?” the investigator asked.

  “Born in 1991, adopted in Beijing in ‘95 by Americans, possibly CIA. Expelled from China in 2003.”

  “Send me the locator map immediately.”

  “Yes sir. Did you have any luck finding Jimmy Lin’s Mercedes?”

  The investigator abruptly hung up without answering the question.

  The Investigator texted the Chairman:

  Female lab assistant was chipped in ‘95.

  Possible CIA.

  She has just left Wuhan in a vehicle.

  3PLA are tracking her location.

  Instructions?”

  The Chairman read the text, and quickly called back.

  “You can let her go. I have other plans for her now.”

  “Yes sir. Ah sir, she probably has Dr. Wu with her, and possibly Jimmy Lin also sir.”

  “All in good time. There is a new plan in place. I’ll be putting it into motion soon enough. We have been listening in on her for four months since she started work at the lab, but she seems to have been aware of the surveillance, so she has been leaking misinformation to our analysts, and curiously, also seems to have taken up playing the ‘erhu’ in her spare time.”

  “I see sir. That’s...interesting to know. I…wish I had known that sooner … sir. I have to call off the dogs.”

  The Chairman hung up, leaving the investigator perturbed about the roadblocks and the urgent bulletins of ‘armed and dangerous fugitives’ that he had recently put out over the radio. It would take some organization to call the search off again and pull back the roadblocks. It might take an hour to completely reel it all back in.

  *

  Jimmy looked far ahead up the highway. It had been clear of traffic until now but there seemed to be a bit of a bottle neck coming up in a couple of kilometers.

  “Xue Lin, put that machine gun out of sight, but accessible, and make sure you have access to your pistol. Dr. Wu, pass me my bag.”

  Xue Lin dipped into the depths of her backpack and grabbed three magazines for the machine gun and put them in the backpack’s front pocket for easier retrieval.

  Jimmy pulled some clips from his bag and threw the bag back to Dr. Wu saying: “There’s a vest in there. Put it on! Put your sweater on over the top of it.”

  “Really?” said Wu in disbelief.

  “Do it now! We’ll be there in one minute, and they are probably looking for two men and a woman. Well, you could almost pass for a woman in that wig.” Jimmy smiled weirdly, already being affected by the adrenaline.

  Dr. Wu struggled into the bullet proof vest. Xue Lin put her kevlar backpack on her front and did up the waist band tight. She extracted the three biohazard carry cases and put them under the seat.

  “Everyone’s ID out. Not passports, just ID cards. Passports would be weird. Dr. Wu looks weird enough already.”

  Jimmy screwed the suppressor
on to his pistol saying: “You know what Wu? Just wave your head around like you are on drugs.”

  Jimmy gently pressed down on the brakes, bringing the car to a stop behind five other cars. There was just one officer looking in each car, checking IDs. There were three patrol cars angled across the highway, leaving one lane open for cars to pass through one at a time.

  “We have six cops. Probably pistols only. Dr. Wu stay in the car, no matter what happens.”

  Xue Lin looked at Jimmy: “Plan?” she asked raising her eyebrows.

  “We’ll try with the IDs. He has been handing them straight back to the drivers without further checks. If he walks away from us with the IDs, it means we are as good as dead, so we need to dismount and open fire. You go up the right flank, I’ll take this side.”

  “Copy that.” Xue Lin slid her pistol out from under her leg, and threaded her belt through its holster pulling her blouse over the top of it. The machine gun was on the floor, barely out of sight.

  The officer passed the ID back to the driver of the sedan in front and waved him through. Jimmy slowly pulled up and put the van in neutral, leaving the engine running. The officer arrived at the window and had a good look inside the van, seeing the hippy waving his head around in the back, and the beautiful gothic girl in the passenger seat batting her eyelashes at him.

  “IDs please.”

  Jimmy handed the three identity cards to him. The officer looked at him for a long couple of seconds, then at the three IDs, then back at Jimmy and then said: “I’ll be back with these in just a few minutes.”

  “Go.” Jimmy said rather calmly as he shot the cop from his window and got out quickly enough to catch him before he fell. Skillfully wrapping his left arm around the cop’s neck he walked him forward using him as a shield, raising the barrel of his own pistol in the direction of the cops ahead.

  Xue Lin was already out of the van. She lifted the machine gun and took a knee next to the open door and squeezed the trigger spraying the heads of the two cops still in their car, then she smoothly jogged up the right side of the road to get an angle on the second and third police cruisers.