The Wuhan Mission

by Irving Waters

  “Two down!” yelled Xue Lin, aiming at car doors behind which the cops were attempting to take cover. She fired a short spurt piercing the doors of the second cruiser. “Four down!”

  Jimmy aimed his pistol at the last cop who was trying to radio for backup from inside the third car. He pulled the trigger releasing a single slug into the forehead of the cop.

  “Two down. That’s all of them. Check them!”

  Xue Lin efficiently looked over each of the cops, almost casually putting a bullet in the head of the sole remaining badly injured cop who was defiantly trying to lift his pistol.

  “Let’s go!” yelled Xue Lin. “No, wait! Jimmy get the IDs from your human shield there.”

  Jimmy located the three IDs on the ground near the cop’s body and brought them back to the driver’s side.

  “Any bullet holes anyone?” Jimmy said flippantly, looking in at Dr. Wu huddled in the back seat.

  “No.. bullet..holes.” Wu answered.

  “Well that went well” said Xue Lin sarcastically. Pulling out the magazine to check how many she had left. She replaced it with a full one.

  “Maybe we should clean this shit up before someone comes along” said Jimmy.

  “And grab one of their radios. They will have the new channel. We can listen in again.”

  Xue Lin and Jimmy, working as quickly as a team, put the six bodies in the trunks of the cruisers and parked them on the side of the road behind a cement barrier. Perhaps motorists might see them in their rearview mirror after they had passed, but the bullet holes would not be apparent. It would seem strange, but hopefully not strange enough to report.

  “Let’s go Jimmy. We need to put some miles between us and this mess.”

  Jimmy put his foot down and the van lurched forward onto the highway. His driving had suddenly become much more aggressive. There was no point sticking to the speed limit now. As long as they stuck to this highway there likely wouldn’t be any more roadblocks. Xue Lin turned up the volume of the cop’s radio that Jimmy had picked up and listened intently for new information.

  *

  The Chairman summoned his assistant to his office.

  “I need you to get me the Director of the Ministry of State Security. Get him in my office this afternoon please.”

  “Yes sir. Will that be all for now sir?”

  “A pot of tea.”

  “Yes sir.”

  The Chairman felt an old excitement creeping back. It had been all politics. Shaking hands with Presidents. The espionage of late had been a welcome diversion and the thought of increasing China’s power was an exhilarating one. Some of the coming changes may have a certain amount of blowback on the Communist Party, but it would all be worth it in the long term.

  This morning’s theft of bio-materials by an American spy could easily be spun into an elegant conspiracy theory by the Ministry of Propaganda. It would muddy the waters when the press started to point fingers. America’s own propaganda machine would crank up, trying to cast blame on China.

  The lack of speed of contagion in the West was the only thing he was worried about. Relying solely upon tourism to spread the virus would reduce the sudden impact he was hoping for, even if entire cruise ships of full of infected tourists were unleashed upon major cities in the West, it may still be too slow to cause the hospitals to be overrun, which was the key to forcing quarantine conditions.

  His assistant knocked three times and entered. “Your tea sir.”

  *

  Jimmy had been at the wheel for three hours since the roadblock. Doctor Wu was still looking shocked in the back seat. It was approaching noon as Jimmy announced that they would be needing gas shortly. He was still dumbfounded at the unexpected police radio transmission they had overheard an hour ago.

  “Why on earth would they call off the search already?” asked Xue Lin, incredulously. “It just doesn’t make any sense.”

  Jimmy shrugged his shoulders: “I dunno, maybe a trick. You heard it though. Sounded real to me.”

  Jimmy suddenly looked like something had dawned on him.

  “You got the bug sweeper with you in that backpack? Maybe they know where we are, don’t need to block roads.”

  Xue Lin pulled it out, thankful that she’d decided to keep it for the escape.

  Jimmy said: “You can check in a minute when we stop for gas.”

  Jimmy pulled off the ramp into the gas station and stopped by the pump.

  Xue Lin got out and casually walked around the car with the detector, doing inside and out, and ran it over Jimmy and Doctor Wu.

  “Nothing. We are clean” she said looking stupefied.

  Jimmy shrugged: “I guess I was wrong then” as he continued filling the gas tank. Dr. Wu put his wig and sunglasses on and went inside the shop to find some food to balance out his hangover which had come on strong since the adrenalin rush had subsided.

  *

  On the road again, Jimmy turned the radio to a K-pop station. Xue Lin reached forward and turned the radio off. “Do you mind Jimmy, I feel like having no music for a while.”

  “Fine. Let’s talk then. How about some answers. What’s your real name?”

  “Nope” replied Xue Lin, shaking her head.

  “OK, where were you born? Where’s your family?”

  “I was born in Beijing and my parents died in a car crash when I was five. An American couple adopted me.”

  “You were adopted? I bet you had some vaccinations. Am I right?”

  “I really don’t remember Jimmy, I was five!”

  “You know…they might have chipped you when you were adopted, right? Get that bug sweeper out again. Turn the frequency dial down to the lowest. Do your arms, feet and shoulders first.”

  “Are you serious?” she asked, a little freaked out now. “They do that here?”

  “Just DO it dummy. The Government has had a program for decades where they find ways to chip people of interest, you know, for the future. Just in case. They make it seem legit with a Doctor in a white coat saying it’s a vaccination.”

  As Jimmy continued talking like a crazy conspiracy theorist, Xue Lin dubiously passed the sweeper around each foot, then each hand and forearm, and the moved to her shoulders. As the device passed over her left shoulder it beeped.

  “Holy….” she looked at Jimmy and turned to look at Dr. Wu. “That’s why they let us go! They know exactly where we are, and they are following us on a map.”

  Jimmy looked concerned. “We need to get that thing out of you.”

  “Pull over, God Damn it!” She yelled.

  Jimmy pulled off the road and stopped the van in a cloud of dust.

  “You got a sharp knife?” she asked.

  “Of course!” Jimmy said, cockily. He reached into his duffle bag and pulled out the tactical blade that looked like it could cut through anything.

  “OK, do you see that small scar on my left shoulder? That’s where it’s going to be. I always thought it was a weird vaccination scar.”

  Jimmy squinted as he looked closer: “Wait! These cars all have emergency kits in the back now. Let’s sterilize first.”

  Dr. Wu opened the back and found the kit. After swabbing the area and the blade with an alcohol wipe, Jimmy made an incision in her shoulder over the scar and dug around for ten seconds before levering out a small white silicone capsule.

  “Holy crap!” exclaimed Xue Lin, taking it from Jimmy’s now bloody fingers.

  “Bandage it!” Dr. Wu yelled, dismayed as the wound started to bleed.

  Xue Lin quipped: “Yeah I’d just hate to get an infection....”

  An uncomfortable silence emanated from the back seat.

  “So what do we do with it?” she asked.

  “Wild goose chase scenario” started Jimmy. “Put it on a vehicle going somewhere different to us. A truck, or a bus. You know, with a destination.”

  Jimmy pulled off the ramp leading into the next town, and found the bus station.

  “Xue Lin, d
o you chew gum?” he asked, offering a piece from the packet in his pocket. “You know, for the tracker.”

  She took a piece and began chewing it as she got out of the van and walked casually toward the bus stop area. She stuck the tracker in her gum and shoved it firmly behind the license plate of a bus heading north and walked back to the van, smiling cockily, saying: “That will waste some time and resources. Maybe cover our tracks. They might still guess where we are headed though.”

  “No, I think we’re good now” said Jimmy. “We stay with this van. We had a clean change of vehicles back in Wuhan. No cameras there, I checked before. We’ll be in Shanghai by 11pm.” He looked at Xue Lin and asked: “How are we gonna get to Korea?”

  “I know a man. I’ll have to call him on the SAT-phone.”

  “It won’t be secure you know. We’ll have to do it in a town well before we get to Shanghai, or they could listen in, and might be able to locate us.”

  “We need to give them a couple of hours notice to get to the extraction point.

  *

  Chapter 41

  Sam and the SEAL Team

  Sam leaned over the map with the SEAL Team Leader. Sam had thought they needed to be prepared for Xue Lin’s timeframe to change quickly with no warning. She was on the run, and was likely playing hide and seek with the Chinese Army by now. Sam told the Navy SEAL that he wanted to go in earlier rather than later and spend more time sitting at the outer limits of Korean waters and be ready to get in there at the drop of a hat.

  The Team Leader went over the specs of the quick boat. The Mark V SOC aluminum hulled boat had a reduced radar signature and could do sixty-five knots on a flat sea. The guys called it “The Mako.” The squad carried Chinese made ammunition, and would be out of uniform, with no dog tags or flags. As always, the standard rule of leaving no man behind applied.

  *

  As the minivan pulled over in a small town three hours outside Shanghai, Xue Lin connected the satellite aerial to the phone, and keyed in the Sam Chilvers’ SAT-phone number that she had memorized back at Langley during her final three weeks of training. She felt a surge of adrenaline as it rang. Things had really moved on since she had talked to him on the radio.

  “Good evening, is this Empire Szechuan?” she asked.

  “Yes. Would you like to reserve a table?”

  “A table for three, we will be there at 11pm.”

  “Excellent. Might you be expecting any other guests?”

  “It’s only a remote possibility, but it could happen, I have a lot of new friends these days.”

  “We look forward to seeing you” said Sam before hanging up, giving the signal to the Team Leader to call a meeting.

  *

  The SEAL Team Leader stood in front of the widescreen TV addressing his team as Sam stood to the side.

  “We will take the ‘Mako’ to the first checkpoint.” He pointed to the position between the Korean coastline and Shanghai. “This is called checkpoint ‘Flipper.’ We are to proceed at high speed to this point off the coast, which we will call ‘Miami Vice’, then we take the inflatable into the beach here, at ‘Empire Szechuan’ and pick up three individuals at 11pm plus or minus. Two are Chinese Nationals, the third, a female, is one of ours. We will refer to them as ‘Gilligan, the Professor and Maryanne.’ We will have along for the ride Officer Sam Chilvers, he is ex-Delta Force. Please give him your attention.”

  Sam moved to stand in front of the television and looked at the team. “Two of them are highly trained, the female, ‘Maryanne,’ is one of mine. The male, ‘Gilligan’, is potentially hostile. If he even looks at one of you the wrong way I suggest you zip tie him. The older man, ‘the Professor’ is a scientist, obviously with no training and his English may be rusty, so talk slow and keep it simple. Try to keep them dry and be gentle. One of them is carrying a breakable package that you really don’t want to break. We do not know if we are expecting guests.”

  The Team Leader stepped forward: “Anything else?”

  Sam spoke up: “We don’t know if they will be early or late, so if they are not at Szechuan, put two frogmen in the water near the beach to watch for them and radio the inflatable, and withdraw to observation distance. It’s a calm sea tonight, no wind or swell, but unfortunately a full moon and clear skies.”

  The Team Leader said sternly: “Gear up!”

  The men looked fired up as they walked back to gear up. The operation would use a good amount of the water skills in which they had been heavily trained.

  *

  “Sir, the Director of the Ministry of State Security is here to see you. Shall I?”

  “Yes, go ahead and show him in.”

  The Chairman picked up a cigar as he stood up and moved to the pair of couches in front of his desk.

  “Thank you for coming in Director!” the Chairman said without getting up.

  “Thank you for inviting me to see you Mister Chairman.”

  “Please sit down. Would you like a drink?”

  The Chairman beckoned his assistant: “Please pour us two whiskies. Ice. Bring the cigars.”

  The Chairman looked at his comrade, now on the sofa opposite him. He clapped his hands together smiling:

  “Well! Things are falling into place. The small plans that make up the big plans are bringing the country closer to the great goal.”

  He paused, thinking, and continued: “When one really wants something,

  all the universe conspires in helping him achieve it.”

  The Chairman’s eyebrows were high on his forehead as he smiled at the Director. He was very pleased with himself.

  “Mister Chairman, the work on the virus is complete?”

  “Yes. In fact it has been released in Wuhan and it is already on it’s way to America.”

  “Ahhh, but I thought the scientists were in custody sir.”

  “Yes, that was unfortunate. We were not expecting all three of them to get caught, and of course they all talked.”

  The Director looked sternly at the Chairman, saying: “The Americans have cleaned up the circuit that we created. The American academics have been named. Several of our agents on student visas have been sent back to us.”

  “Yes, all very bad news.”

  He paused and puffed on his cigar as his assistant brought in a small silver tray with two lowball glasses, full nearly to the brim with expensive Scotch Whisky.

  “You heard about today’s kidnapping and theft at the Institute in Wuhan?”

  “Yes sir. I was given the memo. Am I guessing correctly that it was the young American lab assistant?”

  “You are correct, comrade. Yes. She is a violent young lady.” the Chairman laughed, continuing: “However, not a good erhu player. I hear that she has been serenading the young men listening at the 3PLA.”

  “I heard about that sir” the Director laughed genuinely, picking up his drink and taking a large gulp.

  “This young lady, we believe, has stolen the virus and has Doctor Wu with her.” The Chairman looked at his guest sternly: “Now, I hope that you still have the so-called ‘Barbecue Couple’ in custody somewhere. Is that so?”

  “Yes sir, our operatives have them in San Diego. They should be on a plane to Milan soon.”

  “Excellent. They have succeeded in eluding us for now, but our leverage over the young lab assistant should do the trick. We will allow them to leave China. Then we use the Barbecue couple to twist her arm.”

  *

  Jimmy drove through the streets of Shanghai following the map to the checkpoint on Xue Lin’s high tech phone. They had made excellent time and would be at ‘Empire Szechuan’ a little bit ahead of schedule.

  “Let’s get ready” said Xue Lin. “Dr. Wu, put the vest on. It looks like we need to go on foot across two fields to get to the beach. Jimmy, bring the Barret just in case we have guests.”

  Jimmy didn’t think the sniper rifle would be necessary, but it had a strap on it, so why not? Xue Lin pointed to an intersection.
“Leave the van here.”

  She got out as the van came to a halt and started leading the way in the direction of the ocean.

  “Aren’t you forgetting something?” Jimmy asked, laughing at Xue Lin.

  “Ouhhhh... right” she said turning around to go back and get the vials. She reached under her seat and slid out the vial cases and put them in her backpack.

  Jimmy opened the trunk and slung the heavy rifle over his shoulder. He pulled a backpack out of the duffle bag. He had a few toys in there still, his papers, some ammo and all the cash he’d collected.

  “Let’s go!” said Xue Lin, taking charge.

  Sam had strapped into seat three next to the Captain of the Mako, with the squad of SEALs sitting calmly behind. They’d motored a few hours out into the East China Sea to ‘checkpoint Flipper’ where they waited silently with dead calm conditions, the frogmen carefully donning their drysuits and checking over their oxygen rebreathers. The boat captain gave Sam the signal that it was time to head to ‘checkpoint Miami Vice’. The Mako’s engines revved and the captain brought the boat up to 65 knots, skimming over the moonlit water in the direction of Shanghai’s coastline.

  Xue Lin led the way through the fields in the direction of the sea. Dr. Wu did his best to keep up with her, but all the drinking and smoking he’d been doing of late was causing him to have to stop every hundred meters or so. Jimmy brought up the rear, making sure they hadn’t attracted any attention, which was unlikely. The only danger now was out on the water, which was heavily patrolled by the Chinese Maritime Police, China’s version of the American Coast Guard. Their patrol boats were armed with mounted high caliber machine guns. He hoped that Xue Lin’s extraction team were well equipped and highly trained, or the three of them would probably soon be Swiss cheese. The brightly shining moon had robbed them of the cover that darkness would have provided.

  The Mako’s engines ceased their din as it arrived at ‘Miami Vice’, and the squad, kitted out in black, no uniforms, no dog tags or flags, slid the inflatable into the water with two frogmen, one skipper and Sam aboard. They headed towards the beach, the two divers getting ready to go over the side if necessary.