The Wuhan Mission

by Irving Waters

  “Roger that Snowflake.”

  ‘Interesting angle... ‘ Sam thought to himself.

  “I’m going in.”

  Sam opened the door of the SUV and stepped to the pavement. There were people in the street, mostly Asians returning to work after lunch. Sam had the backpack slung over one shoulder with the three vials inside. He had a pistol on his hip and one on his ankle.

  He walked around the corner, and started towards the Chinese guard posted outside the front door. The guard saw him coming and gestured for him to approach and said something into his comms. The guard tried to start frisking him but Sam wagged his finger at him authoritatively. The guard looked very uncertain and shrugged his shoulders and pointed to the door which had just opened inward. Sam cautiously looked inside before entering. He counted three men in black suits, two of them with machine guns, now pointing them at him. To the back of the building he could see the hostages seated but not gagged.

  “Hi there! My name is Sam. How have they been treating you?”

  “Very well actually” the male replied. “This is a real nice hotel. Have you seen our daughter? She’s a Chinese girl, not very talkative, very pretty...”

  “That’s enough talk!” the shortest Chinese man snapped. He was clearly the senior officer.

  “Do you have the vials?”

  Sam opened the bag and one of the men came over to take them from Sam.

  “Go and check them!” the officer barked, as the vials were taken upstairs to the scientist on the second floor.

  Sam looked at the Barbecue Couple and asked: “Is there anything I need to know?”

  This time the woman replied, oddly shaking her head: “They just want the vials apparently.”

  Sam’s gut was telling that there was some lying going on. He was scanning the couple’s faces for a sign. He was picking up some subtle but quite non-reassuring head gestures. It seemed that not everything was above board.

  Sam said to her: “Your daughter is safe.”

  They both looked suddenly very relieved. “Thank God!”

  “Well, you’ll forgive me for not trusting anybody here and staying on the ball” Sam replied, communicating with his colleagues outside.

  Xue Lin kept her rifle trained on the Chinese sniper in the top floor window while Ryan scanned the second floor with his scope, aiming first at the scientist then at the guard who was armed with a submachine gun.

  The rest of the American team were ready to take the guard outside, but there was still that closed door to contend with which needed to be opened from the inside.

  On the ground floor, the officer was waiting impatiently for the results of the scientist’s test upstairs.

  “Hao ma?” he yelled in the direction of the stairs. The guard who was standing behind the hostages shifted back and forward nervously. He had recently lost three comrades in a raid in Brooklyn and was well aware of how trigger-happy the Americans were.

  “Hao!” the guard on the second floor yelled down after the scientist had given the thumbs up for the three vials.

  “Well, it seems that you have lived up to your part of the deal. Thank you for that. Unfortunately my boss in China is not so honest like you.” He smiled grimly. Chairman says to kill Barbecue Couple. You sir can go. No hard feelings.”

  Sam shook his head in disappointment and looking at the officer straight in the eye he calmly said: “Take them down.” and as Ryan and Xue Lin opened fire, with ear splitting booms, taking out their targets, Sam rolled the flash-bang grenade toward the officer, using the moment to draw his own pistol and shoot the guard standing behind the couple.

  Ryan’s first fifty caliber bullet had shattered the second story window and torn through the chests of both the guard and the scientist standing behind him. Xue Lin’s shot produced a red spray behind the head of the sniper on the top floor.

  The people on the street scattered as the SUV squealed around the corner. The guard on the street pulled his side-arm from its holster and fired at the SUV, the Americans fired back with machine guns out both windows, taking him down.

  Inside, the flash-bang grenade that Sam had rolled along the floor had lit up the whole room and blown magnesium all over the officer setting his suit on fire, while Sam shot the other guard three times in the chest, swinging around to put the flaming officer out of his screaming misery.

  “First floor clear” reported Sam.

  “Second floor clear” said Ryan

  “Sixth floor sniper down” added Xue Lin

  “That’s six including the poor bastard outside” said Ryan looking down at the guard’s body riddled with bullet holes.

  Xue Lin started rapidly packing up her equipment when Ryan said: “I’ll do that. You go see your folks.”

  She smiled at him and took off for the stairs.

  Sam was cutting the Barbecue Couple loose from their zip ties as they thanked him profusely, the wife making comments about how things had gone down: “Nice job you! Wow honey did you see how he set that man on fire with that flash-bang? I thought he was going to burn the whole building down! And firing over our heads like that at the other guard. WOW! That takes confidence.”

  Xue Lin was banging on the front door as Sam cut the last zip tie.

  “Hold your horses!” said Sam, gesturing at the couple to go and open the door. He wanted to get upstairs and get the viruses, and check the bodies.

  The front door opened and Xue Lin threw her arms around her mother and then her father. The three Americans outside dragged the Chinese guard in off the street and closed the door. Sam was already up on the second floor wiping blood spatter off the vial cases before putting them in the backpack. Everything was in order. He looked at the scientist and the guard on the floor who most likely were dead before they hit the ground, judging from the mess the fifty caliber bullet had made of them.

  The Team Leader was thinking about what was coming next. “It’s time to move everybody. Let’s get back to the vehicles. Ryan, bring SUV two.

  “Roger that” Ryan was already in the stairwell on his way down with the rifles.

  The Team Leader took control: “Sam you are with us in SUV one. The happy family is in SUV two. That’s the black one. Stay close, we’ll be driving fast back to the airstrip.”

  “Roger that Team Leader” answered Sam as the sound of Italian police cars could be heard in the distance.

  Ryan squealed to a stop behind the first SUV. The Barbecue Couple were pulling weapons off the guards as Sam hurried them along. Within two minutes, Xue Lin and her parents were piling into the black SUV and Sam was in the first with the rest of the team.

  Ryan turned around and smiled momentarily at the Barbecue Couple: “Hello. My name’s Ryan. I’ll be your get away driver for today.” He casually passed the Chinese machine gun to Xue Lin in the passenger seat. “Please buckle up and wind your windows down. There might be more on their way, and it’s easier to shoot when the windows are down.”

  Xue Lin checked the submachine gun’s magazine and her parents in the back seat cocked their weapons.

  Sam was the last one into the backseat of the SUV in front as it took off down the street towards the ring road with Ryan driving aggressively just a couple of meters behind. Turning the corner onto the ring road, Sam yelled “Look out!”, just a second before a black Mercedes plowed hard into the side of the lead vehicle with Sam in it. A second black sedan screeched to a halt behind and four Chinese men opened fire from inside their car, shooting two of the tires of the lead SUV. Ryan reversed rapidly. Xue Lin hung out the window firing a flood of bullets at the Chinese, hitting two in the back seat. Her mother was calmly firing her Chinese pistol back at the driver of the second car but the window was bullet proof.

  The lead SUV was crumpled on one side. Sam’s head was bleeding and he was disoriented. No-one else was moving inside. Their vehicle was immobilized. Two Chinese agents quickly approached Sam’s window and ripped the backpack from his grasp, and ran back to their car a
bandoning the Black Mercedes. Getting in the second car, they pulled away from the scene leaving a traffic jam and a good deal of bent metal and brass casings all over the road.

  Ryan’s passengers were out of the car and checking the injuries or the team in front.

  “Any bleeders?” Ryan yelled loudly. Sam checked himself and then the others who were all a little bloody from the accident, but no bullet wounds. “I think they were trying not to shoot the vials.”

  “Figures” Ryan grunted. “When you ladies are all feeling better I have room in my car for you. It might be time to go..again.”

  The dazed team grabbed their weapons and limped back to Ryan’s SUV, two having to get in the very back as they were now eight in one SUV.”

  “Safe house” The Team Leader said as Ryan stepped on the gas and moved past the two wrecked vehicles.

  The CIA safe house was twelve minutes drive away. Xue Lin’s mind was ticking over. She pulled her phone out and checked the mapping program that the Tool Man had put on her phone for the bug she’d put on the virus vial.

  “Well they haven’t found the bug” Xue Lin said.

  Sam’s neck was hurting so he couldn’t turn his head: “Great! Keep an eye. We’ll regroup at the safe house and get this vehicle off the streets. The bullet holes are attracting attention.”

  They pulled into the safe house’s small garage and the team staggered out one by one. Xue Lin was watching the dot on the map intently. It was still moving but was caught in traffic. They hadn’t gotten far yet.

  Xue Lin’s parents talked quietly with her as they administered first aid to the men’s abrasions and checked them for concussions. Two of the team had probable broken arms, one man also had a bad case of whiplash. Sam looked a bit of a mess but seemed to be functioning normally. He shook hands with Xue Lin’s father: “It’s really nice to meet you sir.”

  “Well, thanks for coming to get us. You put on quite a show Sam. Who makes your flash-bang grenades?”

  “Dad come on! Leave poor Sam alone. He’s probably got a head injury.”

  She looked at Sam and said very slowly:

  “Hi Sam. Do - you - know - what -day - it - is ?”

  “Cut the crap Snowflake. It’s about to get dark and we are minus one virus.”

  The mother smirked, already catching a little of the chemistry between Sam and their daughter.

  “Where are they now?” Sam asked Xue Lin. She let him move close, to look at the phone. It was a moment of comfort for both of them as their bodies lightly touched. Xue Lin had been so worried about Sam going into that building full of Chinese agents that when her parents had opened the big wooden door and let her in, she had just wanted to be in his arms for the rest of her life.

  Xue Lin zoomed in on the map with her thumb and forefinger: “They are at La Scala! Bit early for the opera isn’t it?” she asked, looking at the time.

  *

  Chapter 45

  The Opera

  As Milan became bathed in the magical light of the setting sun, cups clinked inside a cafe as the two waiters tidied up behind the bar. A stylishly dressed white American ordered a macchiato as he sat at a table across from the Chinese agent who had Xue Lin’s backpack on his lap. The red spray bottle in the agent’s hand looked like a fashionable perfume to the American.

  “And you also have the antidote I assume?” he asked the agent.

  The Chinese man passed him what looked like a plastic case for a fountain pen. Inside was a modern looking syringe with the green antidote in it. “Go and inject yourself now, in the bathroom.”

  “So..I inject myself with the green syringe? That’s it? Then I’m immune?”

  The Chinese agent simply nodded once, closing his eyes for a couple of seconds.

  The white man took his suit jacket off and threw it over his chair and walked to the bathroom, rolling his left sleeve up as he walked. Allan was a talent manager, specifically of opera singers. He’d been running his own agency in New York City for over a decade, managing an impressive stable of opera talent. Unfortunately he’d recently been successfully sued by one of his sopranos for sexual harassment and she had wiped him out financially, just as he was about to retire. She’d slept with him to get on his roster but had become angry at him for not giving her any work. She wouldn’t have had a case except she’d filmed them in bed with her phone and then there was the incriminating first meeting that they’d had, all of which she had recorded on her phone.

  This whole Chinese spy conspiracy thing had come up recently when he was complaining about his financial situation to one of his tenors while having dinner. The tenor who happened to be from China knew a guy who knew a guy. It had snowballed quickly. Large amounts of money were offered, and before long, Allan was in over his head. Finally he’d agreed to spread some yellow virus at the opera house here in Milan. He was getting out of the business anyway, and they were paying him two hundred grand, just to spray it around inside where he had access to all the important people backstage and in the auditorium. He had reluctantly agreed to the deal, mostly because he had become afraid of the Chinese agent.

  While he was in the bathroom, the older waiter brought over the coffee and a piece of cake and professionally set them on the table.

  Allan returned, keeping his elbow bent covering the pin prick hole in his arm.

  “So the ‘yellow’ virus, which seems to be the wrong color...” Allan gave him a quizzical look before continuing, “I just spray it around the place and that’s it?”

  “Try to be subtle. Do it from under your coat.”

  Allan drank his macchiato as the man picked at his cake with a fork.

  “And the virus, it just gives people flu-like symptoms? It will be like a flu epidemic and they will have to shut down the opera house?”

  “That is correct” the man nodded. “Three to six months, no opera. Here and maybe rest of Italy too. Maybe longer.”

  “I like the sound of that.”

  Allan had been angry at the opera houses of Italy for several years as they had neglected to pay many of his singers. He was still owed a lot of money, and he would probably never get to see any of it.

  “Fine. Give me the spray bottle.” Allan said, putting his suit jacket back on.

  The Red Virus changed hands and Allan put it in his inside pocket. It was just after six o’clock. He should go and see his singers backstage and wish them luck.”

  “Good luck” said the Chinese man, putting ten Euros on the table as he got up and left the cafe.

  *

  Xue Lin and Sam standing down the block from the safe house hailed a cab and headed to the opera house.

  Sam said: “This could be complicated. They will have security and we don’t have ID.”

  He dialed the Deputy Director’s number.

  “Yes Sam, good morning, or good evening I suppose. What’s your news?”

  “The operation went well. We have the hostages, but...the bad news is that the Chinese took the package back. There were no casualties on our side, just some broken bones.”

  “Alright Sam. Do you know where the package is?”

  “More or less Ma’am. We followed it to the Opera House, but it seems to be moving away now.”

  “Oh Jesus Christ. They’re going to set it loose. Get in there and see if you can find it.”

  “Can you call them and tell them to let us have access?”

  “That will take some time. The Italians are not the easiest to organize anything with. I’ll get on it. You might be quicker making your own way.”

  “Roger that Ma’am. We’ll do that. Heading in now.”

  “Break a leg.”

  “What did she say?” asked Xue Lin.

  “She said: ‘break a leg.’”

  Xue Lin rolled her eyes. “I’ll break HER leg when I see her.”

  Sam told the driver to pull up to the Artists’ Entrance.

  “Snowflake, we are on our own. We’ll try being nice first. If that doesn’t
work, you smile and I’ll take down security, that is if there’s no glass.”

  “Copy that” she answered as the cab pulled up and Sam passed him some of the cash Ryan had given him. They walked through the door and saw that there was indeed a glass window in front of the security desk. He looked at them as they stood there: “Prego? How canna I helpa you?”

  Sam stepped forward and said: “You have a security breach. There is someone inside about to unleash a terrorist attack.”

  The guard looked back at them stupidly, clearly not believing.

  “Do you have any identification? A police badge for instance?”

  Sam looked at Xue Lin and shrugged his shoulders. “Fuck it!” she said, and stood back from the glass, drew her pistol and fired high above the guard’s head, shattering the glass.

  Sam drew his pistol and pointed it at the guard: “Put the call out. We are looking for a terrorist with a spray bottle. Possibly Chinese. He is to be taken into custody immediately.”

  The guard picked up the radio tentatively as Xue Lin also trained the barrel of her gun on the guard, cocking her head to one side, daring him to say the wrong thing.

  The Guard made the call in stuttering Italian, then putting the radio down he put his hands feebly in the air, terrified by the vicious young Asian girl standing before him.

  “Do you believe us now?” she asked him.

  “Si... si..I believah you miss.”

  *

  Allan was in a mezzo-soprano’s dressing room backstage listening to her complain about the conductor and his slow tempi.

  “You’ll do great! You have such a beautiful voice. This is the perfect acoustic for you.”

  “Do you really think so?” she asked looking up at him from her chair in front of the brightly lit mirror.

  “Yes! You will be wonderful. I love you in this role. Listen I have to go now, but Toi Toi Toi. Have a great show” he said reaching into his inner pocket for the spray bottle.