Irving Waters - The Wuhan Mission

She paid her bill and headed back to put the radio together. She pulled out her mobile phone and the new burner phone that she’d bought, turning its ringer to silent. She put the radio together and plugged the headphones in. Then, just as she made the radio call, she called the burner phone from her mobile. They would not be able to trace the call, and would not be aware that she was using a radio to communicate, and the phones were just decoys.

The audio tech and the analyst both listened in on the call coming out of the adopted girl’s apartment. The signal was clear, but the recipient phone was not registered. “Must be a burner” said the tech.

“Good evening, this is Xue Lin. How are you?” she said, using the alternative dialogue designed to alert Sam if she’d found a bug.

The techs listened but only silence followed. She was not using speaker phone, so they could only hear her side of the conversation.

“Good! I’m fine too,” she said.

More silence

“Yeah it was really fun. A great first day, though I was nervous. Everybody works very hard there, but the pay is good, so I’m happy. What did you do today?”

Xue Lin paused, sitting at the kitchen bench talking into the radio with the phones in front of her. She allowed a really long silence this time, and had a long pull on her beer while imagining what a long winded friend might be saying, meanwhile Sam was answering her through her headphones over the radio: “OK Snow Forest, see if you can find out if they are on to you or if it’s just standard operating procedure of a paranoid government.”

The tech guy drummed his fingers waiting for Xue Lin to speak again.

“Good!” she said. “How is your boyfriend doing?” she asked

Sam’s voice crackled in her headphones. “Very funny, Snow Forest. Now, say: ‘yes’ if there’s a room they didn’t bug, like the bathroom for instance”

“Yes” she replied.

One of the tech guys rolled his eyes and the other yawned.

She continued: “Do you keep tampons in your handbag when you are not on your period? You know, for a friend if she needs one, or if your period sneaks up on you? That reminds I have to buy some, I only have one box in the bathroom.”

Sam laughed. “OK smart ass. So you can radio me from the bathroom after this call. Just leave some music on near their bugs. Something loud and awful.”

One of the techs lifted his arm and smelled his armpit. They had been on for twelve hours today. This job was murder….

“I’d love to!” she said. “Well it’s been lovely talking to you. You make sure to get a bra that fits you properly. If you are going out with a hot man you need to put on some makeup and show some cleavage! Anyway, bye for now. Love you.”

The call ended. The techs logged the call and filed it. Nothing unusual to report.

Xue Lin turned up the music on her phone and put it between the two lamps in the living room. She closed the bedroom door, then picked up a chisel and a screwdriver from the plastic bag on the floor, then the radio from the kitchen bench, and carried them all into the bathroom, using her training to rig the aerial to the plumbing.

“Hello Blue Eyes this is Snow Forest,” she said.

“Good work Snow Forest.”

“Shit I have three bugs. At least there are no cameras. That would suck.”

“Remember to check your own spy cam. You can ID the people who bugged your place. In any case, they did you a favour. You can just talk to me in the bathroom, and then when you need to you can feed them lines near their mic transmitters. It’s perfect really. Just keep sweeping each night to make sure they don’t sneak any cameras in.”

“Roger that. So… the lab is big. Dr. Wu has a secure area that nobody else is welcome in. He’s always in there by himself. Two guards, machine guns. Metal detector. It’s secure alright… so something’s going on in there.”

“I’ll talk to Roet and see what he’s prepared to share. He’s been a total prick about it so far. Trust issues I guess.”

“Alright Blue Eyes. I’ll go check my Hello Kitty for a good movie. Talk soon!”

“Over and out.”

Xue Lin dismantled the radio and stashed it. She pulled the eye out of her Hello Kitty and plugged it in to her laptop.

Two guys, searching the room, but not very professionally. One of them planted the three audio bugs while the other looked under the table and checked the floorboards and in all the drawers. She got a good freeze frame of each of them looking almost directly at the camera, and took a moment to memorize their faces in case she should see them again.

During her next day at the lab, Xue Lin suggested to the other new girl that they have drinks to celebrate starting their new jobs. They decided on eight o’clock, and as Xue Lin pleaded that her apartment was still ‘unfurnished and messy’, the other girl suggested that they do it at her place.

Xue Lin dropped by her red brick wall to pick up the bug sweeper and arrived on her bike at the girl’s building a few minutes after eight. She parked her bike and turned the bug sweeper on, still on vibrate, and put it back in her backpack, pulling out a bottle of plum wine imported from Korea. Pressing the buzzer, the front door soon clicked open and she headed up the stairs to the fourth floor where the door was already open and the girl whom she had come close to strangling a few days earlier was standing there smiling sweetly, beckoning her to come in.

Xue Lin held out the bottle of plum wine, keeping her backpack slung over her front. Xue Lin made her way around the room commenting on the decorations and the furniture.

“Let me give you a tour!” the girl said, offering to take her bag and coat.

“I’ll put them down in a minute. Show me your beautiful place!”

By the end of the three minute tour, the sweeper had not vibrated at all. She turned the device off inside her bag.

“Here!” the girl said, insisting now that she hand over her coat and backpack to hang up in the hall.

Xue Lin sat on the couch thinking about how she was being singled out for surveillance, and what that might mean. All she could think of was that there was a leak or a rat. Jimmy was clearly open to suspicion, but he’d given her the tools to find the bugs, so that ruled him out.

“Do you want to start with beer? I have dumplings too so we don’t get too drunk. I just have to quickly fry them,” said the girl when she came back.

“Yes, beer! I could really use a beer.”

Xue Lin ran through the people in her circuit. There was only Roet, Sam and Jimmy. No-one could have followed her on her complex route to Wuhan from America. She’d been too careful. Maybe it was someone higher up at the CIA.

Her attention returned to the beer now being poured in the kitchen by her lab colleague with the delicate neck. Looking at her reminded Xue Lin that she really must get around to sharpening her chopsticks soon.

The girl handed Xue Lin a glass of beer and they both began to drink. It felt good to finally relax.

The two armed guards stood on either side of the security door of the Biosafety Level IV lab, down the hall from Xue Lin’s cubicle. They wore black suits and cheap black business shoes. She noted their weapons, with which she was only summarily familiar with. She had never used a JS9mmnoise suppressed submachine gun, but she had been made familiar with its specs during training.