Irving Waters - The Wuhan Mission

Dr. Wu’s terrifying meeting with Chairman Xi Jinxinghappened in January 2019 when Dr. Wu was summoned to an empty restaurant by a party official and made to wait an hour nursing a cup of hot water with just a few green tea leaves in it. Dr. Wu smoked half a packet of cigarettes while waiting, a nervous wreck. He knew that the Chairman was one of the most powerful men in China and could have him put in a cell for the rest of his life, or worse.

Chairman Xi Jinxing was responsible for the disappearance of dissidents and wayward lawyers, and he’d had parts of history wiped from the books. He had even banned pictures of Winnie the Pooh after the character was used to mock him.

The Chairman walked into the restaurant with six guards in black suits. Dr. Wu pulled himself to his feet, stubbing out his thirteenth cigarette, and bowed deeply, stammering a weak greeting. The Chairman sat himself down heavily in the chair opposite him at the large ornate table and indicated to the staff to bring food and the usual dangerous beverage in small shot glasses that they were both accustomed to drinking on such occasions.

“You are a man of strength. You are clever. Brilliant. Healthy!” said the Chairman.

“Men like you and me do not celebrate getting older. We celebrate getting better. Am I correct?”

“Yes, yes” smiled Dr. Wu nervously, looking with embarrassment at the ashtray he had completely filled to overflowing.

“I believe,” continued the Chairman, “that lessons often appear in the form of mistakes or failures. And yet the only real mistake is ‘not learning the lesson.’”

We know that we have learned the lesson when our actions change.

“Tiananmen Square was such a mistake. Chairman Deng Xiaoping taught us a great lesson that day: ‘Brute force cannot create lasting peace. You need willing cooperation.’”

“Very wise sir, very wise” Dr. Wu nodded, wondering where he was going with his obtuse line of conversation.

“Death is not sad. The sad thing is that most people do not really live at all”

The Chairman’s eyes were piercing. Dr. Wu was quite terrified.

“The party needs you! The party requires you to do a job for the good of China. Your success in this endeavor will change the history of our great country! Do you wish to know what it is that am asking you to do?”

“Yes of course, sir,” replied Wu, not wanting to know in the least.

“The party needs two things from you: You must build a question… and an answer!” The Chairman smirked at Wu knowingly. Dr. Wu looked quizzically back at him.

“The question you will build must ask: ‘are you strong enough to survive?’ The answer that you will build: ‘Yes, but only with the help of the Communist Party.’”

Dr. Wu felt his shirt sticking to his back. He already had an idea of what the Chairman was asking.

“But I am m-merely a scientist,” stuttered Wu.

“You are much more than that. You are a famous virologist and a genius! I merely want you to continue the work that was done in the lab in recent years; work that was funded by a wealthy American. The final product that we were hoping for was never perfected. You must pick up where the scientists before you left off. You will build a new virus and a vaccine. This virus must kill only the weak and the elderly. The vaccine will protect others from falling sick from the virus. We will need a cure; an ‘antidote’ to give those of us who must not under any circumstances fall ill.”

“Yes sir, a virus and a vaccine and an antidote, I understand sir.”

The food began to arrive in quantity and the Chairman began to eat skilfully from a plate that contained slices of succulent duck.

“You see Dr. Wu, the people have forgotten that the party protects them, both from the outside world and from themselves, and we must remind them of this! You will remind them!”

“Yes sir, I will do that. It may take me twelve months to accomplish the tasks. There have been failures in the past. I will not fail, but I need time,” said Dr. Wu, regaining some composure. He knew what a task like this required.

“Dr. Wu, you will have everything and everyone that you need at the Wuhan laboratory. I trust that it will take less than a year. We have other projects of a technological nature in the pipeline that will be depending on your success.”

“Will you please eat something Dr. Wu?” spluttered the Chairman as he slurped up a soup dumpling.

“Gan Bei!” He held up his rice wine, and their little glasses clinked.

“To your success and the glory of the Chinese Communist Party!”

Dr. Wu drank the strong alcohol, hoping that it would stop his hands from shaking.

The Chairman spouted a random collection of pointless parables as he chewed, often spitting as he spoke. Doctor Wu was extremely relieved when the meal finally came to an end and the Chairman left the restaurant with his guards.

Once seated in the back of his limo, the Chairman pulled out his phone and made a call.

“Mister Secretary!”

“Hello Mr. Chairman,” the Secretary of the Communist Party answered, his phone on speaker. He was in his limo on the way home from a business dinner.

“Mr. Secretary, have you ever heard the saying: ‘You do not DO anything, / You SEE it done and it IS,’” the Chairman said, dramatically overemphasizing words.

“Yes Mister Chairman, I have heard that saying,” he lied, assuming that the Chairman had made it up.

“We now have the best virologist in China working at the Institute of Virology in Wuhan taking China towards the Party’s goal.” Stated the Chairman, proudly.

“That is very good news Mister Chairman. You refer to Doctor Wu I presume.”

“Indeed I do!” boomed the voice of the Chairman over speakerphone.

“It’s beginning to come together” he continued,

“Any man has the capacity to find the gate and pass through. Very few are moved to do so, and fewer are interested” finished the Chairman. “We shall talk soon Mister Secretary”.

“Zài Jiàn,” they both said, handing up.

The driver, Jimmy, smoothly pulled the limo into the Secretary’s driveway, smiling to himself. The CIA would pay for this information. He needed to feed the monster if he was to keep getting paid.

Jimmy Chin had been working as a Central Security agent in Beijing, assigned to the Secretary. He had been a sergeant in the People’s Liberation Armyand had been moved to the Government ‘plain clothes’ branch by a General who once knew Jimmy’s father. Conditions were much better than in the army, but the pay was still quite low. He’d undergone extra training before crossing over. They taught him to disarm all manner of assailants with any kind of weapon. He’d memorized a new manual of operation protocols and verbal codes, and had run countless drills with other trainees. He was extremely well qualified for all kinds of work in the field.

Jimmy had no wife, no kids, no girlfriend. He was a solid agent as far as the Government branch of the PLA were concerned.

Jimmy loved all things Western. He loved American music, the movies, the way the girls looked. He wanted to live there one day. He had been learning English in his spare time, mostly by watching movies.

The first time he was contacted by the American, Marcus Roet, an officer from the CIA, was after he’d been given the job of guarding the Secretary. Roet had offered him a hundred thousand a year in a US bank account just to keep his ears open and to report back to him every week. Jimmy was all about the dollar signs, and wanted a better life. He hadn’t been sucked in by all the Chinese propaganda and he’d seen all those Chinese industrialists get rich while he risked his life for a crappy salary. The rich little Chinese princesses were not interested in a guy like him. No money, no nice clothes. He had never traveled. Jimmy felt like he had a lot to offer a girl. He was being held back. Marcus Roet offered him a leg up and he grabbed the opportunity and at every possible chance he turned that opportunity upside down and shook it to see what more he could get out of it.