Irving Waters - The Wuhan Mission

Marcus Roet sat in his office reading intelligence briefings on his computer. He’d been working at the agency since he graduated from Rutgers University on the East Coast. He’d applied to the CIA through the regular channels. He hadn’t been recruited and didn’t have any special talents that made him stand out, but once he was in the door, he knew how to slide up the ladder, usually at the expense of others. A bad word about someone in the appropriate ear could do irrepairable damage. He played on people’s dark side. Also he never questioned orders, no matter what they entailed. Ironically, Marcus Roet would have made a great Chinese citizen.

The CIA directive from the seventh floor had been to ‘turn’ Dr. Wu, force him to alter the virus that they had discovered he’d started work on, and then steal a copy of it to keep for American use on the Chinese in the future if needed. Roet was apprised of the type of virus Wu was working on. The Generals had been concerned for the last few decades about use of bioweapons on the armed forces. Control of Dr. Wu was of vital military importance. The alteration of the virus would ensure that US armed forces and allies would be relatively unaffected. China would be shooting blanks at them, much like SARS-COV back in 2003.

Roet knew that if the virus was altered in such a way as to only affect Asians, it could also be a highly effective biological weapon to deploy against other Asian countries including Vietnam, Japan, North Korea. Roet also saw the paradoxical nature of using a Chinese made bio-weapon against the Chinese.

Dr. Wu’s daughter pressed the ‘end call’ button on her phone. She was happy to hear her father’s voice and was excited to tell him that she was going to Chinatown for dinner with a friend.

She was already in her pretty dress that she’d bought yesterday using her his credit card.

She google mapped the route to “Joe’s Shanghai” a very popular soup dumpling restaurant just off Canal street. It was an easy trip: one subway and a ten minute walk.

She texted her friend that she would meet her outside the restaurant at eight, but if she was late, to just get in line for a table.

The A train was half empty and she found a seat and opened her book.

She had more than forty minutes before her stop and didn’t have to look up from her book except for the occasional check on their progress downtown. She did accidentally meet eyes with the Chinese man sitting opposite her, each of them looking down immediately, slightly embarrassed. Those accidental interactions were always awkward in New York City, as eye contact was avoided at all costs, especially if you were a little Asian girl.

“Canal street,” came the announcement. She waited until the last second before getting up to go the door. Most of the passengers left the train, including the Chinese man. She walked up the furthest staircase, knowing the way to the street from this station. Heading east along Canal Street towards Chinatown, she pulled her phone out and sent a quick text:

“Canal Street, walking from A train now. C U soon.”

The Chinese man from her subway carriage was on his phone too as he walked behind her. She didn’t notice that she was being followed as she was focused upon her phone.

She crossed Mulberry Street, and was startled as a white van pulled up violently to the curb next to her and the door slid open. She felt a shove behind her and two men in the van dragged her inside without much effort. The Chinese man who had been following her also got in the van, grabbing her phone from her hand and tossing it out the door. As the phone landed on the footpath, the van had already jerked away from the curb, rubber squealing for a moment, and sped away toward the Manhattan bridge which would take it to Brooklyn.

“Cal 911! Call 911!” Yelled a young hipster, picking up the girl’s phone that still displayed the open WhatsApp text exchange.

The next morning at 9AM Marcus Roet dialed Sam’s office extension from his desk at Langley.

“Sam, meet me in an hour. Same church?”

“Yep. What’s up?”

“Bad news,” replied Roet and hung up.

Sam Chilvers pulled up across from Immanuel Presbyterian. He saw Roet’s car outside. Sam scanned the street and surrounding area before putting his phone in the glove compartment and grabbing the pistol.

Marcus was waiting inside, seated in the same place as the last time.

Sam joined him, sitting close, but looking around the church to make sure that they were alone.

Roet started with: “We lost Wu’s daughter. The Chinese took her last night.”

“How the hell did the Chinese find out about her?” exclaimed Sam.

“We must have a leak,” said Roet. “They picked her up on the street, near Chinatown. Grabbed her in broad daylight… well it was nearly dinner time.”

“You didn’t geo-tag her all this time you’ve been watching her?” asked Sam incredulously.

“Yeah, we put locator on her keys. We know where she is, or at least we know where her keys are. The locator puts her in Brooklyn in a warehouse. It hasn’t moved since it got there last night.”

Sam nodded. “Are you sending a team in?”

Roet nodded back: “FBI SWAT are giving me a team. We’re going in tonight after midnight. There’ll be fewer people around. I’m flying to New York in two hours. I’ll lead the team. We will be going in heavy. They probably won’t be expecting us.”

The FBI jet touched down on Long Island with Roet aboard. He’d managed to hitch a ride despite the annoyance in the voice of the FBI agent whom he’d had to convince.

The SWAT team approached the Brooklyn warehouse in four unmarked sedans.

“Comms check.” The team counted off as the cars pulled in a block from the entrance to the warehouse.

Roet’s voice came over the comms: “We need to take the girl unharmed. Once we have visual confirmation, clean up the scene, shoot to kill. Get everybody.”

The team quickly and silently jogged into position outside the side entrance. The warehouse was listed as ‘restaurant kitchen supplies storage’ but there was no knowing the layout of the place.

“Breach!” came the order, and the entry ram hit the door which bent and swung open with a loud clang, giving away their presence in the building to whomever was inside.

Roet and the team of six were inside in seconds. The dimly lit warehouse was deathly quiet as they all found cover and began working their way inside through the rows of shelves toward the back. Quietly clearing each section as they moved forward, covering each other. Roet, wearing a bulletproof vest, carrying an MP5 submachine gun, handed to him by the team captain in the car, huddled behind the agent in the lead who had a bullet proof shield.

“Please don’t shoot me in the back with that thing. Are you trained on an MP5?”

“Of course I am!” snapped Roet, lying.

As they approached the back wall of the warehouse, Roet saw that there were three doors. The leader motioned that they would split into three teams of two, and open the doors all at once.

The leader signaled the countdown with his fingers: “3–2” and then suddenly the whoosh and thud of five bullets hitting three members of the team. “Contact high right!” yelled the Team Leader. Muzzle flashes on the right side of the warehouse… Pistols with suppressors continued firing at them. The team returned fire to the right. Roet opened the cheap wooden door in front of him to take cover. He heard the crack crack of a pistol in front of him and felt two painful thuds in his chest before he saw the Chinese agent inside who had shot him. As Roet fell to his left, his finger pulled back on the trigger of his own weapon, spraying the contents of his magazine around the right side of the room, as the Chinese agent lunged low tumbling skillfully toward the doorway, springing again to his feet, making his escape to the street and into the night.