Irving Waters - The Wuhan Mission

It was mid-November. In a couple of weeks, from what he understood, people would start to come down with a new kind of flu. The Communist Propaganda Department would blame it on people eating bats, but eventually it would come out that there were no bats being sold at the market. There were holes in the story. A story that he was now an integral part of.

“I need to get out of China before the shit hits the fan. They can trace this to me if Wu opens his mouth.” Jimmy thought.

Jimmy drove straight home to call Roet.

“Yo Boss! Wuzzup ma man?”

“Yes, hello Jimmy. What do you have for me?”

“I need to make deal. I’m gonna be on a Party kill list soon. They will be cleaning up loose ends.”

“Calm down Jimmy. What is it that you want?”

“I need come to America. Things too hot here for me. I stay here much longer, I won’t be any use to you coz I catch a bullet.”

Roet laughed. “Come on Jimmy, you’re being dramatic.”

“I’m telling you boss, Wu gave me a virus to spread around market. It said: ‘SARS-COV-2’ on the case. I spray most of it, just like Chairman told me, but not all of it, I still have some. I keep for you. You guys might wanna test what’s in there. Could be very bad for you guys. He gave me antidote first though, so I’m all good. No infected.”

Roet was concerned. This was unexpected. The Chairman was infecting his own people. He needed to get that virus analyzed State-side.

“OK Jimmy, it’s a deal. You may as well come over here and spend all that money you have in the bank. Meanwhile, keep the virus safe. I’ll have Xue Lin’s handler inform her that she has a passenger. Maybe she will have two passengers if she can get Dr. Wu to come too. Don’t tell Xue Lin about the virus. That’s our secret. You got that?”

“OK Boss.”

“When you go to see your cobbler to get tools for Xue Lin and a new passport for yourself, go ahead and get one for Dr. Wu too.”

“OK Boss. That’s gonna cost. Passports expensive. Five thousand US per passport.”

“No problem Jimmy, I’ll put it in your bank account this afternoon.”

Jimmy didn’t celebrate this time as things had suddenly become quite serious for him.

Marcus fidgeted nervously as he waited for Sam to arrive at their park bench overlooking the river. Marcus had shown up early to think about what was about to go down in China. There was a lot on the line now and the Chairman’s actions were hard to predict.

“Sam! Glad you could make it. Sorry for the short notice. I believe it’s time to think about getting them all out of China. Snow Forest too. I mean real soon.”

“What’s going on?” Sam asked.

“The package is a virus. I don’t know exactly what kind it is, but the Chairman just used it on his own people. It’s called SARS-COV-2”

“Jesus Christ!” said Sam, suddenly worried about Xue Lin.

“Yeah, I know. It’s bad. Could be much worse than 2003. I had two operatives there for that too. That time my people forced the scientist to change the virus so it couldn’t touch us white people. Did you ever hear about the Barbecue Couple?”

“Yes, I did hear something about that. They got kicked out of China. Lucky they weren’t executed.”

“Yeah, and I may as well tell you, they were the ones who adopted Xue Lin.”

“Jesus, Marcus, why don’t I know this?”

“Need to know basis, Sam.”

Sam was silent.

Roet continued: “Xue Lin has to bring both my assets with her, Jimmy and the Doctor. We need them both. Also tell her to grab whatever she can from Wu’s lab. Virus should be labeled ‘SARS-COV-2.’ Apparently there is an antidote too. She may have to coerce it out of Wu. He might not be so willing… after his daughter and the… incident.”

“Two passengers? You are shitting me right?” said Sam.

“Wu is the foremost virologist in…”

“Yeah I got it. You need Wu. I’ll tell her when she calls.”

“They’ll need extraction if the shit hits the fan, which it probably will with two passengers, especially if any of them are already compromised, which is a possibility.”

“I’ll have a team on standby,” said Roet.

“Good” Sam replied, “I’ll be going in with them. I’ll fly to Seoul tonight.”

“Jesus Sam, aren’t you getting a bit old for this shit?”

“I guess we’ll see.”

Jimmy thumped on the steel door of the Tool Man’s basement apartment. A few nights earlier he had put in Xue Lin’s order for a few more tools. He had also added his own list to the order.

He squinted up at what appeared to be a piece of scrap barbed wire hanging to the right of the door. He knew that’s where the tiny security camera was hidden.

The door opened and Jimmy walked in as the Tool Man closed the door quickly behind him.

“I got almost everything you need. How about you? You got what I want?”

“Jimmy smiled as he put his bag on the concrete floor and, one by one, pulled out several bottles of Johnnie Walker Blue Label. They had been a re-gift from Jimmy’s ex-boss, the Secretary, who had been given two cases by foreign diplomats, but didn’t drink Western Liquor on principle. The Tool Man loved Scotch Whisky.

“Gooooood!” said the Tool Man, smiling, opening one, smelling the top of the open bottle. He grabbed two glasses, putting them on his wooden work bench, and poured two drinks, pushing one in Jimmy’s direction.

“Gan Bei!” they both gulped the whisky.

The Tool Guy’s face glowed. “You got the money too?”

Jimmy threw a wad of Chinese currency on the bench.

“I couldn’t get the whole amount because the whisky was so expensive…” Jimmy lied looking at his feet.

“OK, only coz we are old friends you cheap bastard.” said the Tool Man, pulling out an open cardboard box from under the bench.

“Micro GPS tracker, home made. Very small eh? Peel the back off and it stick to anything.”

Jimmy nodded.

“Works with this phone. Very good phone. It was hard to hack. Plug in this long aerial, work like SAT-phone. To connect to satellite you have to tell the Americans the number on the back, they will understand.

“‘Date rape drug, rohypnol: 2 large doses, liquid form, fast action, out for 1 hr+’ This for you Jimmy?… You good looking. You don’t need this.”

Jimmy shook his head, smiling back at his cheeky friend.

“Ceramic scissors. Won’t set off metal detector.”

Jimmy figured that Xue Lin must have a special reason for those.

“Flash-bang grenade. Hard to get. I made this one. Much better.” He lobbed it up in the air to Jimmy who had to strain to catch it, shaking his head and smirking at his friend.

“Also, black backpack is Kevlar, bullet proof, more or less.”

He passed it to Jimmy who noticed that it did have some weight to it for an empty backpack.

“Two Chinese passports and ID cards. New names. No travel stamps.”

Jimmy flipped each of the passports open, nodding, impressed with the workmanship as the Tool Man went to a long wooden crate in the corner of the room and lifted the lid revealing a sniper rifle and a vest. Picking up the rifle, he smiled at Jimmy, demonstrating the action.

“ Barret 50 cal sniper rifle, and PLA standard issue bullet proof vest, perfect size for pussy chicken shit… also a very, very sharp tactical knife.” He tossed the knife high, spinning in the air. Jimmy watched to see if it would stick in the table. The knife bounced off the table and clattered to the floor.