Irving Waters - The Wuhan Mission

Jimmy shrugged his shoulders: “I dunno, maybe a trick. You heard it though. Sounded real to me.”

Jimmy suddenly looked like something had dawned on him.

“You got the bug sweeper with you in that backpack? Maybe they know where we are, don’t need to block roads.”

Xue Lin pulled it out, thankful that she’d decided to keep it for the escape.

Jimmy said: “You can check in a minute when we stop for gas.”

Jimmy pulled off the ramp into the gas station and stopped by the pump.

Xue Lin got out and casually walked around the car with the detector, doing inside and out, and ran it over Jimmy and Doctor Wu.

“Nothing. We are clean” she said looking stupefied.

Jimmy shrugged: “I guess I was wrong then,” as he continued filling the gas tank. Dr. Wu put his wig and sunglasses on and went inside the shop to find some food to balance out his hangover which had come on strong since the adrenalin rush had subsided.

On the road again, Jimmy turned the radio to a K-pop station. Xue Lin reached forward and turned the radio off. “Do you mind Jimmy, I feel like having no music for a while.”

“Fine. Let’s talk then. How about some answers. What’s your real name?”

“Nope,” replied Xue Lin, shaking her head.

“OK, where were you born? Where’s your family?”

“I was born in Beijing and my parents died in a car crash when I was five. An American couple adopted me.”

“You were adopted? I bet you had some vaccinations. Am I right?”

“I really don’t remember Jimmy, I was five!”

“You know… they might have chipped you when you were adopted, right? Get that bug sweeper out again. Turn the frequency dial down to the lowest. Do your arms, feet and shoulders first.”

“Are you serious?” she asked, a little freaked out now. “They do that here?”

“Just DO it dummy. The Government has had a program for decades where they find ways to chip people of interest, you know, for the future. Just in case. They make it seem legit with a Doctor in a white coat saying it’s a vaccination.”

As Jimmy continued talking like a crazy conspiracy theorist, Xue Lin dubiously passed the sweeper around each foot, then each hand and forearm, and the moved to her shoulders. As the device passed over her left shoulder it beeped.

“Holy….” she looked at Jimmy and turned to look at Dr. Wu. “That’s why they let us go! They know exactly where we are, and they are following us on a map.”

Jimmy looked concerned. “We need to get that thing out of you.”

“Pull over, God Damn it!” She yelled.

Jimmy pulled off the road and stopped the van in a cloud of dust.

“You got a sharp knife?” she asked.

“Of course!” Jimmy said, cockily. He reached into his duffle bag and pulled out the tactical blade that looked like it could cut through anything.

“OK, do you see that small scar on my left shoulder? That’s where it’s going to be. I always thought it was a weird vaccination scar.”

Jimmy squinted as he looked closer: “Wait! These cars all have emergency kits in the back now. Let’s sterilize first.”

Dr. Wu opened the back and found the kit. After swabbing the area and the blade with an alcohol wipe, Jimmy made an incision in her shoulder over the scar and dug around for ten seconds before levering out a small white silicone capsule.

“Holy crap!” exclaimed Xue Lin, taking it from Jimmy’s now bloody fingers.

“Bandage it!” Dr. Wu yelled, dismayed as the wound started to bleed.

Xue Lin quipped: “Yeah I’d just hate to get an infection….”

An uncomfortable silence emanated from the back seat.

“So what do we do with it?” she asked.

“Wild goose chase scenario” started Jimmy. “Put it on a vehicle going somewhere different to us. A truck, or a bus. You know, with a destination.”

Jimmy pulled off the ramp leading into the next town, and found the bus station.

“Xue Lin, do you chew gum?” he asked, offering a piece from the packet in his pocket. “You know, for the tracker.”

She took a piece and began chewing it as she got out of the van and walked casually toward the bus stop area. She stuck the tracker in her gum and shoved it firmly behind the license plate of a bus heading north and walked back to the van, smiling cockily, saying: “That will waste some time and resources. Maybe cover our tracks. They might still guess where we are headed though.”

“No, I think we’re good now,” said Jimmy. “We stay with this van. We had a clean change of vehicles back in Wuhan. No cameras there, I checked before. We’ll be in Shanghai by 11pm.” He looked at Xue Lin and asked: “How are we gonna get to Korea?”

“I know a man. I’ll have to call him on the SAT-phone.”

“It won’t be secure you know. We’ll have to do it in a town well before we get to Shanghai, or they could listen in, and might be able to locate us.”

“We need to give them a couple of hours notice to get to the extraction point.”

Sam leaned over the map with the SEAL Team Leader. Sam had thought they needed to be prepared for Xue Lin’s timeframe to change quickly with no warning. She was on the run, and was likely playing hide and seek with the Chinese Army by now. Sam told the Navy SEAL that he wanted to go in earlier rather than later and spend more time sitting at the outer limits of Korean waters and be ready to get in there at the drop of a hat.

The Team Leader went over the specs of the quick boat. The Mark V SOC aluminum hulled boat had a reduced radar signature and could do sixty-five knots on a flat sea. The guys called it “ The Mako.” The squad carried Chinese made ammunition, and would be out of uniform, with no dog tags or flags. As always, the standard rule of leaving no man behind applied.

As the minivan pulled over in a small town three hours outside Shanghai, Xue Lin connected the satellite aerial to the phone, and keyed in the Sam Chilvers’ SAT-phone number that she had memorized back at Langley during her final three weeks of training. She felt a surge of adrenaline as it rang. Things had really moved on since she had talked to him on the radio.

“Good evening, is this Empire Szechuan?” she asked.

“Yes. Would you like to reserve a table?”

“A table for three, we will be there at 11pm.”

“Excellent. Might you be expecting any other guests?”

“It’s only a remote possibility, but it could happen, I have a lot of new friends these days.”

“We look forward to seeing you” said Sam before hanging up, giving the signal to the Team Leader to call a meeting.

The SEAL Team Leader stood in front of the widescreen TV addressing his team as Sam stood to the side.

“We will take the ‘Mako’ to the first checkpoint.” He pointed to the position between the Korean coastline and Shanghai. “This is called checkpoint ‘Flipper.’ We are to proceed at high speed to this point off the coast, which we will call ‘Miami Vice’, then we take the inflatable into the beach here, at ‘Empire Szechuan’ and pick up three individuals at 11pm plus or minus. Two are Chinese Nationals, the third, a female, is one of ours. We will refer to them as ‘Gilligan, the Professor and Maryanne.’ We will have along for the ride Officer Sam Chilvers, he is ex-Delta Force. Please give him your attention.”

Sam moved to stand in front of the television and looked at the team. “Two of them are highly trained, the female, ‘Maryanne,’ is one of mine. The male, ‘Gilligan’, is potentially hostile. If he even looks at one of you the wrong way I suggest you zip tie him. The older man, ‘the Professor’ is a scientist, obviously with no training and his English may be rusty, so talk slow and keep it simple. Try to keep them dry and be gentle. One of them is carrying a breakable package that you really don’t want to break. We do not know if we are expecting guests.”