The Wuhan Mission

After admiring her handiwork, she picked up the special radio that Jimmy had left her. It was a curious looking thing. He’d showed her how to disassemble it and hide it in the toaster, the alarm clock and the back of the coffee maker. The headphones were standard earbuds with a built in microphone. She picked up the instructions and quickly memorized them. It was vital that she knew when and how to get in touch with Sam. She set fire to the instructions and while watching them burn to ash, she thought: “I’ll put this thing together again later and radio Sam this evening.” Meanwhile she had some painting to do, now that the plaster was dry. She started with the paint roller on the wall behind the bed.

*

The young Chinese computer tech timidly put his hand up again to get the attention of his impatient superior who walked straight over to the tech’s cubicle.

“Yes?”

“Sir, she is in Wuhan. She has only been to a few places since she got to the city. Supermarket area near river, residential area, and… Wuhan Institute of Virology. Sir.”

His superior paused, looking a little surprised. “Are you sure about that last place?”

“Yes sir, she was there for more than an hour sir.”

“Keep on her” he said walking back to his own office.

*

Xue Lin tossed the three handbags in the closet, and looked at the remaining gear on the bed. The bug detector, the lock picks, the data recovery tool and the wire.

The Garrote wire, a necessary but unpleasant and rather grizzly weapon, she made into a bracelet. “I hope I don’t have to use this before the day is out” she thought to herself, reminding herself that she needed to check the position of the locator she’d put on the girl.

“Email first!” she said, putting on the thick rimmed reading glasses that Jimmy had left for her. “Wow these really do make me look like a geek” she thought.

She opened the laptop and logged in to her Email account that she had established for her job application. It had just gone five o’clock.

Chapter 18 We Regret to Inform You

Dr. Wu looked carefully over each of the three applications on the large white table. There was something about the feisty one from Beijing that he didn’t entirely trust. The smart thing would be to hire the other two nicer girls, one of whom was a shoe-in. They would undoubtably tow the line, do as they were told and be sweet to him.

“Yes, I’ll hire the good girls. Less chance of problems.”

He turned to his desktop computer and cut and pasted together a job offer from an old file. He sent it off to the first girl, the ‘shoe-in.’ Next he started to type the ‘rejection email’ to Xue Lin.

“Thank you for your time. After reviewing the finalists I have decided to go with the other applicants. I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.”

*

Xue Lin signed in to her Email account.

“You have no mail” she read out loud. “Not good!” she said shaking her head, thinking about Dr. Wu’s promise to let them know by the end of the day. She closed her laptop and went to her phone to check on the location of the poor innocent girl who had no idea what was coming if Xue Lin didn’t get one of those jobs.

The little red ball on the map in her phone showed that she lived near the river, a couple of neighborhoods to the South. It was just starting to get dark. Xue Lin had noticed a bicycle rental shop in her neighborhood. She had one more look of satisfaction at the drying paint on the wall and walked out the door into the stairwell and wandered out into the early evening.

At the bike shop she offered to buy one of their older rental bikes. It was rusty but mechanically it was fine. It would get her to and from work and would be handy for little side jobs like the one she would have to do tonight.

She haggled relentlessly with the shop assistant so as not to arouse suspicion. Eventually they agreed on a very low price and she wheeled the bike out of the shop onto the street. Her plan was to take out the girl tonight.

As she paused to look at the map on her phone Xue Lin thought: ‘Maybe I’ll just have her choke on some fried rice. Something that would not call for any questions.’

*

Dr. Wu paused before clicking the send button on Xue Lin’s rejection letter.

‘It would be more interesting having her in the lab than a quiet girl. More fun for me. She had nicer boobs, and she doesn’t button all the way up. That had to be for me’ he thought to himself, pulling the long hairs that grew from a mole on his chin.

Wu clicked in the address bar and changed it and sent the rejection off to the other girl, who would likely be very disappointed as she was well qualified for the job and had done an excellent interview.

*

Xue Lin slowed to a stop on the side of the road outside the apartment building that was pinging on her GPS locator map. She parked the bike without locking it and approached the list of names and apartment numbers. She rang the buzzer next to the name she remembered from the girl’s file in front of Dr. Wu.