The Wuhan Mission

She was ravenously hungry and shoveled the stir fried pork and noodles into her mouth, grunting with satisfaction. “Mmmm yummy” she said into her empty apartment, smiling.

It was nearly eight when she put the radio together running over the communication instructions in her head to reinforce her memory. She put the earbuds in and made the call.

“Hello Blue Eyes, this is Snow Farts”

“Come on, this is serious Snow Forest.”

“Oh get over yourself Blue Eyes. Everything is cool. I got the job!”

“That’s a relief.” Sam didn’t sound relieved or surprised. He seemed to have a bit too much confidence in her, she thought. He had no idea how close that poor girl had come to being strangled and dumped somewhere.

“You know… it was touch and go there for a minute. I was about to go to Plan B just as the job offer arrived.”

“Well… good. We prefer no mess. You got your tools?” he asked.

“Yep, that guy is a little shifty. Is he solid?” Xue Lin asked, doubtful.

“Keep your bullshit detector on. Just use him for what he’s good for. He’s on a need to know basis and there’s not much he needs to know, for now. He’s Roet’s asset, not mine. So don’t expect too much.”

“Copy that.” Xue Lin responded, making a mental note about Jimmy.

“So I start work tomorrow. I’ll drop a line after my first big day and give you the rundown about the lab. Make sense?”

“Good work. You’ve done well. Far as we can tell you got in to China undetected. I hope the ride wasn’t too rough.”

“Nearly drowned, but whatever.”

Sam paused, not sure what to say.

After an awkward silence Sam said: “Stay safe, Snow Forest. Have a nice first day at work.”

“Over and out” Xue Lin signed off and pulled the radio apart and stashed it all away, and got ready for bed.

*

The morning sunshine was streaming through the living room windows in Sam’s high-rise apartment as he pulled apart his radio and stashed it in various devices around the office and kitchen of his apartment. He poured his second cup of coffee for the morning and cracked two eggs in the pan, relieved that Snow Forest was ‘in and established’ at the lab. It was an extremely dangerous assignment that she’d been given. An unforgiving job with potentially drastic consequences.

American prisoners caught in China who had been exchanged for Chinese prisoners had brought back horrific accounts of conditions and treatment in Chinese jails. Torture was a standard part of questioning in China. There were no laws overseeing the behavior of Chinese Government agents when it came to interrogating spies or, indeed, their own citizens.

Sam picked up his phone and called Roet.

“Morning Sam.”

“Snow Forest is in, and she’s got a job!”

“That’s good news. She got tools and cash?” asked Roet.

“Yep, and papers. She’s all set. Tell your team good job on the interview file. It worked.”

“I… will do that Sam. Thank you. I’m glad to hear it.”

“See you at the office.”

“OK Sam, thanks for the update.”

Chapter 19 A Black Bag Job

The sun hung low in the sky after Xue Lin’s first day at work. Her bike leaned against the red brick wall as she loosened her secret brick and retrieved the bug sweeper. This was going to be her routine every evening. Her life might depend on it. She had been taught that mistakes can easily happen at the beginning of a mission when things are unfamiliar. She had to go forward carefully.

She crept quietly up the stairs to the third floor. No point being noisy. Xue Lin paused at her front door. She could tell that someone had opened it, as the hair she had stuck along the bottom of the door had been dislodged.

Standing in the corridor, she took the bug sweeper from the ziplock bag in her backpack, turned it on and switched it to vibrate and stuck it down the front of her pants, pulling her blouse over the top of it. If there were cameras, she wanted to make sure that they didn’t catch her sweeping the room with the device.

She pulled her metal chopsticks from her hair, gripped them in tight fists as Sam had taught her and slowly opened the door. Nobody. The apartment was exactly as she had left it.

Maintaining a normal ‘I just got home’ routine, she went to the fridge and opened it. Then closed it and swept the kitchen with the device still down her pants. She then moved to the bathroom to wash her hands, look in the mirror and open the cabinet mirror. Still no vibrations from the sweeper. She moved toward the bedroom, and as she passed through the doorway, the sweeper began to vibrate intermittently. She moved to the bedside, and the vibrating became constant. She stretched, and casually looked around the walls for a camera, seeing nothing out of the ordinary, so she sat on the side of the bed, and fumbled for the bedside lamp, looking closely inside the lampshade. No camera, but… ‘what IS that?’ she thought peering closer at where the lightbulb was screwed in.