The Wuhan Mission

“Gotcha!” she mouthed silently, leaving it in place. She made her way around the rest of the apartment finding two more tiny microphone transmitters in the living room, both installed on lamps.

Xue Lin pulled the sweeper out and put it on the kitchen bench, knowing that there were no cameras. She checked her plastered hidey-hole, all good.

She then pulled out each of the radio parts from their clever hiding places, checking them one by one. Everything in its place still.

She made a social call to her new lab assistant girlfriend to say hi, and ask her how her first day was. She hung up and put the sweeper in its ziplock and went out to return it to its brick wall. She went and sat in a busy local restaurant to go over the ‘audio bug protocol’ in her head.

Her tradecraft instructor had taught her how to utilize an enemy’s audio bugs for counterintelligence. The people listening assume they are getting reliable information, while you lead them down the garden path with a preplanned scenario.

As she ate her steamed Wuchang fish, she went over what she would say to Sam on the radio. It was possible that the bugs were standard for employees at the lab, but she had to assume that she was a special case until she could check the other girl’s apartment to see if it was clean.

She paid her bill and headed back to put the radio together. She pulled out her mobile phone and the new burner phone that she’d bought, turning its ringer to silent. She put the radio together and plugged the headphones in. Then, just as she made the radio call, she called the burner phone from her mobile. They would not be able to trace the call, and would not be aware that she was using a radio to communicate, and the phones were just decoys.

*

The audio tech and the analyst both listened in on the call coming out of the adopted girl’s apartment. The signal was clear, but the recipient phone was not registered. “Must be a burner” said the tech.

“Good evening, this is Xue Lin. How are you?” she said, using the alternative dialogue designed to alert Sam if she’d found a bug.

The techs listened but only silence followed. She was not using speaker phone, so they could only hear her side of the conversation.

“Good! I’m fine too” she said.

More silence

“Yeah it was really fun. A great first day, though I was nervous. Everybody works very hard there, but the pay is good, so I’m happy. What did you do today?”

Xue Lin paused, sitting at the kitchen bench talking into the radio with the phones in front of her. She allowed a really long silence this time, and had a long pull on her beer while imagining what a long winded friend might be saying, meanwhile Sam was answering her through her headphones over the radio: “OK Snow Forest, see if you can find out if they are on to you or if it’s just standard operating procedure of a paranoid government.”

The tech guy drummed his fingers waiting for Xue Lin to speak again.

“Good!” she said. “How is your boyfriend doing?” she asked

Sam’s voice crackled in her headphones. “Very funny, Snow Forest. Now, say: ‘yes’ if there’s a room they didn’t bug, like the bathroom for instance”

“Yes” she replied.

One of the tech guys rolled his eyes and the other yawned.

She continued: “Do you keep tampons in your handbag when you are not on your period? You know, for a friend if she needs one, or if your period sneaks up on you? That reminds I have to buy some, I only have one box in the bathroom.”

Sam laughed. “OK smart ass. So you can radio me from the bathroom after this call. Just leave some music on near their bugs. Something loud and awful.”

One of the techs lifted his arm and smelled his armpit. They had been on for twelve hours today. This job was murder….

“I’d love to!” she said. “Well it’s been lovely talking to you. You make sure to get a bra that fits you properly. If you are going out with a hot man you need to put on some makeup and show some cleavage! Anyway, bye for now. Love you.”

The call ended. The techs logged the call and filed it. Nothing unusual to report.

Xue Lin turned up the music on her phone and put it between the two lamps in the living room. She closed the bedroom door, then picked up a chisel and a screwdriver from the plastic bag on the floor, then the radio from the kitchen bench, and carried them all into the bathroom, using her training to rig the aerial to the plumbing.

“Hello Blue Eyes this is Snow Forest” she said.

“Good work Snow Forest”

“Shit I have three bugs. At least there are no cameras. That would suck.”

“Remember to check your own spy cam. You can ID the people who bugged your place. In any case, they did you a favour. You can just talk to me in the bathroom, and then when you need to you can feed them lines near their mic transmitters. It’s perfect really. Just keep sweeping each night to make sure they don’t sneak any cameras in.”