The Wuhan Mission

“Daddy, I am safe. The Chinese Government men grabbed me off the street! They showed me pictures of all the little cameras that the CIA had put in my apartment. Can you believe that? I feel so violated. Apparently there was even one in my bathroom! But I’m OK. I want to come home Daddy. They are going to get me home. I don’t want to live in this country anymore. I will be seeing you very soon. Well, that’s it. I love you!”

Dr. Wu couldn’t believe it. How did the Government know about the CIA watching her?

He thought to himself about how he was no longer obligated to work on the CIA virus, and closed his laptop and put away his notes. He closed the safe and took his white coat off. He was going home to celebrate. As he walked through the lab to security the lab assistants all said goodbye respectfully, but he didn’t really hear them. His thoughts had already returned to the mutating Red Virus and the devastation it could do to America.

Chapter 27 A Lost Asset

Marcus Roet sat in his office reading intelligence briefings on his computer. He’d been working at the agency since he graduated from Rutgers University on the East Coast. He’d applied to the CIA through the regular channels. He hadn’t been recruited and didn’t have any special talents that made him stand out, but once he was in the door, he knew how to slide up the ladder, usually at the expense of others. A bad word about someone in the appropriate ear could do irrepairable damage. He played on people’s dark side. Also he never questioned orders, no matter what they entailed. Ironically, Marcus Roet would have made a great Chinese citizen.

The CIA directive from the seventh floor had been to ‘turn’ Dr. Wu, force him to alter the virus that they had discovered he’d started work on, and then steal a copy of it to keep for American use on the Chinese in the future if needed. Roet was apprised of the type of virus Wu was working on. The Generals had been concerned for the last few decades about use of bioweapons on the armed forces. Control of Dr. Wu was of vital military importance. The alteration of the virus would ensure that US armed forces and allies would be relatively unaffected. China would be shooting blanks at them, much like SARS-COV back in 2003.

Roet knew that if the virus was altered in such a way as to only affect Asians, it could also be a highly effective biological weapon to deploy against other Asian countries including Vietnam, Japan, North Korea. Roet also saw the paradoxical nature of using a Chinese made bio-weapon against the Chinese.

Chinatown

Dr. Wu’s daughter pressed the ‘end call’ button on her phone. She was happy to hear her father’s voice and was excited to tell him that she was going to Chinatown for dinner with a friend.

She was already in her pretty dress that she’d bought yesterday using her his credit card.

She google mapped the route to “Joe’s Shanghai” a very popular soup dumpling restaurant just off Canal street. It was an easy trip: one subway and a ten minute walk.

She texted her friend that she would meet her outside the restaurant at eight, but if she was late, to just get in line for a table.

The A train was half empty and she found a seat and opened her book.

She had more than forty minutes before her stop and didn’t have to look up from her book except for the occasional check on their progress downtown. She did accidentally meet eyes with the Chinese man sitting opposite her, each of them looking down immediately, slightly embarrassed. Those accidental interactions were always awkward in New York City, as eye contact was avoided at all costs, especially if you were a little Asian girl.

“Canal street” came the announcement. She waited until the last second before getting up to go the door. Most of the passengers left the train, including the Chinese man. She walked up the furthest staircase, knowing the way to the street from this station. Heading east along Canal Street towards Chinatown, she pulled her phone out and sent a quick text:

“Canal Street, walking from A train now. C U soon.”

The Chinese man from her subway carriage was on his phone too as he walked behind her. She didn’t notice that she was being followed as she was focused upon her phone.

She crossed Mulberry Street, and was startled as a white van pulled up violently to the curb next to her and the door slid open. She felt a shove behind her and two men in the van dragged her inside without much effort. The Chinese man who had been following her also got in the van, grabbing her phone from her hand and tossing it out the door. As the phone landed on the footpath, the van had already jerked away from the curb, rubber squealing for a moment, and sped away toward the Manhattan bridge which would take it to Brooklyn.

“Cal 911! Call 911! Yelled a young hipster, picking up the girl’s phone that still displayed the open WhatsApp text exchange.

The next morning at 9AM Marcus Roet dialed Sam’s office extension from his desk at Langley.