The Wuhan Mission

Jimmy had been summoned to Beijing to see the Chairman. He had the small jet to himself and took the time to put his feet up and rest a little. He had no need to worry. Jimmy had come to associate the Chairman with good things in his life and as he drifted off into a heavy nap, he dreamt of buxom white girls in bikinis galavanting about on a rooftop pool deck. The bump of the wheels on the tarmac brought him back and he was soon in the back of a limo on his way to his meeting.

Shelling a gigantic prawn with his chopsticks, the Chairman sat having lunch at his large ornate mahogany desk. His assistant was holding his calls. Jimmy was asked to wait while the Chairman finished his lunch. The assistant smiled personably at him as he straightened his tie and sat in one of the armless red felt covered chairs.

Twenty minutes went by agonizingly slowly before the assistant’s intercom buzzed.

“Please go inside.” She said sweetly.

Jimmy smelled the strong odor of seafood upon entering the office. The Chairman asked him if he would like a Bourbon, gesturing for Jimmy to help himself. Jimmy poured a very modestly sized drink for himself.

“The reason for the secrecy, Jimmy, is that the mission you are about to be sent on must never be talked about. The only people who can know about what you are about to do are Dr. Wu, myself and my high level Government officials. The mission is a key part of a great leap forward that our country is on the precipice of taking.”

Jimmy stared back at the Chairman, not knowing how to respond. He nervously chose to take a slurp of his drink.

“You must accept that you will never be recognized for this mission. You will never be applauded or blamed. You do this for the glory of China. You do this for the greater good.”

“Yes sir.”

The Chairman continued: “You will be notified one day in the near future that you are to go to Doctor Wu’s secure lab where he will give you an immunization. This is to protect you. He will then provide you with some kind of special dispersal device and provide you with instructions to follow.”

“Yes sir.” Jimmy confirmed.

“You are to follow the directions that he gives you exactly, and you are not to discuss any of this with any living soul. Nobody.”

“Understood sir.”

“You may be wondering what you get in return. I would normally say that the reward for a task such as this would be the sense of pride that comes with an act of helping your Country. In your case, I feel that your service to China has been so valuable thus far that completing this mission would warrant a special reward. I would like to set your retirement age at fifty years old. You may begin taking your full pension at that time.”

“Thank you sir. I feel honored!”

“Go now. Continue on as you were, and wait for the call. The Party believes in you.”

Jimmy turned and walked stiffly to the door, exiting politely.”

Chapter 29 SARS-COV-X

Dr. Wu entered his secure lab the next morning. He didn’t speak to anyone on the way through security or on the floor of the outer laboratory. The assistants were taken aback at his apparent state of mind. He didn’t look at anybody. He entered the door to the high security lab between the armed guards. The sight of their guns snapped him back into thoughts of what had happened to his daughter. He was feeling extremely hungover. He had drunk whisky in his living room until he had blacked out. He was probably still a little drunk now.

He had lost his only daughter. His only family left in the world. His emotions seesawed violently between sadness and fury. His actions were on automatic. His tasks for today did not require much thinking. ‘Just follow procedure’ he thought to himself as he went through the motions of opening files and closing out all of the experiments that he’d now completed.

The Yellow Virus was ready for handover to the Chairman’s scientists. All that remained for him to do was to clean up the records of his workflow, and to incinerate the interim viruses that were stored in the bio-hazard safe and served no further purpose, one of which was too dangerous to be in existence. As Dr. Wu closed out another file, he went over in his mind what he’d done in the lab since his first meeting with the Chairman.

The Chairman had asked for a virus that picked off the weak, the sick and the elderly. Dr. Wu took a sample of the Yellow Virus out of the safe and put it in the small foam-lined pelican case marked SARS-CoV-2. He would be handing this to the three Government scientists.