The Wuhan Mission

He grimaced and opened the door and walked into the market holding the spray bottle in his right hand under his coat. The first food vendor he came to was seafood. It was busy and there were quite a few people waiting. Jimmy walked to the corner of the seafood display table and aimed the spray bottle into the air near a row of cuttlefish lined up side by side. He pressed the unlock button and pulled the trigger once. Nobody noticed the mist that spread across his end of the table. Jimmy looked at the people waiting to be served and he felt sorry for them. Some of them were quite old.

Jimmy continued through the market spraying the virus around the wares of several vendors before he turned back and headed to his car, shaking his head, sickened by what he had just done.

He drove off, glancing down at the spray bottle, noting that it was still half full. Jimmy opened the window and sprayed more of the bottle outside the car as he drove through the streets crowded with cyclists and motorbikes.

It was mid-November. In a couple of weeks, from what he understood, people would start to come down with a new kind of flu. The Communist Propaganda Department would blame it on people eating bats, but eventually it would come out that there were no bats being sold at the market. There were holes in the story. A story that he was now an integral part of.

“I need to get out of China before the shit hits the fan. They can trace this to me if Wu opens his mouth.” Jimmy thought.

Jimmy drove straight home to call Roet.

*

“Yo Boss! Wuzzup ma man?”

“Yes, hello Jimmy. What do you have for me?”

“I need to make deal. I’m gonna be on a Party kill list soon. They will be cleaning up loose ends.”

“Calm down Jimmy. What is it that you want?”

“I need come to America. Things too hot here for me. I stay here much longer, I won’t be any use to you coz I catch a bullet.”

Roet laughed. “Come on Jimmy, you’re being dramatic.”

“I’m telling you boss, Wu gave me a virus to spread around market. It said: ‘SARS-COV-2’ on the case. I spray most of it, just like Chairman told me, but not all of it, I still have some. I keep for you. You guys might wanna test what’s in there. Could be very bad for you guys. He gave me antidote first though, so I’m all good. No infected.”

Roet was concerned. This was unexpected. The Chairman was infecting his own people. He needed to get that virus analyzed State-side.

“OK Jimmy, it’s a deal. You may as well come over here and spend all that money you have in the bank. Meanwhile, keep the virus safe. I’ll have Xue Lin’s handler inform her that she has a passenger. Maybe she will have two passengers if she can get Dr. Wu to come too. Don’t tell Xue Lin about the virus. That’s our secret. You got that?”

“OK Boss.”

“When you go to see your cobbler to get tools for Xue Lin and a new passport for yourself, go ahead and get one for Dr. Wu too.”

“OK Boss. That’s gonna cost. Passports expensive. Five thousand US per passport.”

“No problem Jimmy, I’ll put it in your bank account this afternoon.”

Jimmy didn’t celebrate this time as things had suddenly become quite serious for him.

Chapter 33 The Package

Marcus fidgeted nervously as he waited for Sam to arrive at their park bench overlooking the river. Marcus had shown up early to think about what was about to go down in China. There was a lot on the line now and the Chairman’s actions were hard to predict.

“Sam! Glad you could make it. Sorry for the short notice. I believe it’s time to think about getting them all out of China. Snow Forest too. I mean real soon.”

“What’s going on?” Sam asked.

“The package is a virus. I don’t know exactly what kind it is, but the Chairman just used it on his own people. It’s called SARS-COV-2”

“Jesus Christ!” said Sam, suddenly worried about Xue Lin.

“Yeah, I know. It’s bad. Could be much worse than 2003. I had two operatives there for that too. That time my people forced the scientist to change the virus so it couldn’t touch us white people. Did you ever hear about the Barbecue Couple?”

“Yes, I did hear something about that. They got kicked out of China. Lucky they weren’t executed.”

“Yeah, and I may as well tell you, they were the ones who adopted Xue Lin.”

“Jesus, Marcus, why don’t I know this?”

“Need to know basis, Sam.”

Sam was silent.

Roet continued: “Xue Lin has to bring both my assets with her, Jimmy and the Doctor. We need them both. Also tell her to grab whatever she can from Wu’s lab. Virus should be labeled ‘SARS-COV-2.’ Apparently there is an antidote too. She may have to coerce it out of Wu. He might not be so willing… after his daughter and the… incident.”

“Two passengers? You are shitting me right?” said Sam.

“Wu is the foremost virologist in…”

“Yeah I got it. You need Wu. I’ll tell her when she calls.”

“They’ll need extraction if the shit hits the fan, which it probably will with two passengers, especially if any of them are already compromised, which is a possibility.”

“I’ll have a team on standby” said Roet.