The Wuhan Mission

Outside in a van, the Tool Man had just commenced the video loop on the building’s closed circuit TV. Any security personnel watching monitors would now be seeing the same repeated ‘ten minutes’ from when Xue Lin and Dr. Wu were at her cubicle together. If they paid attention, they might think it was strange that Dr. Wu was at her cubicle for so long, but besides that, everything would appear normal, unless of course, the other staff started to arrive at work, which would be soon.

Xue Lin returned to her cubicle where Dr. Wu had just stood up, having remedied her faulty work.

“Here’s your tea sir.” She smiled sweetly at him as she stood close, looking him directly in the face, holding his attention as she asked him: “Do you wanna go outside with me and smoke?”

“I didn’t know you smoked Xue Lin!”

“I just started again” she said batting her eyelashes at him. Dr. Wu just noticed that she was wearing makeup for the first time since her job interview. She was devastatingly beautiful.

“Sure, let’s go and smoke.”

The two of them passed through the security turnstile next to the metal detector and walked out of the building immediately smelling the awful aroma of Wuhan smog.

Xue Lin lit a cigarette and had a look at her countdown timer. She had seven minutes to finish the cigarette, take out the front security guard and then the remaining guard. It was going to be very tight.

They smoked in silence. Dr. Wu seemed preoccupied as he powerfully inhaled his cigarette. Xue Lin waited until he finished and threw the butt on the ground.

“Let’s go!” she said abruptly, throwing her half smoked cigarette a few feet into the bin.

Wu followed her back into the building. She was moving briskly now.

“You go ahead, I have to grab something from my locker” she said, ushering him ahead of her as she peeled off to the left.

Dr. Wu went ahead through security, patting his pockets in search of his security card, and wondering why Xue Lin had become so matter-of-fact and hurried since their cigarette.

Xue Lin went to her locker and grabbed the backpack, throwing it on, and then moved up the hall to the metal detector. The metal detector beeped obnoxiously as she walked through it. The security guard stood up and slowly came around the machine towards her.

Xue Lin pulled her chopsticks out of her hair and took two large, rapid strides towards him, launching herself at him, taking him to the ground with her legs around his torso, pinning his arms to his sides. He tried to reach for his holstered pistol, but she plunged the chopsticks into his neck, and then with both hands she gripped the two chopsticks together and drove them into his heart.

“One!” she said to herself under her breath, wiping her hands clean and getting up off the dead guard, extracting his pistol and extra clips from his belt, throwing them quickly into her backpack, then, tying her hair up again with the chopsticks as she moved quickly towards the security door where she could see Dr. Wu and one of the guards standing over the other guard who was already slumped on the floor.

“What happened here?” She said as she approached the scene, seeing that the guard was reaching for his walkie-talkie.

Xue Lin landed a fist to the front of his neck followed by a lightning fast spinning kick to the side of his head, taking him to the ground, unconscious.

“Stay calm Dr. Wu, and you won’t get shot in the head” she said as she pulled zip ties and duct tape out of her backpack.

“We are going in this door, and you are going to do exactly as I say. Is that understood?” she looked up at Wu, as she zip-tied the guards ankles together.

“Ah yes, I understand. Who are you?” he asked her, with a look of total bewilderment.

“I’m here to help you, but you have to help me first. Let’s talk in the lab” she indicated with her head as she finished securing the guard, who would be coming to soon enough.

She put his walkie-talkie in her backpack, and picked up his machine gun, pulling the strap over her head so the weapon hung down her front. She grabbed the three extra clips from his vest, then moving on to the roofied guard, taking his clips and the magazine out of his weapon, also taking his walkie talkie.

“Let’s go!” she said, sliding Wu’s security pass through the reader, opening the door to the Biosafety Lever IV area.

The security door shut behind them. Xue Lin estimated that they had only ten minutes before the lab staff began arriving for work.

“Doctor Wu, the Chairman wants you dead. I am taking you to America. You have become a loose end for him.”

“Ah yes, I thought this would be the case. Do you know what I have been working on in this lab? You are CIA I assume?”

“Yes, SARS virus.” She answered, ignoring the second question. “We need to leave now, but we are bringing the virus with us and the vaccine.”

“Are you sure you can get us out of China? Are you working alone?”

“I have a solid plan in place. Our chances are good. Open the safe” she ordered, taking her backpack off and unzipping it.