The Wuhan Mission

“Wait, I need to give you the antidote. The virus has already been released in Wuhan. If you get sick, I can’t run on my own. You probably already have it, but this will cure you.”

Xue Lin watched him as he opened the safe and pulled out a rack of vials and then the remaining loaded antidote syringe from the bottom shelf. She thought to herself that it might be something else in that syringe. Wu was no friend of the CIA.

“Listen Dr. Wu, I’m sorry that Roet killed your daughter. He’s an idiot. I had nothing to do with it. My job is to save you, and these vials” she said, pointing to the rack of liquids. “Do you have travel cases for them?” she asked watching him prepare the syringe for her.

“Yes, but first things first” he said as he took her arm, pausing for a second as he looked at her for approval. She nodded and he pierced her skin and pressed the plunger.

Xue Lin’s phone buzzed in her backpack. As Dr. Wu withdrew the needle she reached in and saw that it was Jimmy calling.

“Yes Jimmy?”

“It’s time to move” he said.

“I need a few minutes. Stall them!” she ordered.

Outside, Jimmy got out of the stolen sedan and moved quickly to the front of the building. The first couple of workers approached the front door where he stood, holding his ID up, and the other arm out wide, shaking his head.

“I’m sorry, the building is on lockdown at the moment, we have had a breach in the lab. You should go home.”

The workers looked confused and didn’t move.

As Dr. Wu put three vials into separate small, padded transport cases: first, the green one, then the clear vaccine vial, Wu thought to himself: “So Roet wants the viruses…. I’ll give him a virus!” and placed the red vial into the third case labeled SARS-COV-2.

Xue Lin had now connected her bluetooth earpiece to her phone and was listening to Jimmy trying to turn people away.

“Please move away from the area. It is not safe. The cleanup team is on its way. Please make your way back to your homes.”

Xue Lin looked at Dr. Wu and yelled: “We have to go right NOW!” zipping up her backpack with the vials in their cases stowed inside.

The security personnel in the main control room in the next building had started looking with curiosity, at the screen with the head scientist talking to the lab assistant. He had been there for a long time. The supervisor had come over to look at the screen. There was a sudden glitch in the video feed and both were gone. Something seemed off.

“Go across the street and see what’s going on” ordered the senior officer.”

Two officers holstered their pistols, put their PLA uniform hats on and started for the elevator.

Xue Lin led the way past the unconscious security guards towards the metal detector area. Dr. Wu looked dismayed as he saw the pool of blood next to the dead guard.

“Come ON!” she said to Wu. “You experiment on monkeys for God’s sake. Get over it!”

They were now behind the glass doors at the front of the building. She could see Jimmy standing there still moving people away as they arrived for work. She was still on the line with him, so Jimmy could hear her yelling at Wu about monkeys. It made him laugh despite everything.

“Jimmy, we are at the front door.”

Across the road from the virology building, two PLA security officers got out of the elevator and headed out of their building. Crossing the street towards the Institute they could see someone official waving his ID, turning people away. They walked towards him.

“I got company.” Jimmy’s voice sounded nervous in Xue Lin’s ear. “Two guards, not hostile yet. I will try to bullshit them. They look young. Come out now. Hide your weapons.”

“Copy. Headed out now. Dr. Wu is now on our team. Use that.”

Xue Lin put her lab coat over the machine gun and buttoned it up. She put her backpack on again as started to coach Dr. Wu:

“OK Doc, we have had a ‘breach’ and a ‘cleanup team’ is on the way” Xue Lin told him, using the ‘quote unquote’ sign. “There are security guys coming. You need to back up what Jimmy says and tell them not to call it in. If they call it in, I will have to start shooting.”

Dr. Wu nodded nervously.

Xue Lin turned the radios off in her backpack before walking briskly out of the building with Wu.

Jimmy turned and saw that Dr. Wu and Xue Lin were headed his way now, as the security officers approached him.

“What’s going on here?” one of them asked.

Jimmy answered confidently: “We had a breach. It’s not safe to go in. The clean up team is on its way. I’m sending everyone home. You should get out of here too. I’ve had all the immunization shots, but you are both vulnerable. It’s a very nasty virus. You don’t want to get it.”

Jimmy thought how weirdly true everything was that he had just said.

As the security guys looked at each other with uncertainty, Xue Lin and Dr. Wu arrived at Jimmy’s side.

Dr. Wu looked at one officer and said: “There has been a problem in Biosafety Level IV. It’s very dangerous inside. You should not even touch us or breath near us. We have been contaminated.”