The Wuhan Mission

Jimmy pulled off the ramp into the gas station and stopped by the pump.

Xue Lin got out and casually walked around the car with the detector, doing inside and out, and ran it over Jimmy and Doctor Wu.

“Nothing. We are clean” she said looking stupefied.

Jimmy shrugged: “I guess I was wrong then” as he continued filling the gas tank. Dr. Wu put his wig and sunglasses on and went inside the shop to find some food to balance out his hangover which had come on strong since the adrenalin rush had subsided.

*

On the road again, Jimmy turned the radio to a K-pop station. Xue Lin reached forward and turned the radio off. “Do you mind Jimmy, I feel like having no music for a while.”

“Fine. Let’s talk then. How about some answers. What’s your real name?”

“Nope” replied Xue Lin, shaking her head.

“OK, where were you born? Where’s your family?”

“I was born in Beijing and my parents died in a car crash when I was five. An American couple adopted me.”

“You were adopted? I bet you had some vaccinations. Am I right?”

“I really don’t remember Jimmy, I was five!”

“You know… they might have chipped you when you were adopted, right? Get that bug sweeper out again. Turn the frequency dial down to the lowest. Do your arms, feet and shoulders first.”

“Are you serious?” she asked, a little freaked out now. “They do that here?”

“Just DO it dummy. The Government has had a program for decades where they find ways to chip people of interest, you know, for the future. Just in case. They make it seem legit with a Doctor in a white coat saying it’s a vaccination.”

As Jimmy continued talking like a crazy conspiracy theorist, Xue Lin dubiously passed the sweeper around each foot, then each hand and forearm, and the moved to her shoulders. As the device passed over her left shoulder it beeped.

“Holy….” she looked at Jimmy and turned to look at Dr. Wu. “That’s why they let us go! They know exactly where we are, and they are following us on a map.”

Jimmy looked concerned. “We need to get that thing out of you.”

“Pull over, God Damn it!” She yelled.

Jimmy pulled off the road and stopped the van in a cloud of dust.

“You got a sharp knife?” she asked.

“Of course!” Jimmy said, cockily. He reached into his duffle bag and pulled out the tactical blade that looked like it could cut through anything.

“OK, do you see that small scar on my left shoulder? That’s where it’s going to be. I always thought it was a weird vaccination scar.”

Jimmy squinted as he looked closer: “Wait! These cars all have emergency kits in the back now. Let’s sterilize first.”

Dr. Wu opened the back and found the kit. After swabbing the area and the blade with an alcohol wipe, Jimmy made an incision in her shoulder over the scar and dug around for ten seconds before levering out a small white silicone capsule.

“Holy crap!” exclaimed Xue Lin, taking it from Jimmy’s now bloody fingers.

“Bandage it!” Dr. Wu yelled, dismayed as the wound started to bleed.

Xue Lin quipped: “Yeah I’d just hate to get an infection….”

An uncomfortable silence emanated from the back seat.

“So what do we do with it?” she asked.

“Wild goose chase scenario” started Jimmy. “Put it on a vehicle going somewhere different to us. A truck, or a bus. You know, with a destination.”

Jimmy pulled off the ramp leading into the next town, and found the bus station.

“Xue Lin, do you chew gum?” he asked, offering a piece from the packet in his pocket. “You know, for the tracker.”

She took a piece and began chewing it as she got out of the van and walked casually toward the bus stop area. She stuck the tracker in her gum and shoved it firmly behind the license plate of a bus heading north and walked back to the van, smiling cockily, saying: “That will waste some time and resources. Maybe cover our tracks. They might still guess where we are headed though.”

“No, I think we’re good now” said Jimmy. “We stay with this van. We had a clean change of vehicles back in Wuhan. No cameras there, I checked before. We’ll be in Shanghai by 11pm.” He looked at Xue Lin and asked: “How are we gonna get to Korea?”

“I know a man. I’ll have to call him on the SAT-phone.”

“It won’t be secure you know. We’ll have to do it in a town well before we get to Shanghai, or they could listen in, and might be able to locate us.”

“We need to give them a couple of hours notice to get to the extraction point.

Chapter 41 Sam and the SEAL Team

Sam leaned over the map with the SEAL Team Leader. Sam had thought they needed to be prepared for Xue Lin’s timeframe to change quickly with no warning. She was on the run, and was likely playing hide and seek with the Chinese Army by now. Sam told the Navy SEAL that he wanted to go in earlier rather than later and spend more time sitting at the outer limits of Korean waters and be ready to get in there at the drop of a hat.