The Wuhan Mission

“Well done Jimmy. Good work. Now I need you to find out if your Doctor Wu has a daughter in New York. We are still connecting the dots. We need to confirm him at your end.”

“OK boss! Two thousand dollars you can do? I have to pay people off for info. Intel not cheap. Risk my life you know?”

Roet was silent for a moment.

“Very well Jimmy, I will deposit it after you call me with the intel about the daughter.”

“Ok Boss, I’m here for ya.”

“Check in with me if you have any more specific news about what Wu is working on.” Roet hung up.

Jimmy felt like this was all too easy ripping off the CIA. He was always ahead of the game. Marcus Roet was always paying him to do things he had already done. It was perfect. He was going to be rich when he got to America.

Jimmy headed out to do buy some instant noodles and beer at the supermarket that he’d noticed around the corner. He needed to wait an hour before calling Roet back with the intel about the daughter. Another two grand in the bank without breaking a sweat.

*

A few hours later, Roet’s phone rang, it was Jimmy on the line again.

“Yo Boss! Dr. Wu has a daughter at NYU. Her name is Ning Wu. Easy to remember, Ning, like New York.” Jimmy’s voice came over loud and clear.

“Excellent news! That’s what we needed Jimmy” said Roet, relieved to finally have some reliable and actionable intel on the asset’s daughter.

“No problem Boss. You put the money in the bank, yes?”

“Yes, Jimmy, you will get paid today. Check your US account in twenty-four hours. Money will be there. Make sure you don’t spend a cent of it there in China. Any activity on this account will get you a one way ticket to a Chinese jail. We cannot have that Jimmy. You understand?”

“Sure Boss. Don’t sweat it. I’m all good here. I spend money when I come to America.”

Roet hung up abruptly, not caring to talk to Jimmy any more than he had to.

Chapter 7 Ning Wu

The sun shone through Ning Wu’s white IKEA curtains that were drawn across her bedroom window in Manhattan. She woke up late again this morning. She had already missed her first two classes of the day. Living alone meant that she could sleep in whenever she felt like it. She took time choosing a cute outfit and then packed her Dior handbag and headed out to the Starbucks on the corner to get her ‘triple-venti, half-sweet, non-fat, caramel macchiato.’ She had learned quickly in New York that an obnoxious coffee order was totally acceptable in America. Her Daddy called America: “the land of the entitled.” Ning loved to abuse her Daddy’s credit card, and since the death of her mother a few years back, he had become very soft with her. She could get away with anything.

Two casually dressed men in their thirties watched her until she left Starbucks and she disappeared down the dirty stairs into the New York subway. One of the men gestured with his head that it was time to go and break into her apartment.

They sat casually on the stoop waiting for someone to exit the building. Eventually an old man came out, struggling with the door and his walker. The two men held the door open for him, and one dropped something in to stop the door closing completely. As the old man meandered down the street, the two men entered the building and went up three flights of stairs to Ning Wu’s apartment and turned the lock easily with the two pin technique they teach you in ‘trade craft.’ One sat at the laptop, put a small flash drive in the USB slot and began typing code. The other installed two microphones and four tiny cameras around the apartment including one in the bathroom, as per Roet’s instructions.

*

Ning was riding the C train to University in a fairly empty carriage as Manhattan’s morning rush hour had long passed. Two young guys, dressed in hoodies and jeans were standing up the other end, one of them keeping an eye on her. The train arrived at West 4th Street and the two guys followed Ning as she got off. The taller one jogged nimbly ahead of her up the stairs and waited near the closest exit to the street for his accomplice to run by. The second guy came from behind Ning, bumped into her so roughly that she fell to the ground. He grabbed her handbag from her shoulder and took off up the stairs, disappearing around a corner. A couple of minutes passed as Ning was helped to her feet by a couple of concerned New Yorkers.

The guy at the steps gently coat-hangared his accomplice as he jogged past him, bringing him to the ground without hurting him, and freeing the handbag from his grasp.

As she arrived at the exit, the thief had gotten up and escaped, but the other was standing there holding Ning’s handbag up high in the air asking: “Who’s bag is this? Does this bag belong to someone?”

Ning walked over to him and gushed: “Thank you so much, thank you!”

He handed her back her bag. Smiling, and panting a little.

A small crowd had formed, people started to tell her: “Wow that guy got your bag back for you. The thief guy is gone though! Is anything missing?”