The Wuhan Mission

The lead SUV was crumpled on one side. Sam’s head was bleeding and he was disoriented. No-one else was moving inside. Their vehicle was immobilized. Two Chinese agents quickly approached Sam’s window and ripped the backpack from his grasp, and ran back to their car abandoning the Black Mercedes. Getting in the second car, they pulled away from the scene leaving a traffic jam and a good deal of bent metal and brass casings all over the road.

Ryan’s passengers were out of the car and checking the injuries or the team in front.

“Any bleeders?” Ryan yelled loudly. Sam checked himself and then the others who were all a little bloody from the accident, but no bullet wounds. “I think they were trying not to shoot the vials.”

“Figures” Ryan grunted. “When you ladies are all feeling better I have room in my car for you. It might be time to go… again.”

The dazed team grabbed their weapons and limped back to Ryan’s SUV, two having to get in the very back as they were now eight in one SUV.”

“Safe house” The Team Leader said as Ryan stepped on the gas and moved past the two wrecked vehicles.

The CIA safe house was twelve minutes drive away. Xue Lin’s mind was ticking over. She pulled her phone out and checked the mapping program that the Tool Man had put on her phone for the bug she’d put on the virus vial.

“Well they haven’t found the bug” Xue Lin said.

Sam’s neck was hurting so he couldn’t turn his head: “Great! Keep an eye. We’ll regroup at the safe house and get this vehicle off the streets. The bullet holes are attracting attention.”

They pulled into the safe house’s small garage and the team staggered out one by one. Xue Lin was watching the dot on the map intently. It was still moving but was caught in traffic. They hadn’t gotten far yet.

Xue Lin’s parents talked quietly with her as they administered first aid to the men’s abrasions and checked them for concussions. Two of the team had probable broken arms, one man also had a bad case of whiplash. Sam looked a bit of a mess but seemed to be functioning normally. He shook hands with Xue Lin’s father: “It’s really nice to meet you sir.”

“Well, thanks for coming to get us. You put on quite a show Sam. Who makes your flash-bang grenades?”

“Dad come on! Leave poor Sam alone. He’s probably got a head injury.”

She looked at Sam and said very slowly:

“Hi Sam. Do — you — know — what — day — it — is?”

“Cut the crap Snowflake. It’s about to get dark and we are minus one virus.”

The mother smirked, already catching a little of the chemistry between Sam and their daughter.

“Where are they now?” Sam asked Xue Lin. She let him move close, to look at the phone. It was a moment of comfort for both of them as their bodies lightly touched. Xue Lin had been so worried about Sam going into that building full of Chinese agents that when her parents had opened the big wooden door and let her in, she had just wanted to be in his arms for the rest of her life.

Xue Lin zoomed in on the map with her thumb and forefinger: “They are at La Scala! Bit early for the opera isn’t it?” she asked, looking at the time.

Chapter 45 The Opera

As Milan became bathed in the magical light of the setting sun, cups clinked inside a cafe as the two waiters tidied up behind the bar. A stylishly dressed white American ordered a macchiato as he sat at a table across from the Chinese agent who had Xue Lin’s backpack on his lap. The red spray bottle in the agent’s hand looked like a fashionable perfume to the American.

“And you also have the antidote I assume?” he asked the agent.

The Chinese man passed him what looked like a plastic case for a fountain pen. Inside was a modern looking syringe with the green antidote in it. “Go and inject yourself now, in the bathroom.”

“So… I inject myself with the green syringe? That’s it? Then I’m immune?”

The Chinese agent simply nodded once, closing his eyes for a couple of seconds.

The white man took his suit jacket off and threw it over his chair and walked to the bathroom, rolling his left sleeve up as he walked. Allan was a talent manager, specifically of opera singers. He’d been running his own agency in New York City for over a decade, managing an impressive stable of opera talent. Unfortunately he’d recently been successfully sued by one of his sopranos for sexual harassment and she had wiped him out financially, just as he was about to retire. She’d slept with him to get on his roster but had become angry at him for not giving her any work. She wouldn’t have had a case except she’d filmed them in bed with her phone and then there was the incriminating first meeting that they’d had, all of which she had recorded on her phone.