Jimmy was one of the Secretary’s special forces guard team, and was also his driver. He drove a Hongqui Sedan, or as it was known in unofficial circles, a ‘Red Flag Limo’. Jimmy was privy to all kinds of conversations, particularly of interest to Marcus Roet were those between the Secretary and the Chairman.
Roet occasionally would ask Jimmy to do some physical jobs, including a couple of ‘wetwork’ jobs. When he had extra work from Roet, there would appear an extra deposit in his US bank account, negotiated in advance of course.
The Secretary was paranoid about cell phone radiation. It was possible that he knew something that no-one else did. In any case, the Secretary always used speaker-phone and held the phone away from his head. This meant that Jimmy could always hear both sides of the conversation.
Tonight, as he drove the Secretary home from a restaurant in Beijing, he overheard the Chairman telling the Secretary about some virus that a Doctor Wu was working on. It seemed like valuable intel, so Jimmy called Marcus as soon as he got home to his modest Government apartment in Beijing. Marcus had provided Jimmy with a secure phone that he hid under the fridge. He had to jack the front of the fridge up with a crowbar to get it out.
“Yo! My brother! It’s Jimmy.”
“Yes, I can tell, Jimmy, you have a bit of an accent” said Roet sarcastically.
“The Chairman told my boss over the phone that some Doctor Wu was working on a new a virus.”
“Thank you Jimmy. I shall look into it. If you can find out in what city this Doctor Wu lives and works, that would be helpful. I’ll be in touch soon. Anything else interesting?”
“New iPhone coming out soon!” Jimmy said, rather stupidly.
“Ok Jimmy, you take care.”
Roet hung up abruptly and scratched his head.
“Another virus. It was going to be like 2003. SARS again,” he thought to himself, concerned.
He picked up the phone on his desk: “It’s Marcus. Can you look up Chinese passports that have entered the country with the surname Wu within the last ten years. Run it against known scientists in China. See how many names come up. We can narrow it down from there.
Chapter 4
Marcus Roet
Marcus Roet was a career CIA officer who had nasty streak. At the age of fifty-three he was still a platinum blonde but the striking colour of his hair was negated by his somewhat feminine yet ferret-like facial features. He was mutually disliked at the agency, and had a string of dead assets to his name, mostly due to his own negligence. He had graduated near the bottom of his class, but his father’s connections had been instrumental in pushing him into his first job at the agency, and his subsequent promotions above talented and more accomplished officers had not gone unnoticed by his colleagues.
Roet didn’t particularly like Jimmy. They had never met, but Jimmy called regularly with intel about what the Chinese Government was up to. Jimmy’s intel was usually quite useful and therefore valuable to the CIA, so Roet managed to rationalize to his superiors the significant funds he required to run Jimmy as an asset. One of the CIA accountants had begun a secret audit of Roet’s accounts as there had been more than a few red flags. The truth was that Marcus had been characteristically rude to the accountant recently in the elevator and the accountant had decided to start paying close attention to his finances.
Roet’s attention was now focused upon Jimmy’s recent intel. The news about work on a new virus was concerning and Roet had already started to try and work out the identities of the principals involved.
The call that he’d been waiting for came through.
“Marcus here.”
“We had thousands of Wu’s in the last ten years. Over five hundred were scientists.”
“Seems like a lot,” quipped Roet. “It’s a big window of time. Want me to narrow it?”
Marcus thought for a moment, and said: “Try biologist, then virologist”
“OK, biologist, 10 years, still hundreds… um… virologists we have… had… only seven.”
“Do a search for ‘family of.’ We are looking for ‘F1 student visas’.”
“Right. Looking at ‘student visas,’ surname Wu, virologist, and we have a Miss Ning Wu, currently enrolled at New York University.
Could be the one I’m looking for. Call NYU admissions and get them to send everything they have on her. Copies of enrollment forms, home address. Most importantly I need to know who her father is.
“On it!” then Marcus hung up.
Roet hoped that Jimmy might come up with something concrete on Dr. Wu.
The agency would have to try to put one of their own operatives in with Wu as soon as they could find him. This would all take some time and preparation.
Roet answered his desk phone: “This is Marcus.”
“NYU admissions confirms a current Masters student, Miss Ning Wu. Her enrollment forms contain her apartment address, her father’s current home address in Beijing, phone number and some of his other details. Immigration says that he visited the United States only once with his daughter to look at schools three years ago. Profession was listed on his landing card as ‘scientist’, but listed on the daughter’s University entrance form as ‘Virologist’. Guess she was trying to impress the entrance committee.”
“Send me everything!” said Roet and hung up.
Chapter 5
Jimmy Is Summoned
Jimmy ironed his black suit. His alarm had gone off at seven but he was already awake, thinking about the day ahead. He had been summoned to the Chairman’s office for a meeting. Jimmy had never been in the Chairman’s office before, but he imagined it was like one of those scenes in the American President’s Oval Office he’d seen on some of his pirated movies. He had not been told what the meeting was about.
On his way in in, Jimmy pulled his car over and double parked next to his favorite breakfast vendor. He ordered the fermented mung bean juice and some deep fried pastries.
As Jimmy chewed, he thought about the possible trouble that he might be in. Some of the things he had done during his time as a Government employee were Capital offenses. He had spied for the Americans, he had even killed a couple of people for them. If the Government looked further into what he had been doing, they would be pushing bamboo shoots under his fingernails in no time. Knowing his Government, it would probably be a very long and painful death.
He kept chewing and then washed down the glutinous mixture in his mouth with some acidic mung bean juice. “Delicious!” he thought to himself, “I hope they have mung beans in America.”
Jimmy passed his ID out the driver side window of his car to the guard at the gate, and she had a good long look at it while the guard in the box called ahead to verify Jimmy’s appointment. They waved Jimmy through, raising the gate.
As Jimmy parked and went through security, he started to sweat. The Chairman’s assistant told Jimmy to take a seat until the Chairman was ready for him. He looked at the assistant’s pretty face. She could have been a model if she had wanted to. She was probably the daughter of a senior official, so he didn’t attempt any small talk with her. Before long the door opened inward and his current boss, the Secretary of the Party, was there in the doorway shaking hands with the Chairman, looking just a little bit peeved. As he left the office he threw a glance at Jimmy that was impossible to interpret. Jimmy’s face was already perspiring noticeably.