“Maybe they will have someone there to check it. You wanna run that risk?” Sam asked.
“Not really. They might kill my parents,” she answered.
Sam looked like he’d come up with an idea: “Go grab that other new syringe from the medical kit and at least we can take an extra sample from one of the vials. But which one?” he asked.
“Well the virus that Wu wiped on the interview table… I’m sure it’s being swabbed and collected as we speak by specialists. Right? We don’t need the vaccine as it’s just the crowd control medicine…”
Sam interrupted: “So let’s just take a nice sample of the antidote. Our scientists can reproduce it from a sample right?”
“Sam with the big ideas all of a sudden” Xue Lin said going for the medical kit.
“I’ll call Langley and OK it with them.”
A man in his seventies was admitted to a hospital in Wuhan, exhibiting severe respiratory difficulty and flu-like symptoms. The Ministry of Propaganda suppressed the story until the following week when more cases started to show up. Meanwhile a large team of young social networking specialists was put to work taking down tourist youtube videos of the Wuhan wet market, as there were no bats in the videos. Markets in other countries with bat footage were left up.
The secure lab at the Institute was cleared out by Government scientists, leaving no evidence of Dr. Wu’s work. All of the staff at the institute were given a harrowing interview by the Government Investigator, ensuring that everybody knew not to talk about work to anybody.
“Deputy Director Wood’s phone,” answered the young secretary.
“This is Officer Chilvers. I need to talk to Mrs. Woods right now. It’s urgent!”
The secretary rolled his eyes dramatically: “I’ll put ya right through Sir.”
“Sam?”
“Yes, it’s me. Ma’am, did you hear what Wu did to Roet?”
“Yes, the whole base has been clamped down but what about you two? You’re both infected now!”
“Actually Ma’am, Snow Forest had already been given the antidote during the theft. She just gave me the shot too.”
“That’s a relief,” she said.
“Yes, I was quite surprised to see the footage of…”
“Sam, we can’t afford to lose that antidote. You’re gonna have to switch it out.”
“Yes Ma’am, we thought of that. Actually we have a solution.”
Xue Lin carefully prepared the new syringe as Sam explained the workaround to the Deputy Director.
“Good Sam. The bioweapons people at Langley agree with you about pulling a sample. It’s a good plan.”
“Thank you Ma’am. Sometimes I manage to…”
“Hand the syringe over to our guy in Milan. I’ll have him meet you at the airport,” she said impatiently.
“Roger that Ma’am.”
“And do NOT under any circumstances lose the virus. Is that understood Sam?”
“Copy that.”
“Good luck.”
Chapter 44
The Milan Team
The Gulfstream landed at a small airstrip on the outskirts of Milan where Sam and Xue Lin were met by a older looking CIA officer and a team of four casually dressed operatives. Sam gingerly handed the syringe over to the officer in the suit who placed it in a special bio-safety case. He looked at Sam and Xue Lin and said, simply: “Go get ’em,” and then turned and walked back to his SUV.
Sam and Xue Lin shook hands with the team of four Americans who had already been briefed on the exact location of the Barbecue Couple. Their Team Leader spread a map of Chinatown on the hood of one of the SUVs. “They are being held in this building. The ground floor windows have been boarded up from the inside, so we think they are probably being held there on the ground floor.”
“You’ve been to check it out?” Xue Lin asked.
“Yep. We’ve done a walk through and taken some video. Looks like they posted a few men on upper floors of the building. Maybe a sniper up top. We had a look across the road too. There are some acceptable sniper positions with a good field of view of their building. We used the thermal camera to see how many bodies inside. We’re eighty percent sure that there are only five guards inside, and one outside, but you know how it goes.”
Sam looked pensively at the map: “My thinking is that our ‘Plan A’ should be: ‘we go in and make the exchange, get out safely and then we follow the vial, which we’ve tagged, and then make our move on them at first opportunity.”
He continued:”Now we have to keep in mind that these guys might have not one but two. Clearly they want to get their hands on these vials, but we have to assume that their Government has issued a standing order to take out Xue Lin and the Barbecue Couple, all of whom are now enemies of China and are worth bonus points to these fuckers.”
“So who goes in then?” asked one of the team. Sam raised his eyebrows a little: “Well let’s see what their demands are when I make the phone call. If they say ‘come alone’ then I’ll go in.” Xue Lin started to complain, but Sam interrupted her: “I want one of you guys up on the building over the road with a sniper rifle to keep Xue Lin company, she’ll have this Barret .50 cal with a thermal scope. If I see any of them make a move… well we’ll have comms, so I’ll let you know and you can start wasting as many as you can while I do the same inside. We have to be careful not to break the vial with the virus in it. The last thing we need is an outbreak in Europe.”
The Team Leader chimed in: “And there are no prizes for shooting the hostages.”
“Or me,” added Sam.
Xue Lin didn’t look particularly happy about the plan. She wanted to be the one going in to make the exchange. Nevertheless she handed her backpack to Sam, giving it to him to hold while she retrieved from it her two pistols and magazines, leaving the odd looking flash-bang grenade for Sam.
“What do you want to take in with you?” she asked him. Sam replied: “Well it might be a moot point considering they will wand me for weapons as soon as I walk in the door. You just take what you need from the bag, and leave the rest with us. We’ll probably have to make it up as we go along after I call them anyway.”
Xue Lin had taken the Chinese submachine gun with its suppressor out of the long bag. The team stared at her as she methodically armed herself to the teeth with two pistols, a grenade, the Chinese machine gun and the Barret 50 caliber sniper rifle with a thermal scope. She left the rest in the bag for Sam and the team.
“Who is my sniper buddy?” she asked looking around the team.
“I am,” a stocky fellow with round glasses squinted awkwardly back at her. “The name’s Ryan. Nice to meet you.”
“Is that a Barret you have over your shoulder?” Xue Lin asked cheekily, recognizing the rifle.
“Looks like we are gonna be a loud couple,” he replied, smirking, a little embarrassed. The Team Leader looked at Xue Lin and assured her: “Don’t worry, you can rely on Ryan. He’ll be there for you when it counts.”
“I like him already!” she said smiling. She raised her eyebrows at Sam. They may as well get on with it, she thought.
“Let’s get into the city and I’ll make the call when we are all in position. Snipers in the front vehicle with a driver. Us three in this one.”
The Team Leader collected up the map: “Mount up!”
The Barbecue Couple had been listening for clues from the conversations in Mandarin between their various captors but there had been none during any of the trivial chats between the guards about the best packet noodle flavor and other mundane topics. Mercifully, the Chinese had elected not to gag them. They whispered freely without being stopped. They both agreed that it felt grim in the safe house.