“Very impressive sir!” Wu was truly impressed. Also shocked.
Wu’s mind wandered and thoughts of mobile phone technology took him back to the conversation he had had on that mobile phone in his car the day before. The American called Marcus had called him as he drove around the block. He had explained that they were watching his daughter and that no harm would come to her if he followed their instructions. He had said:
“The man that you met in your car tells us that you are working on a special virus designed to kill the weak. We would like you to make that virus effective only on people of Asian descent. It’ll be just like the SARS virus back in 2003. You see, our President doesn’t want a Chinese virus attacking our people, but he doesn’t mind if it only affects yours. Do you see what I am saying? We’ll be calling that the Yellow Virus. Get it?”
Wu had replied: “I understand that you are a racist son-of-a-bitch.”
Marcus had continued: “When you present that virus to the Chairman, it will be the Yellow Virus. Asians only. You understand? Your daughter’s life depends on it. Remember, we have people inside your Government, so we’ll know.”
Wu’s mind came back to his living room where he still sat awkwardly with the Chairman.
“Sir, when will you start vaccinating people?”
“The vaccination will, of course, be mandatory. We will start injecting our citizens beginning with the major manufacturing cities after the virus breaks out in Wuhan.”
“You see Doctor Wu, we will release the virus in November. When December arrives, people will be afraid and they will not complain about the mandatory vaccine. They will see that China looks after it’s people.”
“I see sir. The vaccine will be quite easy for me to make since I am the one engineering the virus. It will be ready soon.”
The Chairman replied: “My Beijing scientists will take care of the mass production. You just give them the formula. They will use a network of factories already set up. We have been planning this for a long time.”
The Chairman continued: “I just wish we could have the virus and vaccine a bit sooner to use in Hong Kong. The natives have been getting restless there.” He looked darkly at Wu.
There was a long moment of silence in Wu’s living room. One of the guards shifted his weight and a floorboard creaked.
“So, I shall hear about your work soon then” grunted the Chairman as he lifted his weight from the couch.
Dr. Wu also rose to his feet, the fatigue from the conversation showing on his face.
The Chairman followed his bodyguards out of the Wu’s house.
Wu walked to the liquor cabinet and poured himself a large whisky, his hands shaking as he looked at his 5G Hua Wei phone, still recording audio.
Marcus Roet had successfully turned Dr. Wu into a CIA asset. Filming and recording his daughter was a dirty trick and a risky way of maintaining control of a valuable, long term asset. If something happened to the daughter, all their leverage over Dr. Wu would go out the window.
Roet would make sure that Jimmy kept tabs on Dr. Wu. He also would continue to maintain a small team in New York City watching the daughter in New York City. The pinhole cameras in her apartment and the tracker on her keys should ensure that she was never far from being in his grasp. Roet would have no trouble inflicting a little pain on her for the camera if required, but it had not yet come to that. In the meantime he liked to watch her in the evenings on his laptop.
Chapter 10
Special Training
Sam Chilvers had noticed the young Chinese-American recruit, Xue Lin, back when he was observing the new intakes during their first week of training. She had been much quicker in close combat. She could get the heel of her foot to any combatant’s throat before they moved a muscle. She had clearly had previous martial arts training. Probably Kung Fu by the looks of it. In her specialist operative training she was able to spot a tail one hundred percent of the time and was almost always able to lose them.
Sam had ordered that her Chinese language skill be exhaustively ‘blind-tested’ in the field to make sure that she could pass for a native. She was from a different province than where he needed to place her, but that would work to her advantage.
The day she had finished her tradecraft training Sam stopped her on her way back to the locker room.
“Do you know who I am?” Sam asked her.
“Sure, you’re Bradley Cooper from that movie with those other idiots who drank too much.”
“You mean: “The Hangover?” smirked Sam.
“Yeah, can I have your autograph?”
“I’ll take that as a compliment Snow Forest.”
“Snow what now?” asked Xue Lin, confused.
“That will be your code name for your next operation. You’re going back to China. Wuhan, to be exact. You will be reporting to me.”
Xue Lin was silent.
“You have three weeks to prepare. We have a few specialty instructors lined up to educate you in some new areas. You will do exactly as they tell you. Your life might depend on it. I shit you not, you will be in harm’s way, and if things go pear-shaped, we have never heard of you.”
“OooOooOooh,” said Xue Lin sarcastically, smiling flirtatiously at Sam.
‘Snow Forest…’ she thought to herself, waiting for Chilvers to get control of his mouth that was hanging open, just a bit.
“So, enjoy your last night. Go out and have fun. Get drunk. Beat some frat boys up if you want. Tomorrow you start doing big girl stuff.” Sam turned and walked away, finishing with: “And I don’t need to tell you that this is classified” his voice echoing.
Xue Lin’s three weeks’ working with specialty instructors was intense but she secretly enjoyed all of it. Even the abusive lectures she was subjected to along the way from some of the instructors and occasionally from Sam. Her birth parents had always been vigilant about her behavior. She had been taught by them to keep her emotions inside and they admonished her regularly for being too willful and reckless. She had never shown any fear as a child, and she would always look back at them with defiance, fists clenched, during any lecture she was subjected to by them.
During her three weeks of training she had a retired Chinese CIA operative working with her on her cover story: who she was, where she grew up, her previous jobs and studies. Sam had told her that her aloof personality was a good shield and that she should maintain that cold shoulder. It discouraged friendly interrogation from friends, colleagues, strangers.
Another guy had her digging out hidey-holes in different kinds of walls to hide weapons and papers, and she learned to use power tools, plaster and paint.
She spent two hours a day in a real biotech lab with real scientists shadowing a lab assistant, learning all the little jobs she might have to do. She had instruction on Bio-hazard protocols, containers and transporting of hazardous substances.
One of the CIA analysts who had been doing background on Dr. Wu tested Xue Lin on every detail about her future boss in China.
An extremely nervous, nerdy tech guy gave her a complex course in putting together tech tools in the field using basic electronics from readily available gadgets. She could make a long range listening device by hacking a cheap laser pointer into a mobile phone. She could put together a field radio and take it apart and hide it in plain sight. She learned tricks to beat metal detectors. Useful stuff.
Sam had noticed that she often tied her hair up with chopsticks, so he adapted the ‘two-bladed attack techniques’ he’d learned for silent ops and taught them to her to use with sharpened chopsticks.