THE SPIDER’S WEB Ch 2

THE SPIDER’S WEB

By Bob French

CHAPTER TWO – BEIJING, CHINA

The mood on the top floor of CIA headquarters at Langley mimicked the uncertain weather outside; a storm was coming.  Harry Miller put the phone down and waited for the knock on his office door. It only took her two minutes to reach his office and he yelled when he heard her tap.

            “Come!”  Emily Michaels pushed the office door open and strode in; confident and not out of breath, having just run up three flights of stairs.

            “Sir?” Her Chief of Operations looked up and smiled.  Emily had completed 6 years in the US Marine Corps, reached the rank of Captain and had been awarded two Bronze Stars for outstanding gallantry in Afghanistan. When she ended her service, she went back to Harvard to complete her Masters in chemistry.  It was there that the CIA spotted her and five years later she was a fully qualified agent with a Masters Degree.

            “Sit.  We have a telex from our office in Beijing. They got a problem on their plate and don’t know what to do.”  He paused whilst he took a swig of his cold coffee.  “Do you remember the bugs that went viral in 2002 and again in 2014?”  She nodded.

            “The SARS and the MERS Sir; killed a lot of people around the world.”

            “Well according to this telex, it’s happened again.  It looks like the Chinese didn’t clean up properly after the first two viruses, and now they have a more deadly virus in country.”

            “The Pentagon thinks that both outbreaks were as a result of some kind of biological warfare test by the Chinese military.  The first test did not impress the MSS, the Ministry of State Security in Beijing, the second was an improvement.  Our boys in Beijing think that this is similar to the previous two viruses, only this time, they think that there has been some sort of accident and the virus has been carried outside its initial confinement area.”  He stared at Emily, then glanced at his watch.

            “There’s a chopper outside.  You got an hour to get your crap together and be on the 12:45 out of Norfolk.  Bud Westerbrooken will meet you in Beijing.  I want to know what the hell is going on.”

            The air was warm and clammy, as she stepped down from the TWA Air Bus.  Before she had reached the tarmac of Beijing, a burly, clean-shaven man, with very short hair caught her eye.  The second her foot hit the tarmac, she was ushered into the back seat of a blacked-up BMV cruiser.  The door slammed and she was thrown back into her seat as it accelerated out of the airport.  The man glanced in his rearview mirror. “Bud Westerbrooken, Section Chief. Welcome to Beijing Emily.  Hope you managed to grab a bite?  We start right away.”

            The CIA office was in the same compound as the American Embassy in the Chaoyang District of Beijing. Once inside, Bud guided her to the briefing room in the bowls of the building where several men sat waiting.

            “Right Guys. This is Emily Michaels from Langley.  She’s a chemist.  Right Abraham you kick-off.”  She had just sat down when Abraham, a tall bearded man with deep brown eyes pushed back his chair and flicked on the overhead projector.

            “OK.  We think that the Chinese are trying to create the ultimate chemical warfare weapon, that when released, will kill thousands, if not millions of people within a couple of weeks.  We’ve discovered that the centre of this latest outbreak is in the province of Wuhan, about a thousand clicks south of here and five hundred west of Shanghai.”  Emily leant forward.

            “What evidence do we have that this virus is a biological weapon?”

            Bud took the lead. “Back in 2002, the SARS epidemic kicked-off in the Guangdong Province. It mainly infected Far Eastern countries. Then in 2012 the MERS virus erupted in the Middle East with the same effects. Now, the same type of virus has erupted in Wuhan Province.  We looked into the spread of the first virus and we think we discovered the reason it only spread in the Far East.  The Chinese authorities had invited about twenty or so people from a variety of settlements in the Guangdong province to go on a free state-run holiday.  According to our records, these were the carriers and none of them returned.  Same thing with the second virus.  People were invited to take part in a competition.  The winners got to go on a free holiday to the Middle East.  Once again, none of them returned.”

            Abraham cut in.  “My theory is they are testing its effectiveness.  Each strain has become stronger.  If we can believe the reports, this latest virus appears to be very strong.”

            Bud cut him short.  “This is speculation.  If it’s an accident, we need to know the extent of the spread.  If it’s a weapon, we need to know its capabilities.  Either way we need to know everything there is to know about it.”

            “Have the Chinese Government made a statement?”

            “Their official line is that this virus has been caused by ‘wet markets’ where the hygiene standards are so poor, it’s allowed the virus to jump from animal to humans and they've tried to contain it, but lost control.”  No one spoke for a while.  Emily glanced down at the notes she had made on the plane.

            “Who else knows about the extent of this virus to date?”

            Bud stood, “As far as we know, no one, but it won’t be long before CNN, the BBC or Al Jazeera gets wind of it.  Emily, your job is to infiltrate the province of Wuhan and find out what really is going on and damned fast.”

            “Am I safe out there?”  The room fell into silence. Bud spoke again.

            “As far as we know, the State Police and the MSS are on the ground, besides, you have a diplomatic passport, so no one should bother you unless you start walking around taking pictures.”

            “What about the underworld; the Triad’s, The Company, or even the Russian’s.”

            Bud grinned.  Hell, at this stage even the Russians don’t know about this outbreak yet.”

Copyright Bob French

(To be Continued)

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.