“Eliminate, sir?” asked the female subordinate.
He frowned. “Not in the sense that you ask. We will be cooperative and open with the Europeans. But we will take them in a direction far away from Tibet.”
“Liaoning?” asked his other subordinate.
“No, fool!” their leader growled. “There are no yaks in Liaoning!”
“Yes, I am sorry, sir,” he sheepishly apologized.
Their superior continued. “Our people will claim to have discovered a new outbreak in another part of China. We will assemble a team to escort the Europeans to the Great Khinogan Mountains in the northernmost region of Inner Mongolia. There, they will spend many weeks in search of diseased yaks.”
The female subordinate managed a smile. “I know this region. There is no communications capability in the mountains. And, sir, very few yaks, I might add.”
“That is true, but enough to make it believable. We must appear to be cooperative to the Westerners. This is an important step.”
The male subordinate had recovered from his stinging rebuke. “Sir, we have made great strides in stifling the citizen journalists. Several dozen dissidents feeding information to Terminus 2049 have been apprehended and charged with many offenses, including treason.”
Terminus 2049 was an internationally crowd-sourced project that archived materials published on Chinese media outlets and social media platforms before they have been removed by censors. Terminus 2049 was hosted on GitHub, the world’s largest open-source code-sharing and publishing site.
Chinese citizens preserved the dissident posts from social media sites within China and immediately uploaded the information to GitHub, one of the few websites not blocked by China’s Great Firewall, as its closed internet system was called. The Communist government had attempted to block GitHub in 2013, and the site suffered a barrage of cyber attacks in 2015 that were later traced back to the Chinese state telecommunications company, China Unicom. After a worldwide outcry for transparency, access to GitHub was resumed.
“Where were these criminals located?” asked their gravelly-voiced leader.
“Beijing and Xinjiang,” the subordinate replied. “Some of the publishers are professors at two universities here.”
“Any papers that published this information must be severely managed,” the superior snarled. By managed, he meant punished. “I will have the Ministry of Education issue a directive that prohibits these entries and requires additional layers of approval for even unrelated posts. The State Council will be asked to form a task force to ensure compliance.”
“Sir,” the female subordinate began, “should we consider a lockdown of Lhasa, where the most cases are being reported?”
“It draws too much attention. I will request an increased military presence there. I will also request a much larger contingent of the People’s Armed Police to be deployed to Urumqi. We will flush the dissident vermin out of every hiding place!”
Chapter Twenty-Two
CDC Headquarters
Atlanta, Georgia
After a brief meeting with Dr. Reitherman, reality began to set in for Harper. The way had been paved for her to travel to China, assume the identity of Dr. Blasingame, and begin the hunt for patient zero. It would be the greatest challenge she’d ever faced other than coping with the death of her father. This was different. It would be something that would’ve made her dad proud, if he could’ve been alive to witness it.
She’d spoken to Joe’s chief of staff, who made the arrangements for her air transportation via military jet to Fort Belvoir, Virginia, near the Potomac River. From there, she’d be driven twenty miles to DARPA in Arlington, located halfway between Alexandria and McLean, home of CIA headquarters.
The best news of all was that Joe would be meeting her at DARPA to introduce her to the person who’d be accompanying her to China. Spangler was unable to answer any of Harper’s questions about the man other than to say she should trust her husband’s judgment on this.
Dr. Reitherman gave Harper some words of advice and then a little background on his days at DARPA. He was certain that anyone Joe picked from the agency would be capable of assisting Harper in her investigation. Most likely, he’d added, the man would have other useful attributes.
Harper didn’t question Dr. Reitherman on what said attributes might entail. His cryptic statement coupled with Spangler’s reminder to have trust in Joe’s guy was too much to think about for the moment. She needed to prepare Becker to take over her duties while she was gone.
She’d been tied up preparing for her trip to China. Harper had an opportunity to speak with Dr. Blasingame, who had no knowledge of the operation. They couldn’t take the risk that the Chinese intelligence apparatus was listening in. Harper kept the conversation casual as if it were part of a follow-up report on the CDC trio’s expulsion. Mainly, she wanted to know how much of their investigative kits they had been able to remove from the facility. She was pleasantly surprised.
In the final hours of the day before she was to catch a ride to Dobbins Air Force Base, she was able to give Becker her undivided attention.
Several more cases were being reported to the WHO. In addition to Austria, patients with similar symptoms were being reported in France, Germany, and the UK. As was customary, the two disease-fighting organizations exchanged data and information so the brightest minds on the planet could get a handle on this novel virus.
“We’ve had another situation in Las Vegas,” began Becker. “Quite interesting, to use your friend Woolie’s words.”
“Dr. Boychuck brought this to us?” asked Harper.
“Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes,” replied Becker in an attempt to mock the pathologist’s peculiar idiosyncrasy.
“Just three,” corrected Harper. “You know. Like the jelly beans.”
Becker, who was a whiz at numbers, seemed genuinely confused by what Harper said. “Ya lost me.”
“Just three times. Dr. Boychuck never says yes once or twice, or even four times. It’s always three times.”
“Oookay. And what about the jelly beans?” asked Becker as she picked through her Bradley University coffee mug to pluck three pink jelly beans. Then it struck her. “Three. Really? Do I take three every time?”
“At least when I’ve watched you,” Harper responded. “It’s just a thing.”
Becker furrowed her brow and then slowly popped the sugary treats into her mouth, one at a time, as if she were counting them. She chuckled. “Maybe I should’ve been a bean counter?”
“Huh-huh-huh,” Harper jokingly replied three times. “So what’s the story?”
Becker finished chewing up her jelly beans and organized her notes. “So, you remember the elderly couple, right? The lady had come in contact with our index patient, Mr. Yao.”
“Yes. Yes. Yes.” Harper’s face broke out in a grin.
Becker scowled. “Shut up! See? It’s contagious!”
Harper was gonna miss her sidekick. Naturally, Harper would’ve preferred Becker to come along, but she’d be in constant fear that her assistant might punch a Chinese soldier in the nose for some reason or another.