“Oh, okay. I been trying to find the consulates. And I haven’t eaten since breakfast, shipboard... well, I had a shave-ice thing a few hours ago, but that was more ice than anything. It cooled me off, though…”
Ashton realized that Honda was uncharacteristically babbling, and the train of thought was only loosely connected. Damn, he thought, poor Rick really is wiped.
“It’s okay. It works out well for our purposes,” Ashton pointed out. “Now we’ll be in one apartment, with one of us in the consulate and one not, so you can ‘play housekeeper’ and ensure the apartment doesn’t get bugged or something while I’m out, and pass on info from me.”
“Yeah, and vice versa,” Honda agreed.
“Now let’s see about getting something for dinner – do you cook? – and we’ll talk in depth once we’re home and we’ve, uh, ‘cleaned’ the place.”
“Right. And yeah, I cook pretty damn good, if I do say so. But, um,” Honda began.
“But what?”
“Can it be something fast to make? I’m starving! I really haven’t eaten since breakfast on the starship.”
Ashton laughed.
“Sure thing, pal. Been there, done that a time or two myself. We’ll even stop off someplace and get you a real snack along the way.”
A little bit of shopping beforehand – including a small wrap sandwich for Honda, from a street vendor Ashton sometimes patronized – and a quick, clandestine ping to the local IPD precinct by Honda, followed by sweeping the apartment for bugs as soon as they got inside the door, resulted in a rather nice – and very quick – stir-fry dinner cooked up between the two of them, and an inflatable mattress and extra sheets to go in the spare bedroom that already held a small work desk – it had been furnished when Ashton rented it. Honda would sleep there, and in the unlikely event they had visitors, it would be a guest bedroom, as ‘Fielding’ hoped to have some of his family visit at some point.
But to the outside world, it would look as if they were a couple.
“I dunno what the hell Cally is gonna say to that one,” Honda said, apologetic, late that night.
“Meh. My last spy gig had a similar cover,” Ashton said, as he prepared for bed. “She knows better than to be jealous of my colleagues. She’s done a couple undercover turns as a prostitute, over at ICPD, anyway.”
“HA! You two are great together,” Honda decided. “Never jealous, always get along, and you understand each other and each other’s jobs. It’s a great pairing.”
“Yeah, we are, and it is,” Ashton agreed. He decided to overlook the reaction Cally had had when his old girlfriend Tabby Koch had showed a few years back, and tried her damnedest to come onto him. It had been, he had long since concluded, a valid reaction, considering. “I couldn’t ask for a better life companion than Cal. Speaking of, have you heard from her? I mean, um, did she, like... send me a message, or anything?”
“Other than ‘Tell Nick I love him, Paul is doing fine, and so is the baby,’ not really,” Honda said. “She misses you something awful, though. She didn’t say it, but I could read it in her face. Her parents are helping her look after things while you’re gone, though, so the family is good.”
“So the baby is okay? I mean, the pregnancy is progressing normally?”
“Near as I could tell, yeah.”
Ashton nodded, thanked him, and sighed.
“I wish there was some way I could talk to her,” he admitted. “I need to connect up with her, now and again, you know? But being the consul’s personal cleaning person and general go-fer is tiring, and I haven’t had time or energy to sit down and look at it. I’m sure I could rig a secure, undetected channel, but...” He sighed again. “Well, I hate to say it, but it’s time for me to crash. Not only am I working directly with Niebecker, but the new janitor needs some training. Work comes early tomorrow, it’s really physical, and there’s a lot of it.”
“Do I need to sit inside the bedroom and moan and carry on a little, in case the neighbors are listening?”
“Nah,” Ashton said with a smirk. “If the consul says anything, I’ll just tell him you’re not a groaner.”
They laughed.
The next day after Ashton left for work, Honda dropped a casual message into a particular channel that Director Carter had himself instructed him to use if he needed anything. It was a coded message.
To: Carolina InfoDumpPlease
From: RikFielding
Subj: Request
I am new here; I just arrived yesterday. I need to know where to find things.
~R.F.
To: RikFielding
From: Carolina InfoDumpPlease
Subj: Re: Request
Welcome to Carolina! Are you shopping, looking for services, or something else?
~C.I.D.P.
To: Carolina InfoDumpPlease
From: RikFielding
Subj: Re: Re: Request
Shopping. I like to correspond with my family back home, and need some tools. Stationery, pens, and such. I know it’s old-fashioned, but we like it. We always expect the letters eagerly. And we need to be able to do so around work schedules in the consulate.
~R.F.
To: RikFielding
From: Carolina InfoDumpPlease
Subj: Re: Re: Re: Request
Right. Let me see what I can dig up for you.
~C.I.D.P.
Honda sat back to wait, with a satisfied smile.
Ashton arrived in the consul’s office suite that morning more than five minutes before their stated office hours, and tidied things away from the previous evening’s work. He had begun wearing office-casual clothing instead of the coveralls and such that he had worn as a janitor, as Niebecker used him more and more as a personal assistant… which was exactly what Ashton wanted. The
