Chapter 22: Go Cook Me Two Dishes
My name is Ada Wong. I'm an operative.
Or more than an operative. I can be a hitman, a spy, an informant.
Whatever an employer needs, I can be.
Everything in circulation about me is fabricated. The name "Ada Wong" is itself just one of many aliases I maintain for active assignments.
The nature of this work requires me to function as a blank check. The employer writes in the amount.
A few days ago I received an unusual assignment.
It didn't require me to eliminate anyone. I only needed to quietly replace a specific individual and collect data on a particular virus before the original returned to her position. If I could manage to acquire a physical sample as well, better. The payout would reflect it.
Not a simple job. But for someone who had run this category of operation more times than she bothered to count, it was well within reach. Locate the virus and its research data. The rest would follow.
The problem was this:
Why was his assistant expected to do things like this?
Ada looked at Matthew, sitting in his chair like a lord of the manor receiving tribute, and felt for the first time that something about the situation was not quite right.
"Jessica." He called across the office without particularly raising his voice. "Get me a coffee. Hand-ground."
Ada, newly on the job, went and ground the coffee.
She brought it to him. He lifted it, smelled it, and handed it back.
"Wrong water. Not the purified water from the office kitchen. Evian from the shop downstairs. Did Eleanor not tell you this? A mistake this basic, if I weren't a patient person, I'd already be questioning whether she actually hired you."
Ada apologized to avoid suspicion and went back downstairs at a jog.
When she returned with the correctly sourced coffee, he tasted it and nodded.
"Better. The brewing technique still needs work, though. Spend some time on it. Grind consistency, water temperature, extraction time. It's a skill. You'll use it for other employers eventually."
He set the cup down.
"My shoulders are a bit tight. Come and work on them."
She did.
"Watch the pressure. Not hard enough to hurt. Not so light it might as well be nothing."
She adjusted.
"That's better. Now the back of the head."
She moved to the head.
"Not bad."
He let a moment pass.
"Take my clothes to be washed when you get a chance. Hand-washed. The socks too."
Behind him, Ada's expression remained composed. The vein near her temple did not.
She was meant to be playing the role of personal assistant.
What she was actually doing was playing a nanny. Not just serving coffee and running errands, but doing it all to a standard that shifted arbitrarily throughout the day. Too much this way. Not quite right that way. A week in, and she had received more criticism per hour than in any previous assignment.
After a full day of this, she had begun to feel something she did not usually feel on the job.
She wanted to take out her sidearm and shoot him.
The mission prevented this. She kept going.
Breathe. Ada. Think about the positives.
At least he's only talking. Some assignment targets cross lines that require considerably more patience to tolerate.
Get through this, get close to whatever they're keeping in this building, and then this is over. Then you never have to hear this man's voice again.
She got through the day.
The next began the same way.
"Jessica, come rub my legs."
"Jessica, my lower back."
"Jessica, go downstairs and get me a hot taco. Extra spicy."
Then, when she brought it back: "I said I don't eat spicy. Go get another one."
Day after day.
Every attempt to get near the company's restricted areas was cut off by another errand. Every plan she made to slip into the office after hours got derailed when Matthew called her upstairs to bring him a late-night delivery.
By the end of the week she looked like she hadn't slept in several days. The eye bags were showing.
Another morning. Ada stood outside the office door that had come to represent everything she hated about this assignment and contemplated it in silence.
She was already regretting what she had done with the original assistant. The woman's starting salary had been three hundred thousand for a few months of work. That number, which had seemed excessive at the time, now made complete sense.
Before she even touched the door, his voice came through it.
"Jessica. You there?"
She had not knocked yet.
"I can hear your footsteps. Go down to the street and get me two sandwiches. No pickles."
Ada's knuckles cracked.
Two seconds of silence.
She pushed the door open with a pleasant expression arranged on her face.
"Sir, you'd like two sandwiches. Not one, not three. And definitely no pickles?"
"That's right." Matthew looked serene. "A man of my word."
A man of your word.
Her internal response to this was not suitable for professional environments.
The taco that was supposed to be spicy, then wasn't. The burger with no pineapple, then with pineapple. The pizza that was one, then was apparently always two and he had simply been misheard. Every one of those confirmations she had asked beforehand had not been pointless. They had been records. Every clarifying question was a note she had taken on how he operated.
"Of course. Right away."
She came back with the sandwiches.
"Sir. Two sandwiches, as requested."
"That's not what I asked for." Matthew looked at the bag with mild disappointment. "I said with pickles."
"Funny coincidence." Ada's hand turned over. Two sandwiches with pickles appeared from somewhere in her jacket. "I picked these up as well."
"I wanted three."
"Even funnier." A third sandwich materialized on his desk.
"Hmm." He considered the three sandwiches in front of him for a moment. "Actually, I've been thinking about it, and I'm not really in the mood for sandwiches. Tell you what. Go cook me two dishes and bring me fifty thousand dollars."
Ada looked at him.
"Sir." Her voice remained even. "I'm beginning to suspect you've been doing this on purpose."
She had been suspecting it for longer than that. She was simply saying it now.
"You're right." He leaned back and looked at her with the particular expression of someone who had been entertained for a while and was prepared to acknowledge it. "I have been."
"Think about it. Which assistant at any serious company would actually be expected to spend her days doing any of that?"
He looked at her steadily.
"Isn't that right. Ada Wong."