After twenty-five minutes, the door to the office opened and Wiley walked out and moved across the complex floor.
Bentley came to the door. “Jake come in here please.” He pointed to the plush leather chair. The same type as in the office upstairs. “Have a seat.” He closed the door.
“What’s going on?” Jake asked.
“There’s been a development with Isabella. I have to leave earlier than I’d anticipated. I’m leaving you here with Mr. Wiley.”
“But sir, with all due respect.” Jake pleaded. “If there’s been a development with Isabella, I should join Kaplan and help him get her out.”
“Jake, listen to me.” Bentley’s voice now stern. “Until I tell you otherwise, you take orders from Mr. Wiley. Get to know him. You’ll learn more from him than you ever could from me.”
“But—“
“No buts, Jake…that’s an order.”
CHAPTER 11
Jake watched Bentley’s jet slice into the West Texas sky without him. A feeling of emptiness came over him as the jet’s rumble vibrated through his body. He felt like a child abandoned on a stranger’s doorstep — in a way he was. The emptiness started when Beth died. And now, the black hole was growing inside him.
Cowboy drove the golf cart toward Jake, stopping only inches from him. Jake noticed a bulge in his cheek from a wad of chewing tobacco.
“Come on. Mr. Wiley is waiting. I believe he has a full afternoon in store for you.”
Jake crawled in the front seat next to Cowboy. “Did he say what I’m supposed to do?”
“Nah.” Cowboy spit on the tarmac. Wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “He never gets too specific but if I know Mr. Wiley, he’s going to give you the grand tour himself. And that will take a while.”
“Sounds just great.”
“Try to keep an open mind.”
“Easier said than done.” Jake said. “I just got dumped here by my boss and left with a man I do not know.”
“It’ll be fine, wait and see.” Cowboy led Jake to the upstairs office, opened the elevator, and said, “Jake, press the ‘B’ and Mr. Wiley will meet you at the showcase.”
“You seem to know a lot about Wiley’s business.”
“If you’ll pardon the pun…I wear many hats around here. I know most of Mr. Wiley’s business.” Cowboy reached in, pressed a button and the elevator door closed.
Wiley was waiting for Jake when he arrived at the showcase. “Sit down, Jake. Let’s talk.”
“Mr. Wiley, if you don’t mind me asking. Why am I here?” Jake said.
“The simple version is Scott needed you out of his hair. You’re a problem he doesn’t have time to deal with.”
“Problem?” Jake snapped.
Wiley looked at Jake. His eyes seemed to penetrate. He didn’t speak at first, leaving a long void of awkward silence, then smiled and did the hair swipe thing again. “Jake, you have an anger issue.”
Jake started to speak when Wiley raised his hand. “Hear me out.”
Wiley paused. “I know about your fiancée. She was critically injured in the shootout in Savannah. You thought, as did everyone, she was recovering and it gave you a false hope. Unfortunately, she had a relapse and died. You’re angry because she was taken from you. You never got to see her again. Never got to hold her. Bentley told me how reluctant you were to help him, but you did help him. And while you were tracking down her killer, she died. Somehow you feel guilty, like it’s your fault. Well, you’re wrong.”
Wiley shifted in his seat, pushed his glasses up with his thumb and index finger and massaged the bridge of his nose. “It didn’t matter where you were, Beth was going to die. Accept it or not. The anger you embrace clouds your judgment. I imagine every time you pull the trigger, you picture Laurence O’Rourke’s face.”
Wiley stopped talking as if allowing the words to sink in. Jake knew the old man was right, but how could he possibly know? How could this old man possibly know what Jake was thinking? What Jake was feeling? But he was right.
They sat in silence for a couple of minutes. Wiley stood. “Jake, have you figured this out yet?” He waved his arm out toward his workshop.
“I think so. You’re a toymaker. You make toys for spies.”
Wiley laughed. “I guess you could put it that way, yes. Another one of my emissaries calls me ‘The Toymaker.’ But there’s a lot more to it than that, as you will soon learn.”
“Emissaries?”
“Yes, Jake, emissaries. People who work for me that I send on missions of a secret nature. You, too, will be my emissary. In a manner of speaking, that’s what you are with Bentley. Operative, agent, emissary. Call it whatever you wish, they are more or less the same. I prefer emissary — it’s not so widely understood.”
“People you send on missions?” Jake stood and walked over to the TEMPEST tent. “I thought you just made electronic spy toys.”
“More than that. I also work in conjunction with an organization that is…let’s say, free from bureaucratic red tape. I provide the manpower and resources to accomplish certain tasks other agencies can’t because their hands are tied. Remember the Korean woman your friend knocked out in Australia?”
Jake nodded.
“Su Lee works for me. She’s an emissary. She’d been gathering intel for months. That’s what Scott and I were discussing while you waited out here.”
Wiley looked at his watch. “That talk can wait for later. We have things to do now.”
Jake started feeling like he was the only one left out of the loop. A secret Bentley and Wiley shared. He pointed to the copper tent. “We used one of these in Australia.”
“I know. I sold the Australian Secret Intelligence Service four of them. Let me give you a little background about myself. I promise not to bore you for long.”
“Somehow I doubt I’ll be bored.”
“I have degrees in chemistry and biological science. My original partner died a few years ago, he had degrees in electronics, chemistry, and physics. I first learned about electronics in the Army — Korea. I've been told on numerous occasions that some of the things I build are impossible. But I have one advantage over them, I'm not encumbered by academics. Impossible only means you haven’t found a way to make it work yet. The word itself creates a mental roadblock. Don’t tell me something won’t work, can’t work. Just sit down and make it work. I start from the desired end product and work backwards to make it work.
“I’ve been in the electronics industry for over fifty years. I’ve worked in production, engineering, administration, management, and sales. I worked for a group with Bell Systems, part of the old Western Electric, doing things similar to Jack Northrop or Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works. I’m sure you’ve heard of them.”
Jake nodded. “They built the SR-71 Blackbird.”
“They were into a lot more than that. And they’re credited as being the first in the business, but they weren’t. Lockheed Martin and Northrop were just the biggest and the most commercial. Most of us, and there are many companies like mine, have been in the business for a really long time. Like I mentioned, I got my start in the Army on a team that restored communications in war damaged Korea back in the fifties. Later I worked for a defense contractor in the DC area that specialized in QRC. Stands for ‘Quick Reaction Contracts.’ Which is exactly what it sounds like. We provided this for several agencies where we were scripted to break the rules, not abuse them, but to get the job done.”
Wiley walked over to a shelf and removed an item. “My companies were founded to do nothing but these kinds of projects. The first thing I ask a customer is — can you buy what you believe you want from someone else? If so, please do. And, if not, tell me what you think you need and I’ll take a look at it.”