Read Online The Toymaker by Chuck Barrett - Free Book Online

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