Sea of Lies: An Espionage Thriller by Bradley West

your man’s excellent briefing, we’re in.’”
    “And Nolan got a medal, a promotion and ended up in cushy Singapore. Oh, man, what a crazy world. Why doesn’t good stuff like that ever happen to the NSA?”
    Gregory shook his head in disbelief. “Bob Nolan, the luckiest son of a bitch I ever met.”
     
     

CHAPTER SIX
    BACK AND BLACK
    SUNDAY, MARCH 9, RANGOON AND EINME, BURMA
     
    The lukewarm shower sputtered. No matter: It still felt great to wash away the dirt and blood. Water couldn’t wash away the family photos in Teller’s pocket, however. At Double Llama Trading, the ex-Ranger had flipped between bluster and swift brutality. Perhaps Teller’s lethal days were over. And maybe Hell had frozen over. Out of the shower, Nolan brushed his wet hair and looked in the mirror. A salt-and-pepper mane, bushy gray mustache and a face that looked a few years younger than the number on his odometer. He still had well-defined muscles, but also love handles. Hard mountain biking rides had battled copious red wine consumption to a draw.
    Nolan planned to find Sally for clean clothes, but decided instead to lie down for five minutes to clear his head. Forty minutes later, Ryder shook him awake. “Get dressed, big guy. You’ve got a refresher course out back in five.”
    He stumbled downstairs where sidearms were waiting. After a few tries Nolan was back in touch with the basics. He hoped the first seventeen rounds would be enough. Yet Ryder was insistent: “Take this spare mag. I’m bringing five with me, so you can manage the extra one.”
    The Glock nestled into a belt holster that jutted off Nolan’s hip. “I feel like the new deputy just before Indio’s gang rides into town.”
    Ryder shared his affinity for Clint Eastwood Westerns and said, “When you go into the saloon, be sure to strike a match on the hunchback’s stubble.” Nolan smiled in the dark.
    The crew geared up, dark coveralls over black body armor being the first order of business. Cloth panels secured with Velcro hid the bright yellow letters D-E-A. Someone had set up a table laden with radio handsets, night-vision goggles, sidearms, SCARs and boxes of 7.62mm and 9mm cartridges. A second table held jumpsuits, Kevlar vests, hats, gloves and face paint. It looked like Ryder’s work, trying to turn a DEA op into the SEAL Team-6 raid on bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound.
    Seconds apart, the Toyota pickup and a white SUV rolled to a stop out back. Gonzalez emerged on the trot with several rolled tubes. Hecker was off to the side on his cell phone. He disengaged and looked up. “Travis, Bob, upstairs.”
    Back in the conference room, it was clear Hecker had been busy. “Millie’s files don’t have incriminating information other than those aerial photos of Airstrip One. There’s a thin printout on Golden Elephant that doesn’t even mention Toffer/Teller. The pieces on the late Opium King Khun Sa, Shan State and China’s encroachment are irrelevant. Millie’s amateur analyses of the photos don’t do additional damage. Nothing there to justify Teller going berserk.”
    Looking up, Hecker said, “You might have been paranoid thinking the clinic was staked out when you drove past.”
    Nolan's voice adopted the slightest edge. “Millie used a marker to circle the new building she spotted on the last fuzzy photo in my packet. From what I saw, it’s a well-hidden structure. She wrote the GPS coordinates on the back. If there is—or was—something valuable in that building, Teller will be coming after anyone who can identify either him or the airstrip.”
    Hecker and Ryder exchanged looks: Nolan was seeing monsters under the bed.
    As Hecker spread out the 1:50,000 maps, Nolan saw roads and rivers snaking across the Irrawaddy Delta, and nothing but grass and swamp where the runway should be.
    “How old are these?”
    “About six years,” Gonzalez replied. “I pasted a dot here where the GPS coordinates show your building.”
    Hecker leaned