Sea of Lies: An Espionage Thriller by Bradley West

put up a plane or a surveillance drone?”
    Ryder chuckled darkly, knowing what was coming.
    Hecker twisted around in the passenger seat, pulled off his sunglasses and jabbed a finger at Nolan. “That politicking cocksucker Matthews is the reason we risked our asses driving up and down unlit backroads in the middle of the fucking night! Last year, when Zaw was based in Lashio, we teamed up and took down two meth labs and yaa baa —meth pills—warehouses. This cost the Army serious money and the junta withdrew cooperation on most anti-drug initiatives. I expected that shit, but when you have a chance to stop thirty million dollars’ worth of crystal from leaving the country, you do it. Zaw had the idea of burning everything in place rather than see it recycled out of evidence and onto a DC-9. Everyone from President Thein on down was plenty excited. That’s why we love this job. Every so often, we put the fear of God into the crooks and hurt them in their wallets.
    “Matthews decided that the ambassador and he were in line to achieve a diplomatic breakthrough by offering to voluntarily suspend the DEA’s overflight program. It took my predecessor three years and millions of dollars to allow us to put unmanned surveillance vehicles—USV drones—with cameras, not missiles, overhead. And in one afternoon Martin and Matthews shut us down.”
    “That’s the short version,” Ryder chortled. “Get a couple of beers in him and ask Sam what he really thinks.”
    Hecker barely broke stride. “The only upside for us from this morning’s meeting with the gasbag ambassador and scumbag Matthews will be the latest on the MH370 search. Maybe they’ve found wreckage off Vietnam and this was all a fool’s errand. I still think Teller could be dealing big-time narcotics or arms on the side, just not through Myat Noe. Right now, I admit I’m in a muddle. Bob has me halfway convinced we’re sitting on a conspiracy out of a Jason Bourne movie.”
    Nolan managed a word in edgewise. “Can you suggest what we should say in the briefing?”
    “You CIA types are the professional liars. We’re just humble anti-narcotics flunkies. We leave out all references to Robin Teller. That will cause a sideshow all by itself, and this circus doesn’t have enough clowns to go around. There’s a six-lane fake toll road being used as an airstrip by Golden Elephant’s Jay Toffer. For what, we don’t know. However, we expect it’s the usual mix of drugs, guns and money. You went out to take a look at Matthews’s request, and the rest of Saturday happened as already reported.”
    Hecker continued, “Kyaw was stabbed. You swapped cars and drove him to a hospital back in Rangoon. We thought there might be a haul of weapons or money sitting in that disguised outbuilding next to the runway, so we went out last night. All burned up and no one home. This is a drugs-arms situation that falls within DEA remit. We don’t mention MH370, or we’ll all be working for Matthews. Did I miss anything?”
    “A couple of things, starting with the three or four baggies worth of soil samples, ashes and sundry banana cream pie fillings that Zeya and Gonzalez took out of the rubble,” Nolan said.
    “You can kiss a DEA exclusive goodbye if that comes up. Trust me. We’re going to run everything through the lab in Singapore and see what we have before bringing in the Agency. We’ll give you the first look when the results come back.”
    “Fair enough. You do need to mention that Toffer seems like a homicidal maniac, so we’ll need to call in favors to have the Burmese take him into custody. He’s not an ordinary ten-million-dollar-a-cargo drug smuggler who has the middle-level politicians or an Army colonel in his pocket. They have to know he’s an order of magnitude worse. Millie is in danger because—”
    “Millie may be in danger. There’s no evidence that Toffer/Teller ID’d her from those reports he took out of the car. Let’s not jump to