Read Online Sea of Lies: An Espionage Thriller by Bradley West - Free Book Online

safer flying solo. Besides, there’s less to explain to Zaw this way. We want to keep you out of the spotlight given that Teller has already threatened your family. If you get into trouble, call and we’ll come pronto.”
    He exhaled. Ryder was right. More to the point, Zaw was helping out as a favor to Hecker. Police Major Zaw didn’t know Bob from Adam. If the shit hit the fan, that deniability would be a good thing. “Makes sense,” he said.
    Nolan shuffled over to the Toyota, nodded at Dara and eased onto the burlap shrouded seat, letting out a sneeze as he did. The car smelled like a slaughterhouse. How the hell would he explain this? That last hundred-dollar bill wouldn’t suffice, though he had a wallet full of kyat as well. He told Dara to head for the spot he’d marked on Gonzalez’s map. They were already through Einme, the roads even blacker than on the first dash back to Rangoon.
    The first creek was dry and lacked a house over the bridge. They kept driving and crossed the second bridge. A handful of flashlight beams revealed people standing around. The cinderblock home was burned to the ground and still smoking. There was a smoldering shell out back: the Hyundai. So much for needing a fingerprint kit.
    He’d seen enough bodies in Ramadi to recognize the pugilistic poses people assumed when they’d been burned alive. Three corpses lay captured in the Toyota’s mismatched headlights. Someone threw another bucket of water on the ashes of the house, steam rising. It was a scene from Hell. People started walking toward them, perhaps recognizing the pickup as the flashlight beams sought out the driver and passenger.
    “Go, Dara! Get out of here!” For the second time that night wheels spun on damp gravel as they headed back the way they’d come. Nolan ducked down to try to avoid being pegged as a white man. Bad enough that they were driving the dead farmer’s rig. Who was that third body? Had that couple had a child or a relative with them when Teller’s gunmen had arrived? How had they found this place so soon?
    Of course! Outside the infirmary, Teller’s men had made the license plates on the Toyota, and had come to the registered address to find out more. Why hadn’t he thought of that before they’d switched vehicles? He’d just killed that poor family with his stupidity.
    “Pull over! Cut the lights.” Nolan staggered out and knelt on the road shoulder, where he vomited. Back in the car, he rinsed, spat, and wiped his eyes as they resumed their flight. He recalled the last time he’d puked. It was outside Prentice Dupree’s apartment in Johor Bahru, southern Malaysia. Nolan’s meaningful job responsibilities had vanished eighteen months ago, shortly after the night in question. The CIA’s version was that he snapped when Malaysia-based programmer Prentice Dupree turned up dead. Responsible for ensuring that the death scene indicated a suicide, Nolan purportedly rearranged the evidence to point instead toward a CIA-led murder. Ironically, the Malaysia coroner returned a verdict of suicide. The wolves had had it out for him ever since.
    Subsequently, Nolan sought refuge in the CIA human resources bureaucracy that had formerly tormented him with their inane box-ticking and form-filling. After enduring six weeks of paid suspension, the Company had agreed to a deferred exit that would take him to fifty-five and a full pension. In the meantime, the former high flyer was reduced to outsourcing malicious code from Asia hackers out of a CIA proprietary based in a small office tucked away in an office building situated on Scotts Rd in Singapore’s tourist belt.
    These days Nolan bounced between his home in Singapore and other Asia capital cities, hiring unsavory contractors to do ugly things. He collected these programs via various dark web–enabled dead drops, fed them back to Langley for vetting and further obfuscation, authorized Bitcoin or even old-fashioned dollar payouts, and tried to stay a