Free The Solitary Man by Stephen Leather

talk?'
    'There's a restaurant upstairs.' Carver led the DEA executive to the stairs, dropping his cup of coffee into a rubbish bin on the way.
    Gregory looked surprisingly refreshed for a man who'd just spent almost twenty hours in the air, and he took the stairs two at a time so that Carver had to hurry after him. Gregory was thickset, almost heavy, but it was clearly all muscle, and he had the build of a Marine drill sergeant.
    The restaurant was self-service. Gregory helped himself to a salad, a wholemeal bread roll and a Diet Coke while Carver chose a plate of pad thai - thin rice noddles fried with bean curd, egg, vegetables and peanuts. Gregory wrinkled his nose at Carver's choice but didn't say anything. He went over to an empty corner table and left Carver to pay. When Carver joined him, Gregory was breaking the bread roll apart with his hands.
    'Rabbit food,' said Gregory, nodding at his salad. 'Had a bit of a heart scare a few months back. Doc told me to cut out red meat, Southern Comfort and cigars. I compromised and kept the cigars.' He popped a piece of bread between his thin lips and chewed without relish.
    'You should try Thai food,' said Carver, digging his fork into the noodles. 'It's almost zero fat. The Thais have got the lowest incidence of heart disease in the world.'
    'Yeah, maybe you're right,' said the DEA executive unenthusiastically. 'But as soon as my cholesterol drops to normal I'm having a fucking huge steak.' He grinned wolfishly and took a gulp of cola. 'Okay, let's get down to business,' he said. 'What do you know about Zhou Yuanyi?' He studied Carver with unblinking blue eyes.
    Carver's fork stopped on the way to his mouth, suspended in mid-air. 'Zhou Yuanyi?' he repeated. Carver put his fork down. 'He's a Chinese warlord, based in the Golden Triangle. Strictly speaking he's in Burma, but the region is constantly being fought over by private armies who control the opium fields. They're unreachable. Unreachable and untouchable. And Zhou Yuanyi is the toughest of them all. The last time Zhou's people THE SOLITARY MAN 49 caught someone trying to infiltrate his network, they impaled the intruder alive at the entrance to their compound.'
    Gregory nodded slowly. He popped another chunk of bread roll into his mouth. 'Not one of ours?' he said.
    Carver shook his head. 'A Thai. Working for the Australians.'
    'Impaled, huh?'
    'A stake up the arse. Took him two days to die.'
    Gregory frowned. 'How do you know that?' he asked.
    'The Australians received a video. Just to ram home the point.' He smiled grimly at the unintended pun.
    Gregory took another look at his wristwatch. 'You know we've no pictures of Zhou on file?'
    'He's never been photographed. He's not political like some of the warlords, he doesn't give interviews. He's in it solely for the money.'
    'What are the chances of getting a picture?'
    'Zero. We can't get near the guy. He has a private army of more than five hundred soldiers, he moves from camp to camp within the area he controls and he's got an intelligence network that puts the CIA to shame. He's better protected than the President.'
    Gregory nodded slowly. He speared a slice of cucumber and waved it in front of Carver's face. 'That might be so, son, but we're going to change all that.' Carver sat back in his plastic chair, intrigued, and Gregory leaned forward as if reluctant to allow the agent to put more distance between them. 'We're gonna get this Zhou. His chickens are coming home to roost.'

The Solitary Man
    Carver raised his eyebrows. 'Great,' he said. 'It's about time we did something.'
    'Yeah, I've read your reports,' said Gregory. 'You're getting pretty frustrated with the way things are going here.'
    'We're just not making any progress,' Carver said. 'Sure, the Thais make arrests, but it's usually mules at the airports. They don't go near the really big guys, the ones that run the drug-smuggling operations. And the guys like Zhou - hell, in the Golden Triangle they reckon