In the lobby their credentials were checked by a pair of security officers wearing plain gray uniforms. Once they were vetted they walked down a hall, passing empty offices and double doors leading to a warehouse full of Conex shipping containers, until they arrived at an elevator with a key card access lock. One of the men tapped his key on the reader and the doors opened.

The car took them down, past B1 where a team of analysts and communications specialists worked, and past B2, which was divided into a large storage area and a larger underground firing range with six shooting lanes.

They stopped at B3, and the door opened to a short, bright hallway. Two more security officers stood there waiting, as they had been alerted by the cameras that picked the men up when they were still out front in the driveway. The officers wore M4 carbines on their chests and Beretta pistols on their hips, but they were affable guys who recognized one of the three visitors and treated him as if he were a visiting head of state.

“Good morning, Mr. Hanley,” the guard who looked over the IDs said.

“Morning.” Matt Hanley did not introduce the two men with him or address the guards by name. Instead he handed over his badge and submitted to a wanding from the other guard. Seconds later all three visitors passed through a door. On the other side was a small room with a camera looking down on it, and yet another door, this one with a state-of-the art electromechanical locking system.

Hanley and the two others waited silently while the door behind them clicked shut.

—

On the other side of the electromechanically locked door, half a dozen men were spread around a comfortable team room the size of a tennis court. A projection screen TV took up a portion of one wall; a soft and worn sectional sofa was pulled apart and scattered around in front of it. Aluminum picnic tables with built-in benches were arrayed by a kitchen area, and high shelves of tactical gear and luggage jutted out from the wall to the left of the door. A row of three wooden workbenches covered with guns, tools, and cleaning supplies spanned half the length of the back wall.

The smell of gun oil, sweat, and spicy taco sauce filled the team room.

Unlike all the security personnel in the gray uniforms outside this room, the six men here were decked out in a haphazard mishmash of civilian clothing. Two wore flip-flops and shorts, two others workout gear, and two more jeans and sweatshirts. One of the men in flip-flops was shirtless with a wet towel wrapped comically around his head in a manner reminiscent of Carmen Miranda.