The occupants of the room—two men and a woman, all of them looking equally uptight—started when Young barged in. He assessed them quickly, identified them from the files he’d studied during the flight to New Mexico, and came to the conclusion that Brigadier General Mike Hampton was in over his head, Lieutenant Dr. Leandra Butler was actual top dog of the group, and Dr. Robert Weston desperately needed a few hours of uninterrupted sleep. Hampton opened his mouth, noticed the four stars glinting dully on Young’s shoulder epaulettes, and snapped it shut smartly.

Young stopped at the head of the table and stared at the assembly from under his green beret.

“Sit down,” he told them quietly. Sometimes, sotto voce menace got much better results than outright yelling. He pulled out a chair for himself and plunked down unceremoniously, wordlessly declaring that this was not going to go strictly by military protocol. “All right, give me the rundown,”

he ordered, loosening his tie with one hand. “I’m not here to assign blame. I want this thing captured. So spare me the bull, gimme the facts.”

It was Lt. Dr. Butler who moved first. Young wasn’t surprised. The woman was an African-American female officer with a doctorate in neurology and a shitload of publications and commendations under her belt.

It was still a rare combination, which meant she wasn’t someone he’d want to underestimate. She sat at Hampton’s right and pushed a folder across the table. Young slapped a hand down to stop its slide and leafed through it. It was an updated version of the report he’d read on the plane, thick with pictures and hastily added notes. He’d dive into it in detail later, but right now he wanted a quick-and-dirty outline, no frills. He’d always been better at taking in information by watching and listening, preferred lectures to books; reading took longer and generally left him feeling as if something was missing.

“Layman’s terms,” he requested, and to her credit, that’s how she told it.

“I want you to understand that none of these findings are double-checked yet, sir,” she began, staring at him with cool, dark eyes. “Under the circumstances, we had to work fast, so we weren’t able to do this completely by the book. Some of it is guesswork. Educated guesses, but guesses nonetheless.”

Young didn’t even twitch. He was heading SOCOM, the Special Operations Command, for Christ’s sake. He was more than used to people who thought outside the box. It was a requirement for Special Forces soldiers to be creative—there was a reason their field was called unconventional warfare, after all.

“Duly noted.”