There had been three of them and two of the enemy in that dim room. They had come across the two Taliban so suddenly that none of the five had moved for a split second, but then Bailey had one of the enemy in a choke hold and Thomas had the other against the wall with a gun to his forehead. The enemy weapons sat useless on the other side of the room. These guys, Patton thought, had not expected company. Patton took care of the zip ties and shoved the restrained men to the floor. Then the three Americans stepped back for a moment, wondering what to do next. They could still hear shouts and gunfire outside. They knew they might be here for a while.

Patton tried to calm the surge of adrenaline that had come with the sudden confrontation—she did not need adrenaline right now, she told herself. Better save it for later. She could see in the eyes of Thomas and Bailey that they were doing the same thing. After a minute or two of the five of them staring at each other, more in curiosity than in contempt, Bailey spoke up.

“Maybe they know something.”

“You speak some Arabic,” said Thomas to Patton.

“A fair amount,” said Patton, already afraid where this conversation might lead.

“Look,” said Bailey, “we’re not going to find that weapons cache sitting in here in the dark, unless . . .”

Patton had been disturbed by how naturally Bailey took to this work. They did not teach you this in intelligence training. None of this was regulation. But the one time Patton mentioned that fact, Bailey shot her a look of contempt and said, “You want to try to save those guys out there, or do you want this scum to be comfortable?”

And so Patton had served as interrogator, asking the older of the two soldiers the same few questions over and over as Bailey first pummeled his face a few times and gradually worked his way up to a knife twisting into his kneecap. Patton knew the real object here was not to get the older soldier being tortured to talk—they could all tell he would never break—but to scare the younger one, who looked about fifteen, so badly he would say something. That was precisely what happened. His voice trembling, he gave up the name of the village where weapons were stored and from which reinforcements were being sent down to the firefight raging outside. Patton wrote everything down and then took out her map to determine coordinates.

“Maybe this kid has even more to tell us,” said Bailey, stepping toward the youngster quivering in the corner. Bailey lifted him up by his jacket but the buttons popped off and the jacket came open, slipping off one arm as the boy fell back to the floor.

“Fuck,” said Thomas as Bailey stepped away.