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African-American man in his sixties. Theother men and women were a mixed bunch, most in their forties, all wearing dark suits. Garrett could feel the buzz of power in the room. And they were all staring at him.
    “I’m sure you are wondering why you are here, Mr. Reilly,” the secretary said. “So I think I’ll let this gentleman start things off. General Kline, would you do the honors?”
    General Kline stepped to the front of the group. He was one of the few there without a drink. He thrust out his hand to shake Garrett’s, and spoke quickly in his clipped Boston accent. “I’m Hadley Kline. Head of the Analysis Directorate at the Defense Intelligence Agency. I’m also Alexis’s boss.” He nodded to Alexis, who had moved away from Garrett to stand unobtrusively in a corner. In the pecking order of the room she clearly did not rank.
    Kline cleared his throat. “So, how do I start this?” Kline twitched, as was his habit, then launched in. “I’m sure you’ve heard the old cliché—generals are always preparing to fight the last war. Well, unfortunately, there’s truth in it. The armed services spend a lot of time and money grooming the next generation of leaders—West Point, Annapolis, the Air Force Academy. Bright men and women. We explain to them how the last war was fought. And then we tell them to think about how to fight the next one. But in the process we make them like us. We make them military people. That’s the whole point—we want them to be soldiers. But that . . .” And here Kline hesitated, carefully choosing his words, not for effect, but, Garrett guessed, to avoid insulting anyone else in the room. “That approach can have its drawbacks,” he finished.
    Kline shot a quick glance around the room, as if scanning for objections. He found none.
    “We are susceptible to groupthink, no matter how hard we try to stay independent. It is human nature to be influenced by others. It’s that ability that allowed the human race to evolve from being solitary hunters on the African savannah to standing around drinking scotch in a million-dollar town house in Georgetown.”
    “Bought it for a couple million dollars,” the secretary broke in. “God only knows what it’s worth now. Damn real estate market.” There were chuckles across the room.
    “Groupthink is especially prevalent in larger organizations,” Kline continued. “And the military is the largest of them all. I think I can say, without impugninganyone here, that the military is not the world’s most outside-the-box group. We value discipline, bravery, integrity. Poets and entrepreneurs need not apply.” Again there was laughter.
    “At least not until now.” Kline turned to a young woman sitting in the corner. She rose, smiling politely. She was Hispanic, no more than thirty, and wore a tailored black skirt suit. She offered Garrett her hand. They shook.
    “Garrett, my name is Julia Hernandez. I work in the Treasury Department. I’m the undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence. I’m the person Avery Bernstein called the other day. With your news.”
    “Oh.” Garrett looked her up and down. She was pretty, if you liked the librarian/dominatrix archetype, which Garrett did, on occasion. “So it was you that cost me forty million bucks.”
    “You mean by propping up the dollar?”
    “That’s exactly what I mean.”
    “You were planning to profit from the sell-off in Treasuries?”
    “Sure.”
    “You weren’t troubled by that? Morally?”
    “Not really. That’s my business.” He looked at the assembled generals. “We all have a business. You guys kill people. I short bad bond issues.”
    Out of the corner of his eye Garrett saw Alexis Truffant flinch. She looked ready to body-tackle him. Garrett guessed she had a lot of skin in this game, but none of the generals had so much as twitched at his remark. Either they were a lot tougher than she was, Garrett thought, or they didn’t give a shit what he