I took my son to visit my husband, the commander, but the guard blocked us at the gate and said, “His girlfriend is inside the unit. No visitors!” I covered my son’s ears, called my second brother, and

watched his mother lose her color.

Inside the administration building, a woman wearing a cream-colored coat appeared near a second-floor window, laughing into her phone. Olivia recognized her immediately: Serena Vale, the civilian contractor whose “strategic consulting firm” had obtained emergency funding through a nonprofit account overseen by Olivia’s continue reading …