The Naval Special Warfare dining hall at Harbor Point was a place where silence carried more weight than any shouted order

with a sharp, biting tone that echoed off the steel walls. When the old man produced a credential card marked with the cryptic designation ORION-BLACK / LEVEL NULL, Rhodes did not see a legend; he saw an inconvenience. He saw an obsolete relic that didn’t fit his orderly, modern world. When the old man politely asked to finish his meal, Rhodes’s ego continue reading …