The Pentagon’s newest strategist: A man who once treated the halls of Congress like a theme park is handed the keys to the kingdom — and decides the biggest threat to national security is the lack of beef jerky and a proper office kegerator.

The office of the Deputy Undersecretary for “Aggressive Interior Engagement” at the newly minted Department of War — formerly the Department of Defense, because apparently “defense” sounded too much like “apologizing for existing” — smelled faintly of stale vaping smoke and the kind of aggressive, industrial-strength floor wax that only appears in buildings where people spend all day shouting about logistics.

Elias “Coffee Boy” Irizarry sat behind his mahogany desk, which was currently serving as a makeshift storage unit for three different tactical vests, a framed photo of himself giving a thumbs-up in the Capitol rotunda, and a single, lonely stapler that he didn’t quite know how to operate.

Elias, a man whose primary contribution to national security had previously been a spirited, three-hour jog through the Statuary Hall and an impromptu attempt to rearrange the furniture in a Senator’s office, was now, somehow, a political appointee. The transition from “Person of Interest” to “Undersecretary of Something Very Important” had been remarkably smooth, mostly because his resume consisted of one bullet point: Strong presence in high-traffic administrative buildings.

Elias looked up. His assistant, a career civil servant named Susan who had been at the Pentagon since the days of rotary phones and beige cubicles, was standing in the doorway holding a stack of files that looked like they contained the combined wisdom of several centuries of military strategy.

“It’s Elias,” he said, leaning back in his chair with a grin that suggested he was about to sell you a very questionable time-share. “And you can call me Chief. Or maybe ‘The General of Interior Operations.’ Still waiting on the business cards.”

Susan’s face remained a........

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