To our way of thinking, an organization without a predictable methodology or clear chain of command wasn’t really an organization at all—from our vantage, AQI should have devolved into internal anarchy. But it didn’t. It continued to function as persistently and implacably as ever, demonstrating a coherence of purpose and strategy. We saw no evidence that this inexplicable structure was the product of deliberate design; it seemed instead to have evolved through ongoing adaptation.
