Trials are set to begin this month for two men accused of conspiring to manufacture untraceable automatic-rifle silencers for a clandestine Navy office. The directorate is suspected of running a secret weapons program.

A little-known Navy intelligence office at the Pentagon called the Directorate for Plans, Policy, Oversight and Integration paid $1.6 million for 349 silencers from a hot-rod auto mechanic in California ? who is the brother of the directorate’s boss, according to charging documents. The untraceable weapons attachments cost only $10,000 in parts and labor to manufacture.