That is probably one of the hardest things about being a writer, sure its fiction, but if you want to be credible fiction you have to know what the hell you're talking about. And doing research is such a b**** for me, as a young writer, because it can be so hard for the mind to grasp the concepts of topics you never thought in a million years you'd ever be covering, and I don't want to sound like I'm forcing it. See, once you do do the reasearch, you have to learn to assimiliate it into the culture and language of the actual character (whether its a person, place, or thing) that proposes the actual ideas involving whatever it is you researched, so thats a whole other skill necessary to pull it off.
Even in the latter books, i think The Deception? The ghostwriter said her research involved contacting the actual military until she was able to gather info from a source who was actually in the military. He gave her all the information about war craft that she needed to know, and even read over most of her chapters to make sure she got it right.
Phew...Hard sh!t (pardon my language)