Bill Beaman had just enough time to get everyone in place before the Russians sauntered through the door and into the warehouse. They all came in. No one stayed outside with the vehicles.

As the door swung shut behind the group, Beaman called out in Russian, “Drop your weapons and raise your hands. You are surrounded.”

One of the Russian troops must have been a little more scared than his friends. Or perhaps dumber. He fell to one knee and blindly opened fire in the direction of Beaman’s voice. The heavy rumbling of his AK-47 filled the closed space. The SEALs opened fire an instant later. The light slap from the M-4s sounded trivial in comparison to the Russians’ weapons. The Russians dove for cover. All, that is, except the four who now lay motionless on the concrete.

It was a short, vicious firefight, no quarter given and none asked. Grenades flew across the narrow space and exploded behind a pillar that had shielded four troopers. A burst of stray AK-47 fire caught Broughton in the leg, spinning him around and tossing the heavy SEAL to the floor.

Jason Hall was backed into a corner, pinned down, the object of three troopers’ interest. He sent a burst in the direction of two of them and chucked a grenade behind the other. The blast tossed the hapless soldier hard against a rear wall. He sprawled there and lay motionless. The other two broke and ran toward the door. They made it halfway across before they were cut down in the cross fire.

There was a lull in the firing. Beaman heard a shout from across the room.

“Stop shooting. I am coming out.”

The Russian captain emerged, holding the little civilian in front of him like a shield. Smitrov was pasty white, shaking so hard the captain had to hold him upright with a forearm beneath the president’s chin.

Beaman could see that the captain held a pistol to Gregor Smitrov’s temple. The Russian officer’s eyes scanned the room, trying to locate the ambushers in the darkness and smoke. He licked his lips nervously, then spoke. His voice was loud, his hearing stunned by the gunfire and explosions.

“I assume this is the man you want. You will let us go and give yourselves up or I will shoot President Smitrov here before your very eyes. Then you can explain to the world how it was you who killed the president of Russia.”

From behind the pillar where he hid, Bill Beaman knew he had seconds to act. He took a deep breath, sighted down his rifle barrel, aimed, and, with a soft exhale of breath, squeezed the trigger of his weapon twice.

The Russian captain jerked backward as if someone had struck him a mighty blow to his stunned face. Two small red dots decorated his forehead just above the bridge of his nose. He was dead before he tumbled hard against the back wall.