Twenty-two NATO troops entered the Demain factory under August's command. One man caught a slug in the hand, another in the knee. Among the Gendarmerie personnel, only Colonel Ballon was hurt with a bullet in the shoulder. Three of the twenty-eight New Jacobin terrorists died and fourteen were wounded.

August would later testify before a special committee of the French National Assembly that the casualties among the New Jacobins occurred because they fought too hard and too chaotically.

"They were like chess players who knew the moves but not the game," he would read from a statement he and Lowell Coffey II prepared. "The terrorists charged from the factory without a plan, divided their forces, and got chewed up. When they retreated into the building and tried to regroup, we closed in. Finally, after they'd been flanked, they attempted to punch their way out. We tightened the knot until they surrendered, and that was that. The entire operation, from first shot to last, took twenty-two minutes."

It had seemed much longer to Paul Hood.

When the massive V-22 Osprey had descended on the compound and the New Jacobin leader had ordered the execution of his captives, gunfire popped not only from where the doorknob had been removed. It also came from a hole which had been cut in the pasteboard of the false ceiling and from a window to which one of the Gendarmerie officers had rappelled. It was a perfect triangulation and it accounted for three of the New Jacobin wounded: the three men who had been ordered to execute Paul Hood, Nancy Bosworth, and Matt Stoll.

As soon as the men fell, Hood threw himself atop Nancy and Matt dove for the ground. Ballon received his wound as he ran out to cover Matt.

The prisoners were ignored in the madness which followed, as the New Jacobins scrambled to escape what had become a shooting gallery and get out into the open. They were back within ten minutes, trying to hold off the attackers. But by that time, Hood and his companions had retreated to a kitchenette, where Nancy cleaned and bandaged Ballon's wound as best she could and Hood struggled to keep him down. Despite the pain, the Colonel was anxious to get back into battle.

Stoll stood aside, admittedly sickened by the blood and distracting himself with self-congratulatory palaver for having noticed the doorknob being removed and attempting to distract the New Jacobins with "my 'I'm just a computer guy' riff." Like the New Jacobin before him, Hood told Stoll to be quiet.

Two NATO privates were the first ones into the kitchenette. By then, the corridor had been secured and a medic was summoned to take care of Ballon.