Moving silently, the team glided across the span of the room, communicating only with hand signals. Rick looked up at the tall ceiling in the foyer as he moved soundlessly on the tile floor. He and Waller went into the first room on the right, one of them automatically aiming high and the other low. It appeared to be a library. Full bookshelves rose three stories up. They went back into the hall, walking carefully, listening for every sound.

Another room to the left revealed a wall full of hunting prizes. A lion frozen in midroar, a zebra, a rhinoceros. Elephant tusks hung over the mantel, and the scent of tobacco hung in the air. Rick’s lip curled in distaste.

As they moved back into the foyer, a gunshot sounded from a room at the end of the hall. They moved toward the sound, more alert and ready than before. They turned like the hands on a clock, rotating through the hallway, checking every corner and every shadow as they rolled up to the door.

Another gunshot. Perhaps seven seconds had passed since the first shot. As they came to the room from which the gunfire had originated, a third shot sounded.

Rick faced back in the direction they had come. At his signal, Swanson kicked the door open, and the team went in, weapons ready. In a swift, almost singular movement, Peña and McBride shot the two men who raised guns in their direction. They collapsed in front of a roped-off area confining perhaps twenty people.

The hostages all knelt on the ground, facing the wall, their hands laced behind their heads. They sobbed, cowered, and cried. Three people lay dead. It looked like Rick’s team had stopped an execution of the entire group.

“Stay put,” Rick told them in English as they swept through the room. No one said a word, no one picked up a camera or a cell phone. Apparently, they were all frozen in shock at what had almost happened to them.

Waller faced backward, covering the hallway. Rick and the remainder of the team moved past him in a flash. Rick crouched with his back to Waller while Peña and McBride swept right and Swanson and Fisher swept left. When Peña and McBride got close to the men they had shot, they each put four more bullets into the supine forms—two shots to the head and two to the chest—before raising their weapons to scan for further deadly threats.

Seconds later, Swanson and McBride both yelled, “Clear!”

Remembering the map, Rick sprang to his feet and took in his surroundings. They had entered the central ballroom. A podium stood near a wall with stage lights pointing at it. The people behind the ropes must be the press corps.

“Dawn!” Waller yelled.

A Secret Service agent in the hallway answered, “Zulu!” and Waller lowered his weapon as the Secret Service agents entered.