THEY ENCOUNTERED one more guard before reaching the chalet. He came from their right, around the corner of the house, and foolishly stepped into the open with his weapon still at his side. Gabriel and Mikhail fired together. The shots were muffled by the silencers, but the guard emitted a single piercing scream as the volley of rounds tore into his chest. Two faces, like figures in a shooting gallery, appeared suddenly in the illuminated windows of the house—one in a ground-floor window directly in front of Gabriel, a second on the upper floor at the peak of the roof. Gabriel took out the man in the first-floor window while Mikhail saw to the one on the second.

They had now lost any remaining element of surprise. Gabriel and Mikhail both reloaded as they sprinted the final thirty yards toward the front door. Yaakov had much experience entering terrorist hideouts in the West Bank and Gaza and led the way. He didn’t bother trying the latch. Instead he sprayed a volley of rounds through the center of the door to take out anyone standing on the other side, then shot away the lock and the surrounding wood of the doorjamb. Navot, the largest of the four men, hurled his thick body against the door, and it collapsed inward like a falling domino.

The other three stepped quickly into the small entrance hall. Gabriel covered the space to the left, Yaakov the center, and Mikhail the right. Gabriel, still wearing the night-vision goggles, saw the man he shot though the window lying on the floor in a pool of blood. Yaakov and Mikhail each fired immediately, and Gabriel heard the screams of two more dying men. They moved forward into the chalet, found the steps to the cellar, and headed down. We’ll start there, Gabriel had said. Torturers always like to do their work belowground.

SHE WAS DESCRIBING for him the day of the sale, when there came from the floor above the sound of a disturbance. He silenced her with a brutal slap across her face, then stood up and, with the gun in his hand, moved quickly to the door. A few seconds later she heard shouts and screams and heavy footfalls on the steps. Muhammad turned and leveled the gun at her face. Sarah, still handcuffed to the table, reflexively lowered her head between her arms as he squeezed the trigger twice. In the tiny chamber the gun sounded like artillery. The rounds scorched the air above her head and embedded themselves in the wall at her back.