Only 200 people have ever been in Christopher Whitcomb's elite branch of the F.B.I. The Hostage Rescue Team is its most highly trained and specialized squadron-equivalent to the Navy's Seals and the Army's Delta Force-charged with terrorist capture, hostage situations, and other large-scale emergencies in the U.S. and around the world. Whitcomb is the first HRT member ever to write about his experience.

With breathtaking immediacy, Whitcomb describes the brutal training, the weapons and tactics, and the unbreakable camaraderie of the HRT. In short order, after joining HRT in 1991, Whitcomb was sent on missions to Ruby Ridge and Waco, and his frank assessment of those missions is must reading for anyone interested in modern law enforcement.

• Espionage