Seconds later Carroll peered over the table. He fired off three more quick shots. Two of the bullets drove stocky Wadih Rashid hard against a hollow partition wall decorated with black skillets. Twin rat holes opened in the terrorist's chest. The heavy skillets clattered noisily to the tile floor.

“Moussa! Hussein Moussa! You can't get out! You can't get past me!” Carroll screamed.

There was no answer.

Somewhere in the front of the restaurant, an old woman was wailing like an imam. Several people were crying loudly. Outside, distant police and ambulance sirens screamed through the night.

“Give up now, and you live… Otherwise I'll kill you. No matter what, Moussa. I swear it!”

He was breathing hard. One, two, three. Carroll chanced another fast look.

He saw nothing of the Lebanese Butcher this time. Moussa was also under the tables, hiding and crawling, looking for some advantage. He was moving toward either the front door or the kitchen.

Carroll guessed it would be the kitchen. He began to scramble toward it.

“I have antipersonnel grenades!” The Butcher suddenly let out a piercing, high scream. “Everybody dies in here! Everybody dies in this restaurant! Everybody dies with me! Women, children, I don't care.”

Carroll stopped moving; he almost didn't breathe. Straight ahead, he stared at a shaking, very frightened woman curled like a snail on the floor. She looked about thirty years old. She didn't want to die in the middle of her big night out with her husband.

Carroll peeked above the dining tables again, and a gunshot rang out to his immediate left. Things didn't look good.

Moussa was in the far right corner.

Did he have grenades? It could be a bluff, but the worst was always possible with the Lebanese Butcher. He had been known to bring a machine pistol to a child's birthday party.

Carroll had to make a quick decision, and he had to make it for everybody trapped in the restaurant.