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members.”
    “Thanks Mike.  Damn I hate those protestors!  Everywhere we go, people are protesting something.”
    “Yes sir,” Agent Mike Winters said stoically.
    A few minutes passed, then he said, “All clear Mr. President, we can proceed into the building.”
    Two more agents came up to the sedan and opened the door.  Mike got out from the other side and hurried around to take his place beside the president.  He’d been an agent for over fifteen years.  His first assignment after the Special Agent Basic Training program was in Denver as a counterfeit currency investigator and then as a team chief in the Anchorage branch until finally he was brought over to Protection five years ago.  It was, without a doubt, the proudest day of his life the first time he met the President of the United States and told him that he was going to be providing security for him that day.
    His daily routine while in D.C. was to rearrange the bed covers on his three children, little Mikey, Kaylee and Emma, kiss his wife Judy goodbye and get picked up by another agent early in the morning.  Then, almost daily, he and five other agents ran four-plus miles with the president, depending on how far he felt like running that day.  Next, while the president showered and got him morning intelligence brief, it was off to a half hour of weapon’s training or hand-to-hand grappling before showering and going back to the White House to be with the president.  At the end of the day, he’d outbrief his relief agents and get home just in time for a warmed up dinner and to help with the dishes and baths for the kids.
    All that changed two weeks ago.  It happened over the weekend when no one was expecting him at work.  They emerged from his basement as everyone was sitting down at the table for breakfast.  They were professionals and knew exactly what they were doing.  No bruises or marks on him at all.  As for Judy, she’d gotten a huge welt on her head and there had been blood running from her nose.  The kids had chloroform placed over their mouths before they even had time to scream.  Their leader outlined exactly what he was supposed to do and assured him that his family wouldn’t be hurt any more if he did what they told him to do.  His family was taken away and two of the terrorists stayed in his home to keep a watch over him.
    His training as an agent told him not to negotiate with them.  The training told him that even if he did comply, the hostages wouldn’t be released.  They’d either be held for further manipulation of him, or, more likely, they’d be killed.  He knew this.  He’d given hostage survival classes to his fellow agents for years.  But this was his family, not some text-book scenario.  Mikey was only 14 months old for Pete’s sake.  Little Emma would turn four in a month and Kaylee was excited to complete the second grade in June.  Judy had been in his life since he was twelve.  He couldn’t risk doing something that would jeopardize their safety, even if it meant he had to do something so heinous that he would forever be vilified by the world. 
    “This way, Mr. President,” he gestured towards a set of large mahogany doors.
    On the other side of the doors, the remaining seven heads of state were sitting at a large round table with stacks of bound paper lying in front of them.  Several rows of chairs sat in concentric circles from the middle table.  The outer chairs were full of staffers and assistants who waited to attend to the needs of their country’s leaders.  Ten other Secret Service agents lined the walls at various intervals and two more sat at the far end of the hall by the doors leading to the press room.
    The press room was adjacent to the conference room and was reached through a set of metal doors.  In the press room, nine rows of ten folding chairs were arranged facing a podium and eight chairs with the flags of the respective nations behind each chair.  There would be a press