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drive, and the idea of Palestine and returning there was all that controlled my thinking and my being. We knew that achieving our objective would cost lives, but since the day we joined up, we had been aware that there was a possibility of martyrdom at any time in the name of Palestine. We were not afraid, but we felt the apprehension that a person feels when embarking on an important mission, the fear of failure.”
             
    At 0410 hours , two groups of four operatives each reached the village’s perimeter fence, near Gate 25A. They aroused no suspicion. Like many of the athletes returning from a night on the town, they wore Olympic sweat suits and were ostensibly sneaking back to their rooms. One of the two terrorist bands met a group of American athletes near the fence. The tipsy Americans and the wired Palestinians helped each other over the simple, six-foot barrier. Once inside the village the two groups walked together for a while before parting and bidding each other good night. The terrorists carried Olympic duffel bags, their weapons hidden under clothing. They encountered no guards as they made their way through the village, although six German postal workers had noticed the Palestinians as they jumped over the fence. To their sober eyes the men seemed suspicious. They reported the break-in, but no action was taken. Walking quickly, Issa led his men straight to 31 Connollystrasse. Arriving at the building, each one pulled an AK -47 out of his gym bag, snapped a thirty-bullet magazine into place, and slipped a round into the chamber.

7                    CAPTURED
    MUNICH, OLYMPIC VILLAGE, 31 CONNOLLYSTRASSE, APARTMENT 5 TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1972, 0415H
    Shmuel Lalkin had always been a light sleeper. At 0415 hours he awoke in his bedroom on the second floor of Apartment 5 at 31 Connollystrasse, to the jolting sound of gunfire. He went to his front-facing window and looked out. Everything appeared quiet and peaceful in the early morning light. A chilly wind beckoned him back to bed. “Maybe a nervous sharpshooter unintentionally discharged a round,” he thought to himself. The exhaustion of the past few days weighed on his eyelids. He planned to wake up in less than two hours.
    A few minutes earlier, the terrorists had reached the blue door leading to Apartment 1. It was open, as always, since it led not only to the Israeli dorms but also to the parking garage and the upstairs housing units. The terrorists walked through a small foyer to the door of Apartment 1, home to seven Israeli coaches and referees. The terrorists had a copy of the key. One of them slipped it into the door; the lock wouldn’t turn. The jiggling of the key woke Yossef Gutfreund, a six-foot-three, 285- pound international wrestling referee. Gutfreund, forty, married, and the father of two young girls, had refereed at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. Though he was a businessman by profession, the Romanian-born referee devoted much of his time to sports. He rolled out of bed and made his way toward the jarring noise.
    The terrorists flipped the lock and opened the door. Gutfreund stood in the hall, barefoot, in his underwear, peering at the armed and masked men facing him. He immediately recognized the men’s intentions: Arab terrorists are coming to take us hostage. “Guys, run!” he shouted at his six sleeping roommates. Gutfreund threw the full weight of his body against the door. The terrorists, who realized they’d lost the element of surprise, pushed with all their strength. Gutfreund was an overpoweringly strong man, but the terrorists managed to wedge the steel barrel of a Kalashnikov between the door and the frame and use it as a crowbar. The former wrestler, knowing he could not hold them for long, struggled selflessly, buying time for his friends to come to their senses and escape. The only way out was through the back window.
    The weight lifting trainer, Tuvia Skolsky, a Holocaust survivor who had