Zovko was cheerful as usual, but he had a serious question. The next day, March 30, he was going to Fallujah, and he wanted the lowdown on security.

Sheehan handed him two grenades. Not good, he said.

The next day, Zovko and three others were to escort three flatbed trucks for a European food service company called ESS to a U.S. military base west of Fallujah, a city of 280,000 about 35 miles west of Baghdad.

Zovko, Scott Helvenston, Wesley Batalona and Michael Teague worked on contract for Blackwater USA of Moyock, N.C., each earning about $600 a day to escort food convoys and ESS workers.

The high-paying job carried high risks. Fallujah was known as the most dangerous place in Iraq for westerners, and the miles of dusty flatpan around the city were little safer. It was the heart of the Sunni Triangle, and a place where even the Marines who were supposed to control the area feared to venture without at least a couple dozen heavily armed troops.

In a way, the contractors were guarding nothing: The mission was to pick up kitchen equipment the company needed elsewhere, so the trucks were empty.

The convoy made slow time, and sunset caught it on the road. The Blackwater contractors, who called the shots, decided the safest move was to spend the night at a U.S. military base.

The closest was a compound five miles east of Fallujah, just off the main highway. The newly arrived Marines had rechristened the place Camp Fallujah, in line with their public relations policy of using local names.

The approach to the main gate was a zigzag through walls of giant sandbags, concrete and barbed wire, designed to give guards plenty of time to check out -- and, if necessary, shoot -- anyone trying to get close. As the ESS convoy snaked through the maze, Marines on foot and in guard bunkers looked down the barrels of their M-16s and machine guns.

The next morning, the drivers started the cargo trucks, and the Blackwater men paired off into their two Mitsubishi Pajero SUVs.

White-haired Batalona, at 48 the oldest in the detail by a full decade, slid behind the wheel of the black one. Zovko, 32, rode beside him. The two were buddies, and Batalona had come to Iraq partly because Zovko was there.

Helvenston was in charge of a red Pajero, and Teague, 38, a burly Tennessean, climbed in with him.

Batalona, Zovko and Teague all were former Rangers, the Army's best-trained infantry troops. Batalona was remembered among Rangers as an unusually tough sergeant, but in Iraq he sometimes wore Hawaiian floral print shirts and flip-flops on missions.

Helvenston, 38, a former Navy SEAL, was strikingly handsome, with sandy hair and gleaming smile. With a resume that including working on action movies, "the Helv" brought a touch of Hollywood glamour to the mission, which otherwise was just another unpleasant day of driving through a dusty, dangerous landscape, another long day of watching for trouble.

Zovko and Batalona were accustomed to operating in the Sunni Triangle. Teague, though, was a relative newcomer, and Helvenston wasn't supposed to be there. Helvenston had arrived less than two weeks earlier and had worked mainly in the relative peace of southern Iraq, operating out of Blackwater's Kuwait City office. He went north when another Blackwater worker had trouble with an airline flight.

Today, Helvenston would see a tougher side of Iraq. Their destination lay on the far side of Fallujah.

The Blackwater SUVs had reinforced bumpers but no armor. Such vehicles are typical for "nongovernmental organizations" around the globe, because they handle the crude roads of the Third World better than cars. In Iraq -- where few locals can afford fancy transportation -- westerners have dubbed shiny new SUVs "bullet magnets."

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