Over 18 Weeks, an Arduous Path to the Badge

That's a risky move, Zisi said. If there were a video machine in the room, the suspect could have called Michael's bluff.

Under Fire

During week 17, with the end in sight, the trainees lined up to take their final firearms exam at the outdoor range. Each had to fire a gun from four positions at four distances, 150 shots in all. To pass, each trainee had to put at least 120 shots in the target.

When he finished, Jason, a 25-year-old Army lieutenant planning to get married the day after graduation, had a sinking feeling. There were not as many bullet holes in the target as he had hoped. A somber instructor carried over his scored target. Jason had failed by one shot. Tears filled his eyes. He knew what that meant: He would not graduate with his class.

Growing up in small-town Kentucky, Jason was familiar with guns and cut from the traditional mold of an ideal FBI agent. He won a Bronze Star in combat in Iraq. He was the top scorer in the final physical fitness test. He peppered his language with "Yes, Sirs" and "Yes, Ma'ams" and described himself as a Type A personality.

Jason was immediately placed with a new class and given special instruction. If he failed the next firearms qualification test, he would be out. (He passed a month later.)

For his former classmates, there was one more firearms exercise -- FATS -- a firearms training simulation. In a darkened room, with classmates sitting behind, each trainee was called forward to face a movie screen with a video simulating a potential crime unfolding. The trainee had to decide whether to shoot. Act too quickly and an innocent person could be killed. Hesitate and it could be the trainee.

It was Elvis's turn. He had worked as hard as anyone in the class, waking at 5 a.m. to work out and lifting weights at lunchtime. He was also one of the class's most outgoing and popular trainees. His nickname was "The King."

On the video, his partner knocked at an apartment door looking for a fugitive's girlfriend. But the suspect himself opened the door. Elvis's partner pulled his gun. Lunging, the suspect took away the gun and the two men rolled on the ground, fighting for it.

Elvis, the chemical engineer who had never fired a gun before Quantico, leapt onto a table. His heart racing, he shot at the suspect, who was still on the ground tussling with his partner. The suspect's girlfriend suddenly appeared at the door. Elvis yelled for her to stay back. It happened so fast that it was hard to see where the bullets landed.

The lights came on. The instructor felt Elvis's pulse, to comic effect. Then the instructor became serious. "Did you shoot your partner?" he asked.

Elvis's face fell. "I don't think so," he said.

When the computer simulation was rerun in slow motion to track each bullet, it was clear: Elvis had missed his partner and killed the criminal with a shot to the head. His classmates cheered.

Crossing Over

On the morning of Feb. 17, parents, grandparents, spouses and children streamed into the huge FBI auditorium. It was graduation day. Class 06-01 lined up for a photograph with FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, who swore members in as special agents.

"We are on the front lines for America," he told them. "Will you develop the source that provides the intelligence we need to disrupt a terrorist plot? We must continue to change because the terrorists certainly will."

They walked down the long glass-enclosed corridors for the last time. They crossed the grassy quad, past the granite twin towers and the piece of United Airlines Flight 93. They headed toward the gun vault, where their firearms instructor was waiting for them.

Eighteen weeks earlier, he had gone into the vault to get something to show the class: the burned Glock 22 handgun that an agent had carried into the World Trade Center. Now, he handed each of them something of their own. A brand-new Glock 22.