And right now, the girls were behind a closed door, gathered in a circle with their arms locked at the elbows, receiving last-minute instructions from their coach and bowing their heads in prayer.
Witnesses claim Hasan shouted "Allahu Akbar" (God is greatest) before allegedly opening fire on a group of US soldiers receiving last-minute health checks – as well as signing their wills – before being deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq.
After receiving last-minute whispered instructions from a friend he had made in Paris, he took "six steps exactly" (the famed "leap to freedom" was, in fact, a short walk) away from the K.G.B. agents guarding him and toward two undercover French policemen who were waiting.
The turnover has coincided with bankruptcy filings at US Airways and United Airlines, a unit of the UAL Corporation; the threat of a filing at Delta Air Lines; and a close call at American Airlines, a unit of the AMR Corporation, which avoided having to seek bankruptcy-court protection only by receiving last-minute employee concessions.
Paratroopers from the Foreign Legion are receiving last-minute instructions before they climb in their armoured vehicles.
On the Web, corporate controllers receive last-minute reports on dozens of accounts, which a decade ago might have required multiple phone calls.
Two Tennessee inmates who were scheduled to die this week in back-to-back executions received last-minute reprieves today when a federal appellate court ruled that more time was needed to review their cases.
The Protect Marriage campaign, which spent nearly $40 million, also received last-minute donations of $150,000 from the Knights of Columbus and $400,000 from Howard F. Ahmanson Jr., a backer of conservative causes, both of whom donated more than $1 million in total.
Xerox said it had received last-minute waivers from its lenders and that in any event it would have had to pay only $220 million, a sum amply covered by its $2 billion in cash.
Jelena arrived at the National Tennis Center alone yesterday morning for practice, and was driven back to her Manhattan hotel so she could have lunch and receive last-minute instructions from her father.
About a week after the California State Bar refused to allow a disabled law student to take the bar exam, claiming registration problems, the student received last-minute approval for the test on Monday from the State Supreme Court.
