The hijackers, who were all now heavily armed, took up strategic positions throughout the cabins. Mayor Fellinger’s second bodyguard was identified, handcuffed, and led upstairs, where he was knocked unconscious and unceremoniously left in one of the lavatories in the upper-deck lounge.

Knowing that the pilots would stay barricaded behind their reinforced and bulletproof cockpit door, the hijackers contacted them on the intercom system and told them that if they didn’t open the door within three seconds, it would be blown off with C4. The pilots had little choice but to surrender. It was the right move. The hijackers had enough explosives to not only knock down the door, but create such a blast that it would likely kill everyone inside the cockpit. Before opening their door, though, they had managed to get a message out that the plane was under siege.

Knowing that many of the passengers, especially the Americans, would be emboldened by the resistance of the September 11 passengers who had helped prevent the fourth pirated plane from reaching its target, the hijackers wasted no time in demonstrating to everyone on board who was in control.

The lead flight attendant, who had been attacked and badly beaten in the initial takeover, was dragged up and down the aisles as a visual deterrent to any passengers thinking about trying any heroics. The message was sent loud and clear, We are in control here.

It was all making Meg sick to her stomach. She had been the victim of an attempted rape several years before and had never been able to escape the memory of it. The only child of a Chicago Police Academy training officer, she had felt that the attack had somehow been her fault-that she should have seen it coming and been better able to fight it off. The experience had shaken her to the core. Afterward, she took self-defense classes at the academy as well as extensive firearms training. Her father had given her a nine-millimeter handgun, which she always kept loaded beside her bed. Though many women might have caved in and lived in fear for the rest of their lives, Meg had used the experience to make her stronger.

A hijacker in the cockpit relayed orders to the tower. The Jetway was to remain retracted, and neither the external air-conditioning nor the external power source were to be attached. The plane was to be immediately refueled, and if anyone other than the refueling crew approached the aircraft, hostages would be killed.

In order to demonstrate their seriousness, the hijacker exited the cockpit and shouted down the stairs from the upper deck. His colleague waiting below motioned to two other hijackers and together they deactivated the water slide and opened the 747’s large side door. With contemptuous kicks, they shoved the bloody, lifeless bodies of the mayor’s bodyguard and the two sky marshals out the door and watched them tumble through the air before landing in a sickening heap of snapping bone on the tarmac below. Their message delivered, they retreated inside and closed the door.

The hijackers next used sheets of aluminum foil and duct tape to cover the cockpit windows and those of any exit doors that didn’t have shades. Throughout the cabins, passengers were watched at gunpoint as other hijackers shoved their way into rows and temporarily raised window shades only long enough to place dark, flat, suction-cup-like devices with long yellow tails against the Plexiglas.

The passengers were in shock and were sure the hijackers were wiring the plane with explosives. Meg’s seatmate, Bernard Walsh, was positive that was what was happening and, under his breath so as not to attract the attention of the hijackers, said as much to her.

“Relax,” Meg whispered back to him. “As long as we do what they say, we’ll be okay.”

“No we won’t. If we stay calm, it just makes it easier for them. Remember nine-eleven? I don’t care how brutal these people are. We have to do something, or we’re all going to die.”

Meg was gripped by fear and had no idea if her seatmate was right. There was no telling if the hijackers were suicidal, or had an agenda. She prayed to God that they did have an agenda because that seemed the only way that they would make it out of this mess alive. Not only was the CEO of United Airlines a passenger on the flight, but so was the mayor of Chicago. Certainly whatever the hijackers wanted, they would get.

At the moment she completed that thought, Meg looked up to see one of the masked hijackers staring at her. His eyes seemed to bore right through her. At first she thought he had noticed her talking and was going to make an example of her. Then she noticed something else in his eyes, something she had seen only once before in her life and hoped never to see again. Getting out of this situation alive might not be as easy as she had thought.

17

Scot Harvath had a lot of enviable talents, but the ability to kill time was not one of them. Patience in battle, he could handle; patience getting to battle was another thing entirely. This morning he had awakened, early and gone for a run. When he returned to his apartment he scrambled some eggs for breakfast and then set about some of the “to do” list of chores he had been putting off.

While organizing his desk, he came across a photo of Sam Harper, his mentor at the Secret Service, who had been killed during the president’s kidnapping that winter. There were also photos of Agents Maxwell, Ahern, and Houchins-all killed along with Harper trying to protect the president and his daughter. Not a day went by that Harvath didn’t remember the promise he had made to avenge the deaths of each and every American who had lost their lives protecting or trying to recover the president. Seeing the photos only reminded him more acutely of his promise.

During his extended leave of absence, tracking down the men responsible for those killings, something inside Scot had changed. He kept telling himself that soon it would all be over. He would go back to his new job at the White House, and things would eventually settle down and return to normal. He knew, though, that he was lying to himself. He couldn’t go back to that life. In fact, he was amazed that he had stayed in it as long as he had. Claudia had been the final straw. If it had worked out between them and she had wanted to settle down in D.C., maybe he would have felt differently. Maybe he could have ignored what had been chewing at the edge of his conscience for so long. He knew he was an excellent Secret Service agent, but he also knew that his talents were better suited to a different arena. His mind was made up. Actually, it had been made up for some time, but now he could finally see the decision for what it was. He was avoiding the White House, and the president, because he knew that after he completed this last assignment, it would be time for him to move on. He had no idea where; he just knew he couldn’t go back to doing what he had been doing for the Secret Service.

Old habits died hard, and Scot found himself trying to relax his mind and pass the time the way he and his SEAL teammates had in their mission ready room while they waited to be deployed. Though it seemed like a lifetime ago, in reality it had only been a few years, and Scot found the old routine comforting. From the footlocker in his closet, he removed a stack of videocassettes with his name handwritten across each sleeve. He had watched Cool Hand Luke and was halfway through The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly when his pager went off.

He grabbed the phone and dialed the number from the pager’s display.

Morrell answered on the first ring, “Name?”

“Harvath.”

“It looks like Hashim Nidal has come up for air.”

“Where?”

“Cairo.”

“What’s the scenario?”

“Hijacking. Lots of passengers.”