“Try to shoot straight, okay?” said Dan Lehay as he took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and walked past the galley and into the first-class cabin, praying the entire way that Meg Cassidy would be able to pull it off.

The minute he entered first class, both of the hijackers snapped to. At least there were only two of them. So far Meg was batting a thousand.

The hijackers told him to put his hands up.

“What you do here?” one of them asked in broken English.

“Ah, well, you see,” replied Lehay, trying to mask his fear and grasping in his mind for something, anything, to say to distract the hijackers. “We’re all out of Colombian coffee back in business class and-”

Colombian Coffee? The two hijackers couldn’t understand what they were hearing. They turned to look at each other, and that was when Meg sprang from the opposite aisle. Her first shot went wide, but she ran straight at them and kept pulling the trigger until both men were lying on the floor in a pool of blood. Once again, the passengers began screaming.

Quickly she made her way to the mayor and Bob Lawrence. Meg recounted what had happened as she handed over the two submachine guns she had slung over her shoulder. As she was finishing her story, Dan Lehay appeared, armed to the teeth like a Mexican bandido.

Meg told Lehay to watch the aisle and turned back to the mayor and Bob Lawrence. “Any ideas?” she asked.

“First and foremost,” said Lawrence, “we have to see to the safety of the passengers on this plane.”

“I agree,” said the mayor, “but let’s keep in mind one thing. The only language these people understand is”-he paused as he pulled the slide back on his submachine gun-“nine-millimeter.”

Before anyone could respond, an enormous explosion rocked the back of the plane and was followed immediately by automatic-weapons fire.

21

When Harvath and the CIA SAS team landed at the old Cairo airport, it took them only fifteen minutes to unload their weapons pallets from the cargo hold of the United 747-400. Morrell had anticipated every eventuality. In addition to the standard equipment the team would need for the takedown of the hijacked aircraft, the pallets also contained a host of concealable gear they could use, on the off chance the hijackers changed their minds and allowed a maintenance crew on board to service and restock the plane.

One of Harvath’s favorite “sneaky” weapons was the extremely short H amp;K MP5K submachine gun covertly mounted in a toolbox, which could be fired via a button on the toolbox’s handle. He had used one years ago in Turkey, where a prominent American businessman and his family had been taken hostage. In this instance he’d had the weapon mounted inside a briefcase, and when he showed up for the exchange, all of the kidnappers thought he was carrying the ransom money. Their expressions of shock and surprise barely registered on Harvath as he took out every last one of them. They never saw it coming. When the rest of Harvath’s team stormed the building, there was nothing left for them to do but help escort the businessman and his family safely back to the U.S. Embassy.

After strapping on his body armor, Harvath stuffed every pocket he had with extra clips of ammunition. The CIA had spared no expense. Not only were the weapons top-of-the-line, but so was the tactical gear. All of it had come from BlackHawk Industries out of Norfolk, Virginia. Harvath placed several flash bangs into a hip pouch, then wrapped the support strap of his low-slung black nylon assault holster around his right thigh. He glanced around at the SAS team, all dressed in Delta Force’s black, fire-retardant Nomex fatigue uniforms, as he was, and knew he was going to have to watch his own back when the takedown took place. None of these guys were going to take care of him. That was fine by Harvath, because as far as he was concerned, not only could he outshoot and outmaneuver all of them, he could also outthink them.

Harvath did one last check of his equipment. Though the locked and cocked H amp;K USP pistol at his side was an excellent backup, the hope was that any shooting would be done quickly with his MP5. Transitioning weapons mid-assault normally meant things were not going well. To that end, he used a magazine “doubler” for the MP5 to secure two thirty-round magazines together for fast and easy changes. He checked the submachine gun’s laser sight and then bent down to strap on his kneepads.

Though Morrell had said not to bring anything with him at all, Harvath still brought along his favorite combat folding knife-a Benchmade 9050 automatic.

The stainless steel blade featured a razor-sharp edge and a needle-sharp point that swung into place with the push of a button. Harvath had no idea whether he would need it, but he felt good just knowing he had it with him. He clipped the knife into a vest pocket and realized that it also felt good knowing he had found a way to disobey one of Morrell’s direct orders.

As it closed low and fast, Harvath could make out the distinct rotor noise of a MH-60 Black Hawk helicopter. The men gathered their gear and made their way to where the helicopter was preparing to land. Within three minutes of touching down, the Black Hawk was loaded and once again airborne, rushing Harvath and the SAS team the twenty-five miles to the new Mubarak International Airport.

Through the open side doors of the darkened Black Hawk, Harvath could taste the dry desert air. He slipped on his night-vision goggles, often called NODs-short for Night Optical Devices-and watched through glowing green lenses Cairo’s chaotic jumble of decrepit mud dwellings and crisp modern buildings slip rapidly beneath them as they sped through the night sky. In a matter of minutes, it would be show time. Scot felt the familiar quickening of his pulse and tightening of his muscles. He was like a racehorse chomping at the bit, ready to explode from the gate.

Scot, like everyone else, tuned his Motorola to the same encrypted frequency and listened via his headset as the Delta Force commander sitting next to Morrell relayed the codes and radio frequencies that were being used for the operation. He did one last check of his gear as the Black Hawk flared and came in for a landing on the far side of Cairo’s new international airport. The helicopter had covered the twenty-five-mile distance from airport to airport in just over ten minutes.

A group of Suburbans sped across the tarmac toward the Black Hawk and pulled up as the team was unloading the last of their equipment. The gear was quickly transferred to the oversized black SUVs, and the men grabbed whatever seats they could find. Harvath recognized a Delta Force operative behind the wheel of one of the Suburbans and jumped in the passenger seat next to him. The man was a no-BS guy from Brooklyn who had a gift for getting to the point. He was also an incredible shot. Everyone referred to him as Bullet Bob. Scot knew him from Delta’s Special Operations Training facility at Fort Bragg.

“Harvath? What the hell are you doing here?” asked the man, surprised to see him.

“I’ve crossed over to the dark side, Bobby,” said Harvath in an exaggerated, monster theater voice as the Suburban raced toward the terminal.

“So, you’re doing black ops for the CIA now? What the hell happened to the Secret Service?”

“I’m still Secret Service, but these CIA guys are so fucked up, I got asked to come along and give them some pointers.”

“Well, if you came to give them tips on killing, you’re going to be preaching to the choir.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of. This group is very ‘Tango’centric. There’s no question that the passengers in this op are not a priority for them. Where are we going to be?” asked Harvath.

“We’re actually in the terminal-at the EgyptAir clubroom, a few gates down from where the plane is.”