“Isn’t that a little dangerous?”

“It depends on what your definition of ‘dangerous’ is. It gives us perfect access. All of the windows in the airport are reflective, like those two-way mirrors in interrogation rooms. We can see them, but they can’t see us. If they take a pot shot and hit anything, it’d only be through sheer luck.”

As they neared the terminal and began to slow down, Bob spoke again. “Well, here we are, Mubarak International.”

Harvath looked up at the immense white marble structure rising out of the desert sand and hoped that it wouldn’t be covered in blood come morning.

Bob helped Scot unload his gear from the back of the Suburban, but didn’t bother to offer the CIA guys any help. It was obvious he cared for them even less than Harvath did.

Inside the terminal, Morrell and some of the other men were already waiting. He did a head count and once everyone was together, they made their way upstairs to the EgyptAir clubroom.

The room was tastefully decorated with leather sofas and a green-and-blue patterned carpet that was supposed to represent the Nile. Large potted palms stood in every corner, and all of the tables were carved from rich black marble. Scot knew a couple of the other Delta operatives in the room and nodded in their direction. They returned the greeting as the others went about their business.

The Delta Force commander, after a short conversation with Morrell, instructed the room to settle down and then began his briefing. The order from on high was to end the standoff. An Egyptian officer, presumably a member of the 777 unit, translated for his colleagues. The majority of the briefing covered information that had already been relayed to Harvath and the CIA SAS team en route. The Delta commander used a map of the airport and pointed out where his snipers had been placed and where one of the SAS snipers was to be positioned. Teams were assigned for the takedown and team code names were established. The Egyptian, 777 unit would bring up the very rear of the takedown. They would enter opposite the American team assigned to breach the rear of the aircraft, but only after the Americans were already inside.

Harvath couldn’t believe his ears. They were actually going to let the Egyptians get a piece of it! He looked toward Morrell to communicate his disapproval, but Morrell ignored him. Bullet Bob rolled his eyes and then shook his head, demonstrating that he thought as much of the idea as Harvath did. Somewhere, somebody was playing politics and it had absolutely no place in a situation of this magnitude. At least Harvath was going to be breaching the front of the aircraft. He wouldn’t have to worry about a bullet in the back from one of the Egyptians. No, but he might have to worry about one from one of the SAS operatives.

After all of the elements of the takedown had been clarified, the briefing was adjourned and the men were dispatched to their positions. Morrell’s sniper team headed off toward the control tower with an enormous, silenced FNH Hecate II fifty-caliber sniper rifle. With an effective range of over two thousand meters, Harvath knew there wasn’t much that those boys weren’t going to be able to hit.

He and Morrell made their way with the rest of their team down the concourse to an access stairway next to the gate where the hijacked plane was parked. Inside the stairwell, half of the team descended to wait behind a door that gave out onto the tarmac, while the rest of the team went up. At the top of the stairway, just behind the door that opened out onto the roof, Morrell was true to his word. When they got into formation for the assault, Scot was first in line with Morrell right behind him. At least this way, he figured, if he did get shot in the back, he’d know who to haunt.

Harvath tried to relax and focused on his breathing. He looked at the SAS men surrounding him, every one of them cool as a cucumber. In fact, despite the still, warm air of the stairwell, there was not a single bead of perspiration on any of them. Goddamn freaks, Harvath thought to himself. The CIA must have removed their sweat glands-probably at the same time they removed their personality glands.

After drying the moisture from his forehead with the back of his sleeve, Scot glanced at the luminescent dial of his watch. They were T minus ten minutes and counting. When the “Go” command came over their earpieces, both teams would quietly exit their respective doors. The downstairs team, code-named Alpha, would sneak beneath the belly of the plane and, via a collapsible stainless-steel ladder, frame a C4 ribbon charge right beneath the floor of the 747-400’s workout room. Harvath and Morrell’s team, code-named Bravo, had a similar, but more difficult task.

Bravo Team’s duty was to cross the terminal roof and lower themselves down onto the top of the Jetway. One of the SAS members, now hiding inside the Jetway, would quietly maneuver it as close to the aircraft as possible. Using suction cups, the Bravo Team would scale the side of the 747 to the very top, above the upper-deck lounge, where they would frame their own shape charge and enter through the ceiling.

The magic of explosives was that they always sought the path of most resistance. This meant that the charge placed on the belly of the plane would blow straight up and the charge placed on the roof above the upper-deck lounge would blow straight down. The demolition charge itself looked like gray-colored Fruit Roll-Up, only thicker. The goal was to blow right through the skin of the aircraft, through any wires or anything else that might get in the way, and create a big enough opening for the team members to enter through.

Everyone on the ground knew that the longer they waited to attack, the more the hijackers would be anticipating it. Most likely, the hijackers had rigged the main forward door of the aircraft, and possibly several others, with a satchel charge designed to trigger an enormous explosion if anyone attempted to enter through those points. Though the SAS team could easily have blown that door off its hinges from a safe distance away and not gotten hurt, the hijackers were not very likely to foresee the team coming from above and below. This would help give them the element of surprise so desperately needed in an action of this type.

As Alpha and Bravo detonated their quarter-inch ribbon charges, creating a deafening explosion and disorienting pressure change throughout the aircraft, other teams would be breaching several doors on both sides of the plane via mobile staircases on the tarmac.

It was Harvath’s sincere hope that with his superb speed and marksmanship, he could take out as many of the hijackers as possible and prevent the loss of any passengers or crew members.

He opened the stairwell door in front of him just a crack to let in some fresh air and was immediately greeted by the faint sound of automatic weapons fire. Though the sound was heavily muffled, when two windows were blown out on the left side of the upper deck, it became obvious to all that the shots had come from inside the aircraft.

Morrell radioed the Delta commander and relayed what they had heard. Harvath and the rest of the team were deathly quiet. Their hands tightened around the grips of their MP5s as adrenaline coursed through their veins.

Suddenly, without warning, every light in the airport, both inside and out, was extinguished. Someone had jumped the gun.