Harvath’s explosion kicked in first, followed by a devastating concussion from the bottom of the aircraft. He pulled out two flash-bang grenades from his hip pouch, jumped across the gaping wound in the plane’s skin, and slammed the suction cups around his calves against the exterior aluminum. With his legs secure, he readied his MP5, chucked the flash bangs into the plane, and swung into the hole headfirst.

He was hanging by his legs with his head pointing toward the floor, so everything he saw was upside down, but a properly tuned laser sight on an MP5 never lied. He took out two hijackers at the rear of the plane, and as two more, about fifteen rows up, began shooting, he nailed them as well.

Harvath pulled his knife from his vest and cut himself free of the suction cups. He swung his legs over his head, hit the ground on his feet, and quickly made his way up the port aisle yelling in English and Arabic for the passengers to get down on the floor of the plane.

Two more terrorists came shooting at him down opposite aisles, and Harvath quickly took them out with perfect shots to the head. A massive explosion rocked the front of the plane, followed by multiple bursts of submachine gun fire as smoke began filling the main cabin. For a moment, Harvath wondered if the front door had indeed been rigged and if maybe Morrell and the rest of Bravo Team had breached it. That was impossible; Harvath had the demo sack and nobody in their right mind would have touched that door with their bare hands. The only way through it was to blow it. It had to have been something else. Harvath looked behind him and didn’t see the 777 unit. Could the Delta boys have beaten them to the plane? He couldn’t tell.

Harvath kept making his way forward. He picked up two more hijackers, armed with Beretta model 12S submachine guns and emergency flashlights, and blew them away. More smoke began to fill the cabin as another explosion and more gunfire rocked the front of the plane. A few passengers had opened emergency window exits and were now fleeing as fast as they could scramble over one another.

As Harvath ran forward, the rows of seats stopped and he found himself in a somewhat open area. Out of instinct, he dropped to the ground, just as shots sliced by his head from the economy-class galley. Within seconds, a wave of smoke passed, and through his NODs, Harvath could make out another hijacker swinging his weapon from left to right, trying to reacquire his target. Harvath didn’t give him the opportunity. He drilled a bullet straight through the hijacker’s brain. Another hijacker appeared right behind him, and Scot dropped him without a second thought.

Harvath couldn’t figure out why he hadn’t seen any of the Alpha Team members working their way toward him. Taking advantage of the lull in the action, he pulled the first of the doubled magazines from his weapon and slammed the second into place. He swung his MP5 from right to left, the laser sight slicing eerily through the smoky darkness. All around him he could hear the screams of passengers as they tried to evacuate the plane.

An explosion from the rear starboard door of the plane signaled the arrival of the Thunderbolt 777 force to the party. The danger factor had just increased exponentially.

Harvath knew the only way to avoid heavy civilian casualties with these jokers now on the scene was to make sure that all of the hijackers had been taken out. With his laser sight arcing from side to side, Harvath crept forward into the business-class section of the plane. Just as in the economy class, passengers were scrambling to get to any available exit. It was absolute chaos.

As he neared the carpeted stairs that connected the lower-level workout facility with the main level and upper deck, Harvath saw two bodies slumped together across seats 16 A and B. Carefully, he rolled the top body off the one beneath. There was blood everywhere. The man on top was of Middle Eastern descent and had been shot in the throat. But by whom? Harvath wondered. He still couldn’t see or hear any trace of the Alpha Team.

Beneath the Middle Easterner lay the almost lifeless body of another man, who appeared to be a passenger. He had taken two rounds to the chest, but was still alive-barely. Harvath found a blanket nearby and after folding it, quickly applied it to the man’s wounds as a makeshift pressure bandage.

“Is he okay? Is he alive?” came a voice from behind him in the aisle.

With his MP5 up and ready, Scot whirled and locked the little red dot of his laser sight onto the forehead of one of the female passengers. Harvath couldn’t believe his ears. With almost all of the passengers running for their lives, this woman wanted to know if another passenger was going to make it.

“He’s pretty bad. Come over here and keep the pressure on this blanket. Don’t let him lose any more blood.”

Georgia Bormann did as she was told, and as she took over for Harvath, a faint whisper escaped Bernard Walsh’s lips. “Find, Meg. Help her.”

Harvath had no idea what the man was talking about, nor did he have time to figure it out. The aircraft was not yet secure. Hashim Nidal was somewhere on board. Scot could smell him. This wouldn’t be over until he had him in his sights and made him pay for all of the killing he had been responsible for.

With Bormann tending to Walsh, Harvath made his way to the carpeted stairwell. Carefully, he looked over the railing down toward the workout facility. Between choking waves of smoke, he could see three bodies lying motionless on the ground. Part of Alpha Team was down. As much as Harvath wanted to help them, he couldn’t. There were still hijackers aboard and it was his job to find them.

He decided to move forward, up to the first-class section, and as he passed the main forward door, he noticed that it was indeed wired with explosives. He took a red paint marker from his pocket and drew a fat X on the door’s porthole-style window, warning any teams on the other side not to use the door, as it was rigged from the inside with explosives.

When Harvath got into the first-class section, he looked from right to left with his NODs and was amazed. It was completely empty. No United CEO, no Chicago mayor, nothing. His first thought was that maybe they had all evacuated. As he was sweeping the cabin again with his night-vision goggles, he heard, “Now!”

Immediately, he was blinded by a powerful emergency flashlight that had been turned on him. Once again, he reflexively hit the deck. It took him a moment to clear the spots from his eyes, but when his vision returned, he could see that the first-class passengers had been hiding behind their seats waiting in ambush. Now he looked up at no fewer than six submachine gun muzzles pointing down at him.

“Drop your weapons. Do it now!” commanded Harvath, raising his MP5.

“Identify yourself,” said one of the voices.

“Delta Force. Now, put that flashlight and your weapons down. I’m not going to tell you again,” said Harvath as he pushed himself to his feet. With his right hand still holding his MP5, he used his left to tear a Velcro’d piece of fabric from his right upper arm area. Underneath was a bright red, white, and blue American flag.

“We’re here to get you out,” he continued. “Is everyone okay?”

“Everybody’s okay,” said Mayor Fellinger, who tilted his head in Meg Cassidy’s direction. “Thanks to her.”

Even through his goggles he could tell the woman was beautiful. She had been put through the ringer, but she was still gorgeous. He tore his mind away from the vision in front of him and got back to business. “I don’t know how you got those weapons,” he said, “but I want you to set them down.”

“Set them down?” said the United CEO, confused.

“There are Egyptian commandos entering the aft of the aircraft as we speak. We don’t want any of you folks to get confused for hijackers and shot,” replied Harvath. “Now drop those weapons and get yourselves down on the ground between the seats. This thing isn’t over yet. Don’t move until someone comes for you.”