Scot began pounding on his door and calling out for the guard. He would keep the shiv hidden underneath his shirt until he could get close enough to one of the men and take him out. He would then try and take out the second guard and free Meg Cassidy. He calculated the odds and didn’t like them, but they were a whole lot better than the potential alternative. The bottom line was that Adara and Hashim Nidal were never going to let Harvath or Meg leave the compound alive.

When he stopped pounding and pressed his ear up against the door again, he heard the faint sound of footsteps. Seconds later there was the sound of the bolt on the other side being drawn. Harvath had had no idea someone was that close. The footsteps had sounded much further off. He decided he would let the guards find him doubled over and maybe they would think he was ill. If he could get at least one, if not both of them, to lower his defenses for just a moment, that would be all the time he needed. He jumped back and readied his weapon.

The door swung open and blazing flashlight beams pierced the darkness. Then they turned off. Harvath could just make out several large forms entering the room in classic buttonhook fashion. They fanned out and cleared the room and bathroom area in less than five seconds. Harvath had no idea what was happening. He was surrounded by three heavily outfitted men in tactical gear with helmets and armed with silenced Mark Eleven Mod Zero assault rifles.

“Somebody order room service?” asked one of the men, whose face was covered with a black balaclava.

Harvath recognized the voice immediately. It was Gordon Avigliano! “Where the hell have you guys been?” asked Harvath.

“Long story,” replied Avigliano. “I’ll tell you in the car. Where’s Ms. Cassidy?”

“Straight across the hall.”

Avigliano handed Harvath a silenced forty-five-caliber H amp;K Special Operations Command pistol and some extra ammunition. Mounted on the rail beneath the barrel was a SureFire tactical light complete with pressure switch. With the pressure-sensitive switch affixed to the pistol’s grip, you could activate the beam when, and only for as long, as you needed it.

“You look like shit,” said Avigliano.

Harvath wanted to say that the Nidal family health spa left a lot to be desired, but he bit his tongue. The men formed an assault column known as the Conga Line, with each operative covering a different angle with their weapons.

Avigliano drew back the bolt on Meg Cassidy’s door and cautiously pushed it open. Before he knew what was happening, Meg was flying at him with a large vase held high above her head. Since he was decked out in full tactical gear, she couldn’t tell Avigliano was one of the good guys. He tried to blind her with the beam from his flashlight, but it was too late. Meg Cassidy had already locked on.

Avigliano raised his rifle just in time. The vase shattered against it sending shards of porcelain, water, and flowers in all directions.

One of Avigliano’s teammates quickly wrestled Meg to the ground. “Ms. Cassidy, my name is DeWolfe. We’re part of the Operation Phantom team. We’re here to get you out.”

Meg struggled underneath the large man, who had taken her down and pinned her arms behind her back in the blink of an eye.

“Where’s Scot?”

“Scot?” asked DeWolfe.

“Harvath. Norseman,” said Meg as she struggled to break free of the man’s powerful grip.

Harvath came into the room and tapped DeWolfe on the shoulder. He let up on Meg. “I’m right here. Are you okay?” asked Harvath.

“Why the hell did he have to do that?” she asked as the men quickly swept the rest of the room.

“It was for your own protection.”

“My protection?”

“It’s just the safest way to do things. They didn’t want you hurting them or yourself. I would have done the same thing.”

“Thanks. I’ll remember that.”

“Can we do this later, Meg? Right now, let’s focus on getting out of here.”

“Roger that,” said Avigliano from behind Harvath. “Let’s beat feet.”

“Where’s the rest of the team?” asked Harvath as the men prepared to go back into the hall.

“This is it,” replied Avigliano.

“What do you mean, ‘this is it’?”

“We dropped in with the FAVs. Morrell instructed us to follow the truck you’d been loaded into after you got captured. Once we found out where they had taken you, we radioed back. The team was going to rendezvous with us, but Libyan soldiers are crawling all over the place. Nidal must have called them in. Morrell and the guys made it back to their FAVs, but got cut off. They couldn’t get around the Libyans to get here and help out.”

“So you pulled this off yourselves? Just the three of you?”

“And against orders. Morrell told us to pull out.”

“Pull out?”

“He didn’t want to risk it. He wanted to wait until we had regrouped before doing anything.”

“I’m glad you didn’t listen to him. Thanks for coming,” said Harvath.

“The party’s not over yet. I’d hold your thank you’s if I were you. Let’s get out of here first.”

“Amen. Let’s roll.”

The team snaked down the hall past the dining room. Suddenly, Avigliano held up a fist, signaling the team to come to an immediate stop. DeWolfe drew up shoulder to shoulder with Avigliano, and when Harvath and Meg’s two guards came running around the corner, DeWolfe and Avigliano popped them both with silenced rounds to the head. The men fell straight to the ground, and their rifles clattered on the dark stone floor. Harvath wanted to grab their weapons, but as they weren’t silenced, he knew they couldn’t use them.

Avigliano waited several seconds before signaling that it was all clear to move out. As they passed the two lifeless forms sprawled on the ground, Harvath felt cheated. One of the guards was the man who had struck him several times while they were in the study. That feeling disappeared two minutes later when they entered the compound’s enormous columned rotunda and Harvath saw a certain man before anyone else did.

It was the captain of the guard whom he had fought with the day before. The man had an AK-47 and was playing peekaboo from behind a pillar halfway across the room. There was no time to warn the rest of the group. In a fraction of a second, they would be trapped in his line of fire.

Harvath took a running slide across the slick marble floor and repeatedly pulled the trigger on his silenced H amp;K. The powerful gun bucked in his hand and tore huge chunks of stone from the column behind which the captain of the guard was hiding.

Avigliano and the rest of the team fanned out in all directions as they tried to shield Meg Cassidy and simultaneously spot any additional shooters.

As Harvath’s slide came to a stop, the captain fell forward from behind the shelter of his column. He had taken two bullets to the chest and another through his left eye.

Once Harvath had replaced the spent magazine, he carefully approached the man and rolled him over. Definitely dead. Harvath retrieved his Rolex and went through the man’s pockets until he found his knife too. “Now, we’re finished,” said Harvath to the dead man. “Say hi to Allah for me, asshole.”

DeWolfe booby-trapped the body with two fragmentation grenades and rolled the dead man onto his stomach.

Harvath rejoined Avigliano, who had moved the team toward the entrance of the building. “How are we getting out of here?” asked Harvath.

“If we go out and pull a hard right, there’s a narrow slot canyon. We’ve got a FAV stashed at the end of it about a mile-and-a-half down.”

“Won’t there be a little resistance outside?”

“Tons, but we’ve got that handled,” said Avigliano as he drew a small transmitter from his pocket. “On three. One. Two. Three!”

Avigliano depressed the red and green buttons on his transmitter, and the team ran outside. Explosions ignited at the far end of the canyon, back toward where Harvath had first been held. The canyon floor was littered with dead bodies-the victims of previous explosions. There were still many men left, and they seemed to be running in all directions. It was mass chaos. Trucks drove this way and that, some men apparently fleeing, some trying to help put out the fires and locate the cause of the many explosions. Avigliano and DeWolfe silently took out several terrorists as they made their way to the canyon.