Path Of The Assassin

With her pistol at the ready, she swung out from the stairway into the aisle on the port side of the aircraft. No more than five feet away was one of the hijackers guarding the business-class passengers. He saw Meg and was quick in raising his weapon, but not quick enough. Meg hit the man with a shot in the throat, and he fell in a heap on top of the body of Bernard Walsh. In a flash, a nearby passenger, whom Meg recognized as Dan LeHay from United’s ad agency, stripped the newly departed hijacker of his weapon. Meg instructed him to proceed parallel with her up the opposite aisle toward first class. She told him not to shoot unless absolutely necessary. If there was any shooting to be done, she wanted to do it with the silenced pistol.

Another passenger quickly offered his services, and Meg instructed him to watch their backs as she unslung one of the submachine guns and handed it to him. There was no way for her to know how many hijackers were in the rear of the plane.

Meg and Dan Lehay made their way toward the front of the plane. From across the forward business-class cabin, the remaining hijacker guarding the business class passengers saw Dan coming and raised his weapon. Before Meg could take a shot, three sharply dressed passengers in blue blazers with University of Southern California and American flag lapel pins took advantage of the distraction and leapt from their seats. As quietly as they could, the USC men beat the crap out of the hijacker.

Meg quickly moved into the center aisle and called Dan Lehay over to her. “From what I can guess, there’s no more than two of them guarding first class. We need to get up there and arm the mayor and Bob Lawrence. If you can distract them, I think I can take both of them out.”

“Are you that good a shot?” he asked.

“For all of our sakes, I’d better be.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“First, we’re going to pass your weapon up to those guys in the blue blazers. I’m sure one of them will be able to handle it. You’ll then walk up your aisle to first class and walk directly in. Hopefully that will confuse the hijackers and that’s when I’ll do my thing.”

“That’s it?” asked Lehay.

“That’s it. But don’t just stand there. Act lost or sick or something. Do whatever you can to help confuse them. When I start firing, get down on the ground.”

“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.