Path Of The Assassin

“She says he went down. She thought she saw blood too.”

“A description such as that, does not a confirmed kill make,” replied Scot.

“Unfortunately, we agree, so we photographed all of the faces of the dead hijackers from the takedown. We also videotaped all of the passengers and crew who were being held in the containment area for the interviews.”

“And?” asked Harvath.

“And nothing. Not one of them rang a bell with her. She remembers Nidal, all right, says she could never forget his face. We worked with her via an encrypted laptop with a sketch artist back at Langley and came up with the composite we showed during the press conference.”

“By the way, what was that all about?”

“We’re convinced he escaped somehow with one of his lieutenants, who was probably assisting him.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Harvath.

“Cassidy has said, and other passengers have confirmed, that there were two hijackers dressed in black jumpsuits, who kept their faces covered the entire time-except for in the bubble when Cassidy saw Hashim’s face.”

“And who was this other masked hijacker?”

“We believe it was a very high ranking member of the organization. I only use the word lieutenant as a figure of speech. We don’t know who he was.”

“But why were they wearing masks and not the other hijackers?”

“I think they realized they had more to lose.”

“Yeah, but how do you get a bunch of other people to participate in a hijacking after you’ve told them ‘Hey, by the way, we’re going to be wearing masks to protect our identities, but none of you guys can’?”

“Who knows? Maybe the others were fanatics who were prepared to die. Maybe they were promised protection or new identities after the hijacking. There’s no way to tell. The one thing that’s for certain is that the nonmasked hijackers were spaced throughout the cabins as regular passengers and therefore had no choice.”

“How do our masked hijackers fit in, then? They couldn’t have gotten on board with masks on. You’ve already got the security tapes from O’Hare International. Let’s have Meg review each of the passengers that way.”

“We already have. Everyone is accounted for.”

“So what are you telling me? Hashim Nidal and his lieutenant are ghosts?”

“Maybe ‘Operation Phantom’ wasn’t such a bad name after all,” injected Morrell.

Harvath ignored him and said, “Let’s forget for a moment the fact that it was predominantly Egyptian military guarding the perimeter, how do you suppose they escaped?”

“This is where I get really pissed off,” said Ellis. “I think we had them in our hands and were forced to let them go.”

“Wait a second, Tom. You had them in your hands? What do you mean? When?”

“I’ve got a team going over the plane as we speak, but here’s what I think happened. The 747-400 was designed to be easily reconfigured. Lavatories and galleys can be moved to different parts of the aircraft, and whole classes of seating can be moved about.”

“I know all of this. What’s your theory?” said Harvath.

“This flexibility also applies to the workout facility. Normally, everything beneath the main cabin level on a 747-400 is for cargo, but United is trying to offer more perks on its long-haul flights to compete with other carriers. If at some point United decided they didn’t want to offer this perk on a particular flight or they wanted more cargo room, they could off-load the exercise equipment, pop out the walls, and that would be that.”

“I still don’t see what you’re driving at.”

“The walls of the exercise room can only be removed from the cargo side. With the right tools, it’s not very difficult at all. As a matter of fact, there are certain sections where you can take out just one panel-”

“Enough for a person or persons to gain access to the aircraft from the cargo hold?” asked Harvath.

“Exactly.”

“So you think Nidal and his lieutenant had been stowed away in the cargo hold and waited until the plane landed before making their move?”

“Yes. Their weapons and explosives were probably hidden there as well.”

“And you think they returned to wherever they were hiding when the takedown happened?”

“That’s when I think we had them right in our hands and lost them.”

“I thought the cargo hold was thoroughly searched, just in case.”

“It was, but there were several crates that we didn’t get to look into.”

“Why not?”

“There were a couple of mummies being shipped from the Field Museum in Chicago to the Egyptian Museum here in Cairo as part of an exchange program. There were two mummies, their wooden boxes, and the sarcophagi-all shipped in separate crates.”

“So you searched the crates, right?”

“We couldn’t. I was actually at the airport supervising the search and had the minister of antiquities and the museum’s curator breathing down my neck about not exposing the artifacts to the air. The crates were supposedly hermetically sealed in Chicago, and there was risk of accelerated decay if they were opened outside one of the museum’s contained laboratories.”

“Did you at least x-ray the crates?”