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Tariq Youssef and his team had slept on the floor of the law firm’s conference room.

They’d awoken early, bowed toward Mecca, and made their final preparations. Now dressed as a FedEx driver, Youssef and one of his men took several elevators to get down to the tower’s basement level and found the building’s command center. Holding a large package in his arms, Youssef knocked twice. When the door opened, he said he had a delivery for the head of security.

“Neil, package for you,” the man shouted back toward his three colleagues manning a bank of video monitors.

Youssef dropped the package, raised his silenced pistol, and shot all four men before they had any idea what was happening. Then he ducked back into the hallway and told his colleague to take over the center, lock the door behind him, call the law firm, and tell the rest of the team to meet him on the 103rd floor.

That done, Youssef headed to the freight elevator just down the hall. Six minutes later, the door opened on the 103rd floor. Exiting the elevator, Youssef drew his pistol, but there was no need. His team had already murdered everyone on the Skydeck.

“Good work, boys,” he said. “Now open the crates and I’ll be right there.”

Walking over to the enormous plate-glass windows on the east side of the building, Youssef powered up his satphone and dialed a number from memory. “We’re in place, Father,” he said in Arabic. “Do we have authorization to proceed?”

“You do, my son,” said the familiar voice, crystal clear though he was on a mountain half a world away. “And may Allah welcome you into paradise as the most worthy of shahids.”