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they have to accomplish this all on their own. All of us must assume that. Keep cool. Stay focused. Rely on your instincts. We’re ready for this mission. And we are going to achieve it.”

One minute after four in the afternoon, we got the word to go. I was in the lead buggy, consciously trying to look like a civilian, not a soldier. It was about a mile-and-a-half to the aircraft. I glanced back at the others. Like me, many of them had been awake for 30 hours or more, in some cases nearly 48 hours. The air marshals had been plucked off long-haul flights on which relaxation, much less sleep, was not an option. As before any mission, I knew everyone would be thinking about what was about to happen. They also realized that if we failed, the passengers trapped inside the plane would be at the mercy of terrorists armed with AK-47s and explosives. But I was confident that any apprehension would be overtaken by adrenalin when as the assault began.

As we got closer, Shai Agmon radioed me. He said two or three people, not the terrorists, had come out of the plane. One seemed to be the Red Cross man. They were about 120 yards away from the aircraft. As soon as he’d signed off, I got word from the command post in the control tower that it was indeed the Red Cross representative, along with two of the flight crew. They’d been chosen by the terrorists to do security checks on the “maintenance” men.

I brought the convoy to a halt. The Red Cross man gave each of us a fairly cursory body search before waving us on. Then, he got to Bibi. Though I had somehow failed to notice, he had left on his red sayeret boots. In Israel, that was the equivalent of a neon sign saying: “I am a paratrooper.” Although the Red Cross man noticed the boots, he at first made no comment. Then, rolling up the pants leg of Bibi’s overalls, he saw his Beretta – not inside his waistbelt, but inside the boot. The next thing I heard was an angry spurt of French as the man called the control tower. For a moment, I feared the mission was over, with potentially fatal repercussions for the hostages. But whatever explanation the Red Cross man was given – presumably by Dayan himself, who would not have held back in conveying what was at stake – it dissuaded him from taking further action.

As we were returning to the buggies, the Red Cross man told me that “Captain Rifa’at” had ordered us to pull up to the generator on the side of the plane. Each of us would then have to walk forward and open the front of our overalls so he could make sure we weren’t armed. I passed back four orders to the rest of the men. First, with no exceptions, move your pistol to the back of your belt. Second: I’ll be the first to go through the inspection. Third: watch

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