divider, in a nook between banks of shelves, and on computer monitors. Even as HHS Secretary Thompson was assuring Americans that Stevens probably caught anthrax while traveling in the North Caro- lina countryside, some in the CDC were arguing that it was possible that U.S. mail facilities might be contaminated. Few at first believed that lethal anthrax spores could leak from sealed envelopes.
Some CDC investigators urged their bosses to close the local Boca Raton post offices that would have processed the anthrax letter. But CDC officials decided not to act. This decision was not made without a great deal of debate. “My immediate instinct was to close the Boca Raton post office,” said one. “If we had closed the post office in Florida, it would have set a precedent to immediately close post offices elsewhere if anthrax-laced letters began turning up later.”
As yet the public knew nothing of the vastness of the conspiracy. Anthrax had become an active agent of biolog- ical terrorism. New York was still reeling and licking its wounds, America’s wounds. “Frankly, when I heard the news [of 9-11],” said Stan Bedlington, a retired CIA coun- terterrorism analyst, “I thought, ‘It’s got to be biochemical.’ This is frightening enough and yet, you could take a small plane and sprinkle anthrax over New York City and wipe out half the population.” In the nation’s capital, the new president was anxious to nail the anthrax killer.
Was there a connection between the now-dead terrorists and the anthrax mailing? Following leads, the FBI began checking where the 9-11 terrorists had lived. During the summer the skyjackers had been sighted all around the Boca Raton area. Reports that the hijackers had inquired about renting crop dusters resulted in one hundred panicked calls about suspicious powders. They had even had dealings with AMI.
STRAIN 4
The First Suspect
“WE know Mohammad Atta was within three miles of the building,” American Media Inc.’s Steve Coz said later. And it was true that Atta, suspected mastermind of the 9-11 atrocities, and two other skyjackers had attended the same flight school near AMI’s Boca Raton headquarters. In fact he had trained all over Florida.
Atta had first gotten flying lessons on the Sun Coast at Jones Aviation in Sarasota, but had been asked to leave after three weeks. Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi, saying they were cousins who wanted to be pilots, then trained at Huffman Aviation in Venice, south of Sarasota. The pair paid ten thousand dollars in cash for four months’ instruction. Their flight teacher, Rudi Dekkers, remembered that the two men “spoke quite good English.” They took another six months of lessons from another Venice school, the Florida Flight Training Center. During that time they lived in a pink house just to the north.
In December 2000, Atta and al-Shehhi trained on a jet airline simulator at SimCenter Aviation in Opa-Locka, near North Miami Beach on the Gold Coast. On December 27, they abandoned their broken private plane on a taxiway at Miami International Airport. In spite of this the pair earned a certification for single-engine planes in July 2001. On Au- gust 16, 17, and 19, Atta and three other hijackers rented a single-engine, four-seat Piper Archer at eighty-eight dollars an hour from the Palm Beach County Park Airport in Lan- tana. Not only did fifteen of the nineteen hijackers have Florida connections, but five of the terrorists who crashed
United Airlines Flight 175 into the WTC had spent consid- erable time in Florida. Four days before 9-11, Atta was liv- ing at 3389 Sheridan Street in Hollywood, Florida, just south of Boca Raton and Fort Lauderdale. Atta and al-Shehhi fre- quented Bud’s Lounge in Delray Beach and had drinks at Shuckums Oyster Pub and Seafood Grill that night.
“We know [Atta] was within a mile of Bob Stevens’s house,” Coz said. “We know that the FBI is now going to local pharmacies to see if he did in fact
Some CDC investigators urged their bosses to close the local Boca Raton post offices that would have processed the anthrax letter. But CDC officials decided not to act. This decision was not made without a great deal of debate. “My immediate instinct was to close the Boca Raton post office,” said one. “If we had closed the post office in Florida, it would have set a precedent to immediately close post offices elsewhere if anthrax-laced letters began turning up later.”
As yet the public knew nothing of the vastness of the conspiracy. Anthrax had become an active agent of biolog- ical terrorism. New York was still reeling and licking its wounds, America’s wounds. “Frankly, when I heard the news [of 9-11],” said Stan Bedlington, a retired CIA coun- terterrorism analyst, “I thought, ‘It’s got to be biochemical.’ This is frightening enough and yet, you could take a small plane and sprinkle anthrax over New York City and wipe out half the population.” In the nation’s capital, the new president was anxious to nail the anthrax killer.
Was there a connection between the now-dead terrorists and the anthrax mailing? Following leads, the FBI began checking where the 9-11 terrorists had lived. During the summer the skyjackers had been sighted all around the Boca Raton area. Reports that the hijackers had inquired about renting crop dusters resulted in one hundred panicked calls about suspicious powders. They had even had dealings with AMI.
STRAIN 4
The First Suspect
“WE know Mohammad Atta was within three miles of the building,” American Media Inc.’s Steve Coz said later. And it was true that Atta, suspected mastermind of the 9-11 atrocities, and two other skyjackers had attended the same flight school near AMI’s Boca Raton headquarters. In fact he had trained all over Florida.
Atta had first gotten flying lessons on the Sun Coast at Jones Aviation in Sarasota, but had been asked to leave after three weeks. Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi, saying they were cousins who wanted to be pilots, then trained at Huffman Aviation in Venice, south of Sarasota. The pair paid ten thousand dollars in cash for four months’ instruction. Their flight teacher, Rudi Dekkers, remembered that the two men “spoke quite good English.” They took another six months of lessons from another Venice school, the Florida Flight Training Center. During that time they lived in a pink house just to the north.
In December 2000, Atta and al-Shehhi trained on a jet airline simulator at SimCenter Aviation in Opa-Locka, near North Miami Beach on the Gold Coast. On December 27, they abandoned their broken private plane on a taxiway at Miami International Airport. In spite of this the pair earned a certification for single-engine planes in July 2001. On Au- gust 16, 17, and 19, Atta and three other hijackers rented a single-engine, four-seat Piper Archer at eighty-eight dollars an hour from the Palm Beach County Park Airport in Lan- tana. Not only did fifteen of the nineteen hijackers have Florida connections, but five of the terrorists who crashed
United Airlines Flight 175 into the WTC had spent consid- erable time in Florida. Four days before 9-11, Atta was liv- ing at 3389 Sheridan Street in Hollywood, Florida, just south of Boca Raton and Fort Lauderdale. Atta and al-Shehhi fre- quented Bud’s Lounge in Delray Beach and had drinks at Shuckums Oyster Pub and Seafood Grill that night.
“We know [Atta] was within a mile of Bob Stevens’s house,” Coz said. “We know that the FBI is now going to local pharmacies to see if he did in fact
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