The 9/11 Commission Report

Jamie: Any ideas what to do with Moussaoui?

Gary: Ben says deport him. Get him the fuck out of here.

Jamie: At least that way he can't do anything to us.

Rosalind: No, we can't do that. He's part of something bigger. I know it.

Jamie: How do you know it's something bigger?

Rosalind: I don't know. I... don't know. It's like a sixth sense or something. Why does a cop check the trunk of a car in a routine traffic stop only to find a kilo of cocaine?

Jamie: Legally we can't. That's the point.

Gary: I'm curious. What do you think he's up to? Do you have some kind of detailed idea?

Rosalind: Yes. Yes, I do.

Jamie: I'm all ears.

Rosalind: Okay, we've received memos from headquarters and the FAA. There were two of them that stuck out in my mind. One was from Arizona about Arab men attending flight schools. So we assume that there are more men like Moussaoui out there. The second was about possible hijackings. They uncovered a plot to negotiate the release of the blind sheik in New York who masterminded the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.

Jamie: Go on.

Rosalind: Well, Moussaoui joined a gym, right? Took kickboxing classes. His roommate said that they practiced wrestling. Yet he had shin guards and knifes when we arrested him. Think about this. Moussaoui is part of a hijacking plot here in the US. Small teams of five maybe six Arab men. One of them is a pilot. They take control of a plane. Subdue the crew. Because of FAA instructions, the crew and passengers are told not to resist because the hijackers are gonna negotiate. Right? Only this is no ordinary hijacking. They don't negotiate. Once these Arab hijackers have control of the plane, they change the flight patterns. Instead of flying to another country or another state where they land the plane to negotiate with the authorities, they turn commercial airlines into weapons of mass destruction. Manned missiles. They crash the airliner into a building with the deliberate intent to kill themselves and all the passengers on-board and as many civilians on the ground. They leave behind no claim of responsibility. Osama Bin Laden and the other masterminds behind this who recruited the hijackers publicly issue plausible deny ability. Nothing to connect them to the Arab hijackers. It's too perfect.

Jamie: I remember the World Trade Center terrorists discussing a plan to trash a small plane into CIA Headquarters. This whole idea is not that far fetched.

Gary: That's why Moussaoui wanted to know so much about fuel payloads.

Rosalind: And they train far from their targets. They're not a lot of landmarks in Arizona or Oklahoma or here in Minnesota, but there are sure a lot of them in New York, LA, Chicago, Washington DC.

Jamie: We can't just deport this guy. We need to follow it up.

Gary: What if we do deport him? We deport him now, but we deport his belongings later.

Jamie: What's that gonna do?

Gary: The airlines are constantly loosing my luggage. So it's not that inconceivable that we, a bureaucracy like the FBI, might loose a couple of things.

Rosalind: Okay, so if we search his belongings over international waters or in France, we're not breaking any laws.

Jamie: I like it. So first thing tomorrow, we push for deportation.

Gary: It's a pretty quick process without putting him on a plane in two or three weeks.

Jamie: Okay, lets shoot for three weeks from now, which is September 17.

Rosalind: Wait. Moussaoui paid for two weeks of flight training. Only two weeks. We have to do this immediately.

Jamie: First of all we cannot just put this guy on a plane. There's a procedure here and it's called the Constitution.

Rosalind: But the Constitution is not a suicide pack. Whatever that Moussoui is planning is happening soon.

Gary: Hold on here. This is the best plan we have on the table. Do you have a better idea?

Jamie: Who's got friends in France?

Rosalind: There's an agent I know who is pretty helpful.

Gary: Okay, call them. Let them know what we're up to. Tell them about Moussaoui. But not everything.

Jamie: I think we're doing a good thing there. At least we can agree on that.