Though raised as a Christian in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon, Jarrah became friends with Muslims while at school in Germany. Under their tutelage, he had begun to believe in the extreme reaches of Islam.
For months he had been taking self-defense classes at this Florida gym. He had perfected sleeper holds, defensive maneuvers, and rapid-fire jabs. But, unbeknownst to most people, these weren’t the only things for which Jarrah had been training. The previous December he’d begun training in a flight simulator, pursuing his childhood dream of becoming a pilot.
West Milford, New Jersey
September 10, 2001
Just south of the New York State border, in the Adirondack foothills of West Milford, New Jersey, Jeremy Glick slipped quietly into his backyard. As the predawn mist of an Indian summer morning began to clear, he closed his eyes and began running through the judo routine that had won him the college national championship eight years earlier. His breathing slowed, his eyes closed, and he visualized his beautiful wife, Lyzbeth, and his two-month-old daughter, Emerson—a name they’d chosen because of his fondness for the poet. Glick stepped forward as he practiced the Deashi Harai technique; his foot swept over and out and his muscles stretched taut on his six-foot-two, 220-pound frame.
Thirty minutes later, Glick stepped through the back door and into his home. It was dead quiet—no phones ringing, no babies screaming, no roar of commuter trains, honking of cabs, or growl of city buses—the kind of silence that only those who lead busy suburban lives can really appreciate.
Lyz and Emmy were still inside, the former undoubtedly trying to catch what little sleep she could after a long, restless night with their newborn. Jeremy had been up early packing for his flight to San Francisco. A couple of hours later, Lyz would be leaving to drive up to the Catskill Mountains with Emmy to visit her parents. Glick smiled. It took him a lot of years, but he finally understood what really mattered in life: family. And now he had one of his very own. He showered and dressed and quietly kissed Lyz and Emmy good-bye.
• • •
A few hours later—after first stopping to interview for a job that wouldn’t require so much travel—Jeremy Glick arrived at Newark International Airport and moved quickly through the security checkpoint. He walked to a monitor to confirm his gate number and saw the one word that every traveler dreads: CANCELED. It was flashing red right next to his flight number: United 93 to San Francisco.
Confused, Glick approached the ticket counter. “I’m sorry sir,” the agent said. “There’s been a fire in the airport where we are doing some construction and all of our flights have been delayed or canceled. If you provide me with your boarding pass and ID, I’d be happy to rebook you for tomorrow’s flight.”
Glick was by no means immune to the same anger and frustration that all travelers feel when their plans are disrupted, but judo had taught him discipline and control. Maximum impact with minimum effort. Anger was the opposite. It took a lot of effort, and it resulted in nothing. So, instead of letting frustration overcome him, Glick let his mind drift back to the positive: his family. It was too late to stop their trip to the Catskills, but at least he’d be in his own bed for another night.
Newark International Airport
September 11, 2001
7:03 A.M.
Jeremy Glick learned his lesson and checked the flight monitor before clearing security: DELAYED. At least that was an improvement from the previous day.
After going through security he headed to Gate 17 and called his in-law’s house, hoping to speak with his wife. Instead, his mother-in-law, Jo Anne Makely, answered. “Emmy had a rough night,” she told him. “I did what I could, but Lyz was up for most of it so she’s trying to get a couple hours of sleep in now.”
A pang of guilt stuck in his heart. He always helped with Emmy, especially on the challenging nights. “Tell Lyzzie I’m boarding the plane and I love her and I’ll call her when I get to San Francisco.”
7:42 A.M.
Ziad Jarrah boarded United Airlines Flight 93 and thought back on his now five-week-old argument with Mohammed Atta.
“We cannot do this without al Qahtani,” he had told Atta, their car idling outside Orlando International Airport. “All of the other teams have five. We will only have four.”
“We have waited for hours. Obviously he was turned away. There is no time for another. You must do this without him,” Atta said as he stepped on the accelerator.
Now, as Jarrah took his seat in the first row of the first-class cabin, he sat back and watched the others on his team board. Closing his eyes, he silently said his supplications and recalled the note he wrote to his girlfriend the previous night: “I did what I was supposed to do. You ought to be very proud, because it is an honor and you will see the result and everyone will be very happy.”
Still, the absence of Qahtani bothered him. Jarrah knew that he, and possibly one of the other men, could fly the aircraft. But with two people in the cockpit, that only left two to guard and defend the cockpit. They’d always planned and rehearsed with three.
Jarrah looked over his shoulder at the many empty seats behind him. That gave him some measure of comfort. Fewer passengers meant fewer opportunities to overpower his team.
A resolve came over him. It was time. He thought back to a video he’d made with Atta about eighteen months earlier. They’d both proclaimed their dedication to today’s task but he’d laughed through most of the taping as he’d tried to read his part of the script. Is this plan for real? he’d thought. It was so audacious, so . . . ridiculous. Could he really go through with it?
As the captain’s voice asked the flight attendants to prepare the cabin for takeoff, Jarrah realized that he would learn the answer to that question very soon.
Tarnak Farms Training Camp, Afghanistan
September 11, 2001
After his unexpected escort to the jetway in Orlando months earlier, Qahtani had returned to Dubai briefly, before flying to Kandahar to rejoin his comrades at the training camp near the airport.
Following three weeks of advanced infantry training, Qahtani was standing at the rope climb on the obstacle course when he heard a shout. He ran into the first room of the Habash Guesthouse and found dozens of cheering men huddled around a television set. On the screen was an image of the World Trade Center in New York City. One tower had a gaping hole in its side. Smoke and fire poured out as shards of glass and falling bodies rained down on the streets below.
As they watched, an airplane flew into the picture of the burning tower and struck the second tower, this time much lower than the first. The room erupted into another round of applause and celebration. Then, a new image: the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., up in flames. A third plane had struck.
Amid the cheering, Qahtani heard a voice.
“The next plane was yours, Qahtani. This is the most important symbol in Washington, D.C. Watch closely and you will be proud.” Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Al Qaeda’s operations officer—the man who planned and coordinated the logistics of the attacks—was smiling as he spoke.
“This was my plan.”
United Flight 93, 36,000 feet over Ohio
September 11, 2001
9:37 A.M.
Jeremy Glick watched the scene unfold before him as though he were watching a movie. The hijackers had stabbed the flight attendant, stormed the door of the cockpit, stabbed the pilots, and took control of the airplane. Meanwhile a man with a bomb strapped to his waist shouted at all of them to move away from the cockpit, toward the back of the plane.
Now seated in row twenty-seven, Glick picked up an air phone and called his wife in the Catskills. His father-in-law answered on the first ring.
“Jeremy, thank God. We’re so worried.”
Glick cut to the chase. “It’s bad news. Can you put Lyz on, please?”
A moment passed and Glick struggled to maintain his composure. When Lyz picked up he cut right to the chase.
“These three Iranian-looking guys took
over the plane. They’ve got red bandanas, knives, and one says he has a bomb. I need to know, have other planes attacked the World Trade Center? That’s what some of the others are saying.”
“Yes, Jer. Planes have crashed into both,” Lyz said.
Glick was silent a moment, stifling a sob as he soaked in the full magnitude of what was happening.
“You need to be strong, Jer,” Lyz said.
“I know.” But at that moment Glick wasn’t thinking about himself. “I just need you to be happy,” he said. “I love you and Emmy so much.”
They spoke quietly for a few more minutes, professing their love for one another. Then Glick said, “Whatever decisions you make in your life, no matter what, I will support you.” It was the ultimate act of love: having the courage to see past his immediate danger and into his family’s future.
“We’re taking a vote to rush the hijackers,” he said. “Do you think the bomb is real?”
“No. I think they’re bluffing. I think you need to do it. You’re strong. You’re brave. I love you,” Lyz said.
A long pause.
“I think we’re going to do it. I’m going to put the phone down. I’m going to leave it here and come right back to it.”
Glick and the other men who voted to overtake the hijackers huddled and introduced themselves to each other: Todd Beamer, Mark Bingham, and Tom Burnett.
Glick was listening for skill sets as the men spoke. Bingham played rugby, Burnett was a quarterback in college, and Beamer played baseball. Good, four athletes, he thought.
Glick saw Beamer go back to his seat and pick up the air phone he’d left hanging. He spoke into the receiver for a moment and then turned to Glick and the other two men. “You guys ready? Let’s roll.”
Kandahar, Afghanistan
September 11, 2001
Qahtani paced nervously. The television room in the guesthouse was still full of revelers rejoicing in Al Qaeda’s successful attack on America.
Yet, there still had been no word on United Flight 93. And then, hours later—it finally came: a breaking report from Al Jazeera. An airliner had crashed in a farmer’s field in someplace called Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
“The initial reports,” the anchor said, “are that passengers of United Flight 93 overpowered the hijackers, preventing them from striking their intended target, which is believed to be either the White House or the U.S. Capitol.”
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed turned toward Qahtani and said, “You stupid Bedouin.”
As he lost control and began to sob, Qahtani ran from the guesthouse and hid inside one of the tunnels of the obstacle course. He hugged his knees to his chest, rocking back and forth inside the sweltering culvert. The encounter at the Orlando airport five weeks earlier kept running through his mind.
Nineteen others had made it. He had not. Bin Laden and Zawahiri had recruited him, selected him, and trusted him.
And he had failed.
Tora Bora Mountains, Afghanistan
Three months later: December 2001
After the reports of United Flight 93 reached the training camp, Qahtani thought he would be killed immediately to send a message to the other fighters. “Each plane with five men was successful,” Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had said. “The one plane with four men—the one you should have been on—was not. So you tell me, Qahtani, what should be the price for your failure?”
He expected death, but what he got instead was a one-way ticket to Tora Bora to fight the Americans. Now, cowering with thirty others in a dark cave, he sat, waiting for the moment that an American daisy-cutter bomb would carry out the sentence he’d been spared just months earlier.
But the bomb never came.
A few days into his stay in the mountains, Qahtani’s commander gathered the men. “Our position has been compromised,” he said. “The Americans and Northern Alliance are just over the ridge. We must go.” They left the cave in a rush and fled toward Pakistan.
Less than thirty minutes after their departure, Qahtani saw the explosion before he heard the sound. Their cave had taken a direct hit from an American bomb.
• • •
Hours later, as night fell, Qahtani heard machine-gun fire in the distance, followed by the thump of two mortars. The echoes of combat reverberated from the mountains onto the valley floor near Parachinar, Pakistan. The Americans were closing in from the north.
He pressed forward quickly through the narrow streambed. The other fighters followed behind him in single file, sometimes turning to spray random rifle fire at the advancing enemy.
With his senses deadened from lack of food and sleep, Qahtani at first missed the noise. By the time he realized that he was hearing engines idling, they were too close. And it was too late.
Automatic weapon fire began to ping overhead as armored vehicles closed in around them. Qahtani’s first instinct was to flee. He ran toward a canyon about a hundred yards away. Reminded of his escape from Panjshir, he was encouraged. This was an opportunity for redemption directly from Allah. He may have failed in Orlando, but he would not fail here.
The thought was just beginning to take hold in his mind when he was tackled from behind and handcuffed by a group of Pakistani soldiers. He and his comrades were dragged along the ground and loaded onto the backs of several trucks.
The soldiers placed a burlap bag over his head and he was soon transferred to the Americans. He heard their voices. Crisp and authoritative. He felt someone with large hands grab his fingers. One by one they were pressed into something soft and cold and then rolled from side to side.
Camp X-Ray
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba
January 2002
Sergeant Raul Romeo watched the military C-17 Globemaster airplane taxi and then drop its ramp. Military personnel escorted the prisoner onto the hot tarmac. The man wore an orange jumpsuit, white shoes, black socks, earmuffs, and a black cloth over his eyes.
An experienced interrogator, Romeo was excited about the inbound package. He was a fresh capture and rumored to be a highly placed Al Qaeda operative. He waited with his hands clasped behind his back until the man was directly in front of him.
“This is prisoner number 063,” the escort said. “Says he was in Afghanistan as a falconry expert.”
Romeo smiled. “Falconry? That’s what they all say.”
The handler returned the grin. “He was captured with an AK-47 and twenty-nine of his best falconry buddies.”
For all the details the handler seemed to know about this man, he still could not answer the most basic question: What is his name?
Camp X-Ray
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba
Ten months later: November 17, 2002
On a warm November morning, Sergeant Romeo’s commander called him into his office. Romeo reported with a sharp salute. “Sergeant Romeo reporting as ordered, sir.”
“Two things,” the major said. “Look at this.”
Romeo took the piece of paper from his commander and saw that he was looking at a fingerprint analysis between a set of prints taken on August 4, 2001, at Orlando International Airport and a set taken in December 2001 in Jalalabad, Afghanistan.
“Your guy was the twentieth hijacker,” the major said.
Romeo read the report and looked up. He and his friends had heard all of the speculation about a missing hijacker, but it had just been rumor.
The major continued, “Detainee 063 is Mohammed al Qahtani. Nothing he has told us since he’s been here is true.”
Sergeant Romeo gathered himself. “You said there were two things.”
“Right,” the major replied, handing him another sheet of paper. “New interrogation techniques, hot off the press—and approved all the way up the food chain. How’s that for timing?”
Romeo scanned the sheet. Restraint on a swivel chair, deprivation of sleep, loud music, prohibition of praying, threats of rendition to countries that torture.
His commander just shrugged. “Let’s see what it gets us.”
br /> Camp X-Ray
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba
November 28, 2002
Sergeant Romeo called Sergeant Lisa Smith and said, “Get 063. It’s been over a week. We’re ready.”
The interrogation room was musty. Romeo directed Smith to place the blindfolded prisoner in the swivel chair in the center of the empty room with the air conditioner set at maximum blast.
After fifteen minutes of silence, Romeo removed Qahtani’s blindfold. “Take a look at these.”
On the table Smith had laid out pictures of each of the hijackers. Qahtani looked down and then quickly looked away.
Romeo paced behind Qahtani. “Go ahead. Look at your successful brothers. You failed them, didn’t you, Mohammed al Qahtani?”
Romeo watched as Qahtani visibly reacted to his name. Now we’re getting somewhere, he thought. He exchanged glances with Smith, who was now stationed directly in front of Qahtani.
Smith pointed to the Arabic words she’d written on the chalkboard in front of Qahtani: Liar, Coward, Failure.
“This is you!” she shouted.
Qahtani closed his eyes and shook his head. “Na’am.” No.
Romeo leaned in from behind him and shouted into his ears.
“Look at the pictures, Qahtani! You are the twentieth hijacker! Tell me about your training! Tell me about your commanders! Where is bin Laden?”
Qahtani jumped at Romeo’s voice. He looked down at the pictures and began to quietly sob. Romeo knew he must be feeling guilty for not completing his mission. Guilt was something he could use.
“Who was your leader?”
“Osama bin Laden.”
Romeo stopped. For the first time in nearly a year of captivity, prisoner 063 had provided a truthful answer.
“Why did you go to Orlando?”
“I wasn’t told the mission.”
“Who was meeting you?”
“I don’t know.”