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associates whose names he didn’t know. And even as he was being questioned, he begged the agents to let him finish his flight lessons.
    This time, the pleading had resumed as soon as Samit and Weess walked into the interrogation room. Moussaoui promised to answer all of their questions, but only if they allowed him to continue his training. Once he finished, he would gladly come back for deportation.
    “Not now,” Samit replied. “Too many questions still need to be resolved.”
    Let’s discuss the money again, he said. How was it that Moussaoui couldn’t identify the people who sent him so much cash?
    “I’ve told you about that!” Moussaoui shouted.
    He spluttered angrily that he was being treated unfairly. Then he tossed out the name of the men who had financed him—Ahmed Atif and someone named Habib from Germany. Weeks would pass before the agents proved Moussaoui was lying about his supposed benefactors.
    There was something else, Samit said. During his initial interview, Moussaoui had mentioned conducting Internet searches for flight schools. A laptop computer had been recovered among Moussaoui’s things. “Would you allow us to search that computer?” Samit asked.
    “No. I won’t permit that.”
    That was his right, Samit responded. But now, he said, he wanted to tell Moussaoui a few things.
    “Your story doesn’t add up,” Samit said. “You haven’t given us a satisfactory explanation for why you’re in the United States, or why you came here for flight training. The reasons you give don’t make any sense.”
    He leaned in. “We know you’re an Islamic extremist, Mr. Moussaoui. We know you talked about violence before. We know you’re planning something. I want you to tell us what your plot is and who you’re working with.”
    Moussaoui stiffened. “My training is just for fun. I am not a terrorist. I’m not part of a terrorist group. I don’t have any contact with terrorists.”
    Samit’s gaze bored in. “Mr. Moussaoui, we know you’re involved in a plot, a plot involving airlines,” he said.
    “I want to remind you, you are in custody. And if anything happens, you will be held accountable by the United States, by the American people.”
    Moussaoui stared at Samit in silence.
    Minneapolis, Minnesota
    Fifteen days
    FBI supervisors in Washington wouldn’t authorize an investigation of Moussaoui. There wasn’t enough information to justify a search warrant, they said, or to push through an application under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act—FISA. Finally, Samit’s boss, Greg Jones, called Michael Maltbie, the supervisory special agent in Washington who was blocking the case. Tempers flared.
    The FISA application—in fact, the whole case—was built on air, Maltbie argued. “What you have done is couched it in such a way that people get spun up.”
    “Good!” Jones replied. “We want to make sure he doesn’t get control of an airplane and crash it into the World Trade Center or something like that.”
    Ridiculous, Maltbie scoffed. “That’s not going to happen.”
    Takhar Province, Afghanistan
    Two Days
    As the first cool nights of fall approached, the American-backed Northern Alliance was struggling in its fight against the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The change of weather punctuated the end of a failed summer offensive by the force led by Ahmad Shah Massoud, the alliance’s most important commander and Afghanistan’s only credible threat to bin Laden. An attempt to capture the city of Taloqan, lost to the Taliban in 2000, had flopped. American support was inadequate, but Massoud still made a show of bravado, promising his fighters that they would soon take Kabul.
    Amid the strategic planning, a phone call came in that puzzled Massoud. The Taliban and al-Qaeda were building up forces on the front line, he was told,but were not pushing forward to the north. Then Massoud learned that Taliban communications had been intercepted, instructing the units not to attack yet. It