At 8:30 that night I stood on the dark, deserted platform of downtown's Eleventh Street Metrorail station as a train approached. When the wheels screeched to a halt and the doors slid open, a solid-looking black man stepped out. He was wearing hip-hop chic — new silver-and-white Nike high-tops, blue denim calf-length shorts, a long-sleeve Coosi shirt, and a green G-Unit knit cap. His clothes were clean and pressed. He was about five-eleven, with a stocky build; no mustache, short black beard twisted into tiny braids. We were the only two people on the platform.
I had hoped this meeting would result in his handing me a tape, although he hadn't mentioned that. Indeed he had no tape. Instead the point of this encounter, I realized, was to size each other up. We journeyed in my car to the Best Buy store at Dadeland Station, where he inquired about purchasing a $1700 flat-screen TV. He pulled a thick wad of bills from his pants pocket and asked the salesman if he could make a deal. The salesman said no. Young shook his head and we left. We drove back to the Metrorail station, stopping first at the Players Club on NE Eleventh Street to have a beer. Young paid for the round, dropping a twenty for two Buds and leaving the change behind. Near 11:00 p.m. we parted ways.
Matt Bors
Matt Bors
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A couple of days later we spoke again. He had decided to let me eavesdrop, via a three-way phone call, while he talked with a U.S. Customs agent, explaining that he'd met with this agent a year earlier and relayed to her the same story he told me. He asked me to be quiet while he dialed. "Whatever happened to that stuff I gave you?" Young asked when the agent answered. He was referring to a tip about an arms sale in another state.
"I passed on the information."
"Well, what happened?"
"I'm not going to tell you what happened," the agent snapped.
It appeared she had little patience for Young. He sparred with her for a few minutes before bringing up the Mohammed Atta tapes. The agent shot back: "You've been dangling these tapes like a carrot on a stick for over a year. If you have tapes that are incriminating of others for the events discussed, then bring 'em in and let's see if they exist."
Young just laughed. "Why would I do that?"
Perhaps he intended to impress me with his connections to federal agents, but the exchange merely revealed that someone else out there was feeling jerked around by this guy.
I've pulled into the parking lot of the Denny's on Biscayne Boulevard at 36th Street. It's a sunny spring day. The air is vibrating with possibility. I'm not talking to Young anymore, and my mind has cleared. He dumped me rather brutally, phoning a couple of weeks after our Metrorail meeting to tell me the deal was off. "What can I say? Shit happens. You don't control the flow of things," he said. "You'll get to see the tapes just like everyone else — when I go public with them." Then he hung up.
Apparently I'd prepared myself well for this, because I was relieved. The anxiety about trusting this man was over. So was my research. I wouldn't bother contacting the Nigerian, or tracking down the Pakistani teenager in Canada, or pawing through more piles of court records.
But there was one last thing I did want to do. I pushed open the doors of Denny's and found the man sitting in the booth.
Even before Young reneged on his agreement, I had called a contact in law enforcement who gave me the name of an FBI agent involved with counterterrorism. I finally made that call. As we ordered our eggs and coffee, I provided him the salient facts, the name of the teen, the Nigerian businessman, the man from Michigan. I gave him what dates I had. I handed off the picture and name of the man Young alleged was an al-Qaeda member living in the U.S.
The agent said it didn't sound kosher that terrorists would take an African American — any American for that matter — into their confidence, but he'd look into it.
Later the agent called. Evidently Young had shopped this story to other federal agencies in addition to Customs. His motives were unclear, but they did not find him a credible source.
I hung up the phone and chuckled, mostly at myself. The only thing I had lost was time. It had almost been like a dream. But then as I packed up the folders littering my office, I couldn't help wondering: Should I do more to resolve the unanswered questions? Where did Young come up with the name of the Pakistani teen? Was the man from Michigan really handing off a barrel of ammonium nitrate? How about the Nigerian's radioactive material? I never did get around to checking Young's criminal history in Canada. Should I make one last call up there?
And they never did find suicide tapes from the hijackers, did they?
