THREE MINUTES

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Chapter 6

13:35, 11 September 2002

Philadelphia Times-Dispatch Building

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Back at the newspaper office, Jason's email inbox was full.

Sunlight streamed through the nearest window, casting a terrific glare on his monitor's screen. Jason stood up and walked over to lower the blinds. He wondered how many of the incoming messages would be in any way useful to him. "Shaking the tree", he had said. Putting the story out there. Surely someone would come forward with more information?

244 messages waited for him just hours after his story hit the street. He had made a point of putting his email address at the bottom of the story; in his experience he had noticed that people seemed more candid with email than with phone calls. Although those had come too, in equally large numbers; the ombudsman for the Times-Dispatch had already left Jason a nasty voicemail.

The messages ran the gamut from the conspiratorial, to the indignant, to the outraged.

well thought out!!! I knew the plane was shot down all along... since you dont have 2 mile debris fields in a impact crash.. great job! we'll get the truth out there one of these days

My husband and I are so, so, pleased that you have taken on this investigation and wish you "Godspeed" and all the breaks possible to shine the light of truth on this.

You are to be commended for your courage.This article adds to the many other pieces of undeniable evidence of what may prove to be an abominable crime and cover-up . I have questioned most information released by the media from the beginning .

I wish to tell you "Thank You" thank you for bringing forth and asking the questions no one else will.

Just wrote to say keep up the great work!!!

Some day we will know what really happen! Nah!! lol

Keep up the good work, and don't get discouraged. There are patriotic Americans out here who love our country enough to want and can handle the truth. It's just so hard to come by these days.

There were the angry letters:

WHAT A JERK. FLIGHT 93 BLACK BOX INDICATES THAT WHAT WAS REPORTED TO HAVE HAPPEN DID HAPPEN. WHAT IS YOUR MOTIVE FOR SPREADING 'WHAT IF' AND 'MAYBE' AND 'COULD IT BE'?

FREEDOM IS GREAT, THE ONLY PROBLEM IS PEOPLE WHO WANT TO DESTROY IT HAVE THE FREEDOM TO ATTEMPT THAT AS WELL.

I've never seen a story so full of crap as this one,... what an imagination! Oh well, just a small waste of time... Let me know what other story you dream up....

Several of them, Jason noted with dismay, included a computer virus in the attachment. He had never before saw himself as an "enemy of freedom", but it appeared there were some who felt that way.

There were letters suggesting a different conspiratorial angle:

It is the power of a LAZER vaporizing partical beam weapon which can be shot from an outfitted helicopter, lear jet or a satellite.

Have you looked at the numerology of the events? 9+11 = 20, subtract Bush the 43rd president and you have 23!! This is the number of....

These were easy to skip over; usually they had more punctuation than necessary.

But most intriguing were the letters where people offered their own version of events, what they heard, what they saw. People were driven to want to share what they knew, or thought they knew. These were by far the most compelling.

Shortly after this happened, I was informed from a person who worked at the Pentagon that we indeed shot Flight 93 down.

Are you aware of reports in Europe on 9/11/01 that the US Military shot down flight 93? This was apparently widely reported, at least in France.

I first suspected that Flight 93 had been blown out of the sky when I saw some officer from the US military being interviewed on TV shortly after the incident occurred and heard him say something to the effect of: "Well, I'd like to think that those brave men and women aboard that airliner brought it down, but if the United States needed to make that decision, it was prepaired to have done so." I mean, how cagey a statement is THAT?

my dad was in the air force and he said on the very day 9-11 that flight 93 was shot down, no doubt in his mind. he also believes the others were permitted to crash, that standing orders are for planes off course and not responding in downtown NY and DC to be shot down, no orders needed, for them NOT to be shot down had to be an order... God bless you for your courage in putting up this site! we are all afraid...

On Sept. 11 in one of my classes I heard some news that shocked me. The class was in the afternoon and because of the tragic events that unfolded we dicussed what happened and not our subject material. One of the students started off by saying that his mother's sister worked for the FAA and she had said that they had shot one of the planes down.

I was watching Fox News on the morning of 9/11 all day at work. I recall clearly that Fox aired an on-the-scene report from a Pittsburgh TV station that interviewed one of the local residents in the area who heard the crash. The young man interviewed said he heard a sonic boom and heard a serries of explosions. He saw a small plane that he assumed was military. He also assumed that it was a military plane that crashed. He was surprised to learn that it was actually an airliner that crashed. I don't remember any more details or the name of the young man that was interviewed.

The following is only hearsay, but for what it's worth Last year I was corresponding by e-mail with a faculty member at Penn State. She had a dental appointment on 9/11. Her dentist was a former Navy pilot, and he told her that he'd been told the plane was downed by an F-16. She relayed the information to me the next day.

my wife and i were driving, headed to work that morning, listening to a local am news channel. we clearly remember that the inital report coming from the station was that the plane that crashed in PA was shot down. then, after a quick commercial break, the reports on it were that it had just crashed, with no further explanation. i'm sure a lot of people must have heard and remember that initial report. it's too bad radio isn't archived.

A woman I work with was in DC for a conference that ended on the 10th of September. She was flying back out of a DC airport on the morning of 9-11. Her plane was over PA when the pilot came on and said something to the effect that there was a national emergency happening and that all planes were being ordered to land. The pilot said they'd be heading into Pittsburgh to land. A bit later, her plane went to full thrust and banked very sharply to the right. A few moments later, the pilot came on again and said that they were now diverting to land in Cleveland, because "apparently a plane directly in front of us had been shot-down". The pilot must have gotten this shoot-down info from an air traffic controller, surely he wouldn't have just made that up?

"Stirred some folks up, scoop."

Jason spun in his chair to face "Merlin", the newspaper's 22-year-old tech support wizard. His real name was Emir Lahin, which sounded a bit like Merlin, at least when Brody said it. Over time, the nickname had stuck. For reasons Jason had never been able to determine, Merlin always wore some kind of hockey jersey to work. Today it appeared he supported the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Merlin's eyes scanned the top of the computer screen. "Good thing we don't get charged by the message, eh?"

Jason managed a smile. "Love me or hate me, people want to tell me about it."

"You don't know the half of it." Merlin shoved back and glided fifteen feet across the office on his wheeled chair, turning his own monitor around to face Jason. "Check out the internet discussion groups I've been watching."

On Merlin's screen was a list of messages. Hundreds. Thousands. Scrolling down, Jason was amazed.

"I did a couple of things to track this for you," said Merlin, enjoying Jason's awe. "First of all, I did a really simple backwards search for anyone on the web who linked to the online version of your article."

"That was quick," said Jason.

"Yeah," agreed Merlin, "it was an interesting list. A lot of fairly well established bulletin boards, discussion groups and so on." Merlin tapped a few keystrokes, and the screen cleared and began loading a new list. "I also stuck a little program on the paper's page itself, just to catalog referring hits."

"Referring hits?" asked Jason.

"The page that the user clicked through to get to your article," said Merlin, sweeping his hand down the list as it grew on-screen. "If someone posted a link on an obscure board, something the big search engines don't index, this is the best way to find out. Quite a few of those, as it turns out."

Jason nodded. The boards had ominous-sounding names, and clearly many were quite simply anti-government in any form. Fringe radicals on the far left and the extreme right. Anarchist boards. Militia groups. The infrared and ultraviolet of the political spectrum. Jason was amazed how far outside the mainstream some of them were; he was equally appalled to find his name linked permanently to such people.

"It sort of breaks into factions, like every other conspiracy theory on the net," said Merlin, as Jason wheeled his own chair over to Merlin's desk. "And as always, the fringe defines the debate. On one far end are the people who believe nothing strange happened, that eventually everything will be explained and in the meantime, don't question, right?"

Jason nodded. "But on the other end," Merlin continued, "are the conspiracy theorists that go the other way. The administration knew about the attacks, had everything laid out to let Americans die and go into Afghanistan and take control of this natural gas pipeline from the Caspian Sea."

Jason frowned. "There can't be many who think like that," he said hopefully.

"More than you think." Merlin tapped a few keystrokes. "I see people designing seminars, conventions, logos. It's going to be the JFK assassination for our time."

It was well on its way. People had been posting, Jason saw, almost since the day after the attacks. He had followed some of it on more mainstream boards: inconsistencies, rumors, odd coincidences. Jason had prided himself on his relative tech-savvy, or at least an understanding that the internet was a quicker conduit for information than any of the wire services. Most of his fellow reporters used the internet for two things: day-trading stocks, or selling stuff on online auctions.

But Jason had no idea how far it had gone. Hundreds of people posted to these obscure discussion boards, from every walk of life and every nationality. And few of them confined their theories to Flight 93; Jason began to realize that he would never understand the issues of September 11th in the kind of detail some of these posters did.

Everyone seemed to have their pet theory. From one perspective, it could be described as an obsessive attempt to make sense of the most senseless day in U.S. history.

But from another, Jason had to admit there were questions that he couldn't answer.

There was the issue that the National Guard fighter jets protecting the country didn't make it in time to intercept any of the hijacked airliners, "even though" the first plane was commandeered around 8 a.m., and the last plane (Flight 93) struck the ground nearly two full hours later.

There was the issue that the jet that struck the Pentagon somehow hit the least populated side of the structure, where it was being renovated and a minimum of casualties were inflicted. Some posters went so far as to claim there had never even been a jet, that it had been a cruise missile, and constructed elaborate theories to account for the missing airliner.

There were theories about the massive numbers of put options, or bets that stocks would go down, in the days before 9/11; these had actually sparked a handful of insider trading probes, and while none of them seem to have gone anywhere, rumors persisted that the wealthy elite might have known the attacks were coming. In fact the idea had been repeated so often that many on these boards assumed it as fact, and moved their arguments forward from there.

There was an interesting piece about the Attorney General, and how he had apparently stopped taking commercial flights due to "security concerns" in the weeks before 9/11. Jason had never heard this, although the postings that brought it up sourced mainstream news outlets.

There was the National Security Advisor, saying an attack by suicide hijackers was unimaginable before 9/11, yet dozens of military and civilian "thinktanks" had gamed the concept out for years, and written well-publicized reports of just such a scenario.

There was the C-130 "Hercules" aircraft, a massive prop-driven cargo plane, seen by dozens of witnesses overflying the Pentagon shortly after it was hit. Apparently it was coming out of Andrews Air Force Base on a planned flight that morning, and found itself in the middle of history. There were, Jason remembered, eyewitness reports of a similar plane over Shanksville, Pennsylvania just moments after Flight 93 crashed. To his amazement, Jason found an official military press release from later that year, which actually confirmed that it was the same aircraft in both places! This was a coincidence of phenomenal proportions.

And then, there was John Lionel. If Jason had to choose a single defining figure of tragic irony in the story of September 11th, it was him.

Lionel had been the FBI's lead "go-to" man on Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda for years. For most of 2000 and part of 2001, he had run NATIO, the Non-Aligned Terrorist Information Office. This was a man who knew terrorism, had all the contacts, addressed congressional strategy meetings both public and classified; this man had led the Bureau effort against terror from 1995, all the way through to the capture of Ramzi Yousef in early 2001.

That year, he left the FBI under a cloud. Friends would later say simple office politics led to his resignation; conspiracy theorists thought he had come under fire for pointing too many fingers at the influential Saudis. Regardless, he had the prospect of a new, more lucrative job in the private sector.

In late August, Lionel moved into his new office, and new job, as the head of security for the World Trade Center. Weeks later, he would be killed on the 34th floor during the terrorist attacks on that building.

The man who was the tip of the U.S. intelligence agencies' spear in the war on terror had died at the site of the worst terrorist attack in global history.

"I'll leave you to your fans," said Merlin, breaking Jason's reverie.

"Thanks."

Jason began sorting the messages, at first trying to create subfolders on his computer where he could file his "love" and "hate" mail; then he created a file of messages he wanted to look into, outrageous claims of third-party information that might prove fruitful. Finally he checked into a folder he had created weeks before for a single correspondent, a frequent poster to various bulletin boards (and equally frequent emailer) named "Freeman".

"Freeman" was the screen name of a man he had been in contact with since just after 9/11, an enigmatic investigator who ran a website called Flight93Down.com. Jason had done a little legwork early on, with Merlin's help, to try to determine Freeman's true identity; but this man had covered his tracks extraordinarily well. In the end Jason had let it go, feeling that perhaps Freeman's paranoia was a necessary output of his naturally conspiratorial mind.

That same mind was also remarkably analytical. Freeman was, as he emphasized on Flight93Down.com, a self-professed agnostic on the matter of a possible shoot-down of United Flight 93. This did nothing, however, to keep him from bringing forward new angles to the story. Over the past several months, Jason had developed something of a long-distance friendship with Freeman, and although he had never met the man, trusted his instincts as well as his own. For one thing, the story of the missing three minutes was something Jason might have missed entirely had it not been for Freeman's prodding. Jason looked forward to Freeman's messages, because he always seemed to have another way to look at the crash.

Today's email was no exception.

from: Freeman (freeman@flight93down.com)

Jason,

Good story today. It produced a lot of mail for me, so I'm sure it did for you as well.

Had another "bump" in the story today; remember last year when you were trying to figure out the impact time? I followed up on a lead. Flight 93 apparently crashed through a power line when it hit the ground, causing a blackout in most of the county. Take a look at this photo from the AP archive....

Freeman had attached a digital photograph copied from the wire service. It showed a classroom, evidently inside the Stonycreek Elementary School, just a mile from the impact point. In the center of the photo were children in a line, filing out of the room in an orderly, fire-drill sort of way. The caption read, "Children Evacuating the Elementary School Minutes After Crash."

Jason scanned the picture, trying to figure out why Freeman had sent it. The faces of the children were bored, hardly interested in what surely had to have been thought an exercise. One of the teachers was visible in the far right of the picture, her head looking over her shoulder while her hands were on the backs of two children, pushing them towards the rest in line. There was a remarkable strain evident in her arms. Below the photo were four more words:

Look at the clock.

Jason did. There was a clock on the wall in the upper left of the photo, a standard schoolhouse sweep-hand wall clock. Although a large portion of the clock was out of frame, it could still be seen to read 10:03.

That was odd. The caption clearly said "minutes after the crash". And there would be no reason for the school to be evacuated before the impact. So the scene was definitely post-crash; but why would the clock read a time before the crash?

Then it hit him: the clock had stopped because of the power outage. The school had lost power before before the impact.

Why on earth could that be?

Jason was getting ahead of himself; unlike the clocks of seismographs, these were simple mechanical clocks that probably were set once or twice a year by the custodial staff. But still, he thought. Worth a few minutes' checking.

Jason wheeled his chair over to a bookshelf full of telephone books from all over the state. He pulled one out, and flipped to the pages of electrical utility companies.

It took three calls to even find the right company; it turned out the area surrounding the crash site received power from no less than four co-operative utility organizations. A single row of houses on the same street could get their bills from four different electric companies. Finally he found the one that supplied the school.

"Good afternoon, Carr Electric."

Jason sat up. "Good morning. My name is Jason Clark, I'm a reporter with the Philly Times-Dispatch. I was hoping I could get you to look up some outage data for me."

"Of course," said the woman. "Do you have your bill in front of you?"

"No," said Jason. "I'm actually researching a story, and I'd like your records for a school you service."

"Do you know the circuit number or account holder?"

"No," he admitted. "I'm looking for an outage for the Shanksville-Stoneycreek school."

"That should be easy," said the operator. "One moment."

There was a pause. "Here we are," she said. "There are two circuits for that account, does it matter which one?"

"No," said Jason. "They both should have gone out. I'm looking for a record for September 11, 2001."

Another pause. "There was a lot of power out that day, but I remember it was back up pretty quickly." Jason could hear the clatter of a keyboard over the phone. "Are you doing a piece about our cooperative?"

"No, no," said Jason quickly. "Just putting some background together for another story. It's not about the company at all." The last thing he wanted was for her to transfer him to someone in their public relations office. He had visions of tying up a phone line while someone faxed him a fifty-page press kit.

The sounds of the keyboard on the other end stopped. "O.K.," said the operator, "Circuit 00017-12."

Jason waited. A few seconds passed.

"That's odd," said the woman.

"What's odd?"

"We don't have a reported outage for the school for that day." The keyboard clattered further. "Let me check the surrounding circuits, I remember we had reports all morning... It was a busy day."

For everyone, thought Jason wryly.

"O.K., Mr. Clark. I'm looking at all of our accounts right around the school for September 11, 2001. I'm seeing accounts on Melva Rd, Lake Shore Rd, Marilyn Way, Main St, Stoney Creek Rd, and Lake Stoney Creek Rd..." Her voice dropped off.

"Do any of those show a time of outage?" pressed Jason.

"This is just strange," she said. "I do not have any outage listed that day on our outage overview screens. I know there was one..."

Jason remained silent. The clacking of the keyboard continued, increasing in speed.

"I also checked each of these accounts and none of them have a reporting record. It's as if nobody called to report a power outage on that day. The nearest report to September 11, 2001 was an outage starting October 10, 2001 and ending October 11, 2001 at 4:30 am....Length of outage was 6.3 hours....Cause of outage was electrical failure caused by submersible transformer." She sounded confused by what she was reading.

Jason interrupted. "So there's no record of an outage on 9/11?"

"I apologize, sir," said the woman. "I'm unable to locate anything. I'm sure we had one, but there must be some kind of a record glitch."

No record. Jason felt the story pulling at his leg again. Why would there be no record of a power outage?

"Is there anyplace else the records would be?" he asked.

"Nowhere," said the operator, clearly exasperated. "This is everything. I just can't understand why there's nothing there."

"Well," said Jason, trying to calm her down. "If it's not there, it's not there. I really do appreciate your time, thank you,"

"You're welcome, sir. And I'm sorry I couldn't have been more helpful."

"No problem. Thanks again."

"Thank you for calling Carr Electric."

Another mystery, thought Jason, at 10:03.

He wanted to talk to Freeman.

from: Jason Clark (jclark@phillytd.com)

to: "Freeman" (freeman@flight93down.com)

Freeman, can I call you on the phone?

The response came only minutes later.

What do you need to talk about? Can this be done via email?

Freeman

Cagey, thought Jason.

Freeman,

I just need to work some things out. Is there a number I can call you?

Jason

It was uncharacteristically several hours before Freeman got back to him.

Jason, I'll call you at 6:00 PM Eastern.

F

The reporter in Jason took over; it was almost 6:00. He dug around in his desk, trying to find the manual for his telephone. The paper had upgraded its phone system last year, and he knew he could set it for caller ID.

He barely had it configured before Freeman called.

"Jason Clark."

"It's Freeman," said a deep voice. "What do you need?"

Jason took a breath. "I just wanted to kick this around with you a little bit. I don't know how you knew to look for a clock, but there's something very strange about that power outage. I checked on electricity records around the crash site, and they've got no idea when their own system went dark."

There was silence on the other end of the line.

Jason continued. "Does that suggest anything to you?"

"So what we've got," said Freeman, "is a bunch of circumstantial evidence that something happened at 10:03, that seems to involve power in the air and on the ground."

"Right," answered Jason. He fidgeted with his pencil, hovering over a blank note pad. "Power goes out on the plane, that stops the cockpit voice recorder and the transponder."

"Power goes out on the ground," finished Freeman, "and that stops the clock in the school. And all of this before the crash happens."

Jason thought for a second. "What can do that?"

Freeman was silent for a moment before answering.

"You know, I got an email early on about microwaves."

Jason thought of popcorn. "How's that?"

"Microwave-based weapons." Freeman snorted. "It's all the rage with the high-tech nutjobs." He waited for a response, then continued. "I'm sure you've heard of the E-Bomb?"

Actually, Jason had.

Wherever war journalists gathered for the past few years, the topic of the E-Bomb was bound to arise. The generally accepted idea was the military had a special new bomb, that didn't kill people -- only electronics. Somehow it would be dropped on an area, and suddenly nothing would work; surface-to-air missile stations would go blank, targeting computers would freeze, relays everywhere in the electrical system would snap off. This would make it relatively safe for the attacking forces.

For correspondents in a war zone, of course, this near-mythical weapon had special significance: your satellite phone would die, and your laptop computer, where the story for which you had risked your life that day was being written, would also croak. Jason knew reporters who had traveled through Bosnia and the Middle East toting a microwave oven. Every time there was a bombing threat, they would shove all of their gear into it to try to shield their precious toys.

"I don't know enough about it," continued Freeman. "But let me send you a few internet bulletin boards you could visit. Drop a few casual questions. A few of these sites are pretty out there, alien encounter kind of stuff." He laughed. "But a few of the people posting on them are ex-military, I think. At least they write that way."

"Thanks," said Jason. "I'm looking forward to it."

"We'll talk again," said Freeman.

Jason put the receiver down. He checked the number on the caller ID screen, and wrote it down. Pushing over to Merlin's computer, he connected to the internet and typed the number into a reverse-lookup telephone directory. The answer came up quickly.

A pay phone, Jason thought to himself. That paranoid bugger called me from a pay phone.

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