Free Perspectives, An Intriguing Tale of an American Born Terrorist by Jeffrey Shapiro Page A

passenger.
    For Jonathan, getting lost in managing these databases was therapy for him as the hours and days drifted by. Often he would start at 6 a.m. in the morning and watch the sun rise and set before going back to his apartment at 10 p.m. During the day he made sure to call Carly when she got home from school. She was always excited to hear his voice and tell him about her day.
    “When are we going to move?” she would always ask.
    “Soon pumpkin.”
    Jonathan asked his supervisor if he could work with the programmers to upgrade the hologram program and was excited when he was given permission. Unfortunately, his programming became so aggressive that he created a super terrorist and was told to “lighten up” and not make the programs so difficult, because it wasn’t good for the terrorists to win and the agents to be killed every time. Soon he received a reputation with all the agents and there was a new level of competition to see if anyone could beat his simulations. No one ever did. They gave him the nickname “Nordero” after a famous bull on the rodeo circuit that retired without ever having a cowboy ride him for eight seconds.
    Slowly, bits and pieces of July 15th returned to him and he often lay in his bed in the early morning hours trying to recall any detail of the day of the explosion. Each piece he categorized as if he was working on a jig saw puzzle with a million pieces. He knew there were emails, but he was always working on emails and wished that he could gain access to his job stream from that day and felt it a cruel misfortune that he was locked out. Every time he tried to talk to someone about it, they told him that it was classified information. In the evening he logged into his personal Yahoo account waiting for his mysterious new friend to email him again. He wondered about that odd email, the one that told him that his country would not stand behind him. Struggling for any thread that would take him back to that day, he acted against his normal judgment and replied to the email.
    “What do you mean?” he answered. “Do I know you?” He stared at the computer for nearly an hour, got up and fixed himself a cup of tea and when he returned there was an answer.
    “You need to remember, before they remember for you. You are the center of this storm. Go to instant messenger.”
    Jonathan flipped to instant messenger.
    Jetsource86: Hello Jonathan
    Jonathan’s tag name was F15Flyboy.
    F15Flyboy: Do I know you?
    Jetsource86: That has no relevance.
    F15 Flyboy: Do you know what happened on July 15th?
    Jetsource86: Yes, but I also know what didn’t happen.
    F15Flyboy: Were you involved?
    Jetsource86: That too has no relevance.
    F15Flyboy: What didn’t happen?
    Jetsource86: You were not connected.
    F15Flyboy: Of course I wasn’t connected. Do they think I’m connected?
    Jetsource86: Guilty, until proven innocent, we will talk tomorrow, open an Earthlink account and I will find it. Also, register for a different IM name.
    Jonathan now knew for certain that it was someone within the agency. “The person has encrypted his name and probably his messages, so they can’t trace him, only someone on the inside could do that. Who could it be?” He started going through the names and faces of his department, but there were too many, and most of the agents he didn’t even know. “Let’s see, he can find me, even if I don’t give him my username. They would have to have access to a program like our Blue Herron program or else they would never be able to trace me through the Earhlink and AOL servers. It would have to be someone inside my group.”
    The next day Jonathan studied the people around him, to see if anyone acted differently or gave anything away with non-verbal communication, but everyone went about their daily tasks and no one acted any differently. He struggled with what to do and decided that he could trust PD McVay so he called and scheduled an appointment. PD was after all the Senior