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Authors: Steven Konkoly
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second van had gained full, permanent access to DBM's computer network. Database records showed that the three men identified by Mazari lived in the same apartment on Jugenheimer Strasse. Two of them worked in the same department. Shipping. The third held a late-shift job in the medical specimen packaging department.
One of the two men, Naeem Hassan, worked in a supervisory role within the shipping and distribution department, which identified him as the most likely leader of the suspected terrorist cell. Of the three Egyptian men, he was the only one that had finished college, earning an engineering degree in Cairo. Six years later, he moved to Hamburg and started work on an advanced degree in construction engineering at "Terrorist U," but discontinued studies upon accepting his current position at Deutsche BioMedizinische.
Hassan's travel pattern didn't raise the same red flags as Mazari's, but a search of Egyptian databases showed that Hassan had bounced around from one unemployment line to the next during his six years in Egypt. Six long years of social humiliation, no doubt blamed on the West by the dangerous proliferation of radical Mullahs preaching jihad. Plenty of time to be radicalized by Al Qaeda recruiters and sent forth into Europe.
At this point, Hassan had been in Germany for nearly three years, while the other two men had been issued student visas last summer to attend Frankfurt Technical College. A quick search through the college's registrar database showed that the two had been dropped from student rolls after they failed to register for classes by mid-September. Notifications had been sent to German immigration authorities, but little would be done to track them. Petrovich wondered how many of these thirty-year-old college "students" simply disappeared into Europe, never to attend a single class. Too many, according to Audra Bauer.
Based on the information available, they would focus on Hassan. Ozier el-Masri worked in the same department as Hassan and would serve as their secondary focus. That left them with Hanif Akhnaten, who worked in the medical specimen packing department, which was a subsidiary of the Laboratory Group and a separate department altogether. His role had likely been limited to providing the appropriate packing supplies and medical labels to properly camouflage the shipments.
Working together, Hassan and el-Masri were perfectly situated to manifest and hide the shipments among the thousands of deliveries transported daily to the FedEx hub on the outskirts of Frankfurt International Airport. Nearly two thousand shipments had been delivered to the United States on the day in question, and FedEx delivery records for the seven known Al Qaeda cell locations didn't provide the FBI with a discernible package manifest pattern. Each of the addresses had received four separate shipments over the course of the day, giving them twenty-eight shipping records to examine.
Unfortunately, the twenty-eight shipments had originated from twenty-eight separate batches, which had been received by the Frankfurt FedEx hub over a forty-eight-hour period. The deliveries had been scheduled to leave DBM's shipping facility in a manner that had kept most of the canisters on separate planes while crossing the Atlantic, which appeared to be no easy task. FBI investigators concluded that this kind of timing would require a detailed level of information only available within the FedEx hub, suggesting the presence of another Al Qaeda conspirator.
Given that neither FedEx nor the FBI could discern a pattern in the shipments, Task Force Scorpion would rely on "overseas assets" to help them connect the dots. Petrovich glanced back at the black nylon bag sitting against the wheel well. He could definitely see using the contents of this bag within the next thirty minutes. He reached back and pulled the bag closer. Once again, they wouldn't have much time on-site, but he would make that time count. Whoever left the
One of the two men, Naeem Hassan, worked in a supervisory role within the shipping and distribution department, which identified him as the most likely leader of the suspected terrorist cell. Of the three Egyptian men, he was the only one that had finished college, earning an engineering degree in Cairo. Six years later, he moved to Hamburg and started work on an advanced degree in construction engineering at "Terrorist U," but discontinued studies upon accepting his current position at Deutsche BioMedizinische.
Hassan's travel pattern didn't raise the same red flags as Mazari's, but a search of Egyptian databases showed that Hassan had bounced around from one unemployment line to the next during his six years in Egypt. Six long years of social humiliation, no doubt blamed on the West by the dangerous proliferation of radical Mullahs preaching jihad. Plenty of time to be radicalized by Al Qaeda recruiters and sent forth into Europe.
At this point, Hassan had been in Germany for nearly three years, while the other two men had been issued student visas last summer to attend Frankfurt Technical College. A quick search through the college's registrar database showed that the two had been dropped from student rolls after they failed to register for classes by mid-September. Notifications had been sent to German immigration authorities, but little would be done to track them. Petrovich wondered how many of these thirty-year-old college "students" simply disappeared into Europe, never to attend a single class. Too many, according to Audra Bauer.
Based on the information available, they would focus on Hassan. Ozier el-Masri worked in the same department as Hassan and would serve as their secondary focus. That left them with Hanif Akhnaten, who worked in the medical specimen packing department, which was a subsidiary of the Laboratory Group and a separate department altogether. His role had likely been limited to providing the appropriate packing supplies and medical labels to properly camouflage the shipments.
Working together, Hassan and el-Masri were perfectly situated to manifest and hide the shipments among the thousands of deliveries transported daily to the FedEx hub on the outskirts of Frankfurt International Airport. Nearly two thousand shipments had been delivered to the United States on the day in question, and FedEx delivery records for the seven known Al Qaeda cell locations didn't provide the FBI with a discernible package manifest pattern. Each of the addresses had received four separate shipments over the course of the day, giving them twenty-eight shipping records to examine.
Unfortunately, the twenty-eight shipments had originated from twenty-eight separate batches, which had been received by the Frankfurt FedEx hub over a forty-eight-hour period. The deliveries had been scheduled to leave DBM's shipping facility in a manner that had kept most of the canisters on separate planes while crossing the Atlantic, which appeared to be no easy task. FBI investigators concluded that this kind of timing would require a detailed level of information only available within the FedEx hub, suggesting the presence of another Al Qaeda conspirator.
Given that neither FedEx nor the FBI could discern a pattern in the shipments, Task Force Scorpion would rely on "overseas assets" to help them connect the dots. Petrovich glanced back at the black nylon bag sitting against the wheel well. He could definitely see using the contents of this bag within the next thirty minutes. He reached back and pulled the bag closer. Once again, they wouldn't have much time on-site, but he would make that time count. Whoever left the
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