Right after 9/11, the FBI and Special Agent Scott Decker scramble to stop a second-wave attack using a deadly toxin. When a Florida photo editor is poisoned by a rare bacteria, agents uncover a possible al-Qaeda plot to spread anthrax from the air. But are they already too late?
How did the FBI respond to the 9/11 attacks?
It was the evening of September 11th, about 12 hours after the terrorist attacks, and Scott Decker, a special agent with the FBI, was already on the move. He'd packed his bags and said goodbye to his family in Virginia.
I was told to grab four of the guys, load up our Suburbans with evidence collection equipment, hazmat gear, Tyvek suits, masks, gloves. We loaded up the trucks that evening. Oh, dark 30. September 12, we started heading up to New York.
I think five black Suburbans in a row. While everyone else was trying like hell to get out of New York City, Decker drove all night to get in.
As we went through Maryland, we went through Delaware on Route 95, the main corridor. We got to the Delaware Memorial Bridge and the big alert sign above the traffic. And usually the letters are in yellow, but in my memory it was orange. I don't know why, but I remember orange. And it just said in bold letters, New York City closed.
They arrived outside Manhattan near dawn. But those orange letters were right. New York City was closed. Even to the FBI. Bridges were shut down. Landlines were out. And cell phones weren't working well. So Decker went to an FBI field office in New Jersey, just across the river.
I saw a Black Hawk helicopter sitting on the grass between the office and the Passaic River. And I said, yeah, I need a lift over to New York. So he said, jump in. And we flew over Manhattan and we flew over Ground Zero. Doors opened on the Black Hawk. And as we flew over through the smoke, we just looked down and it was just ashes. Buildings were in ashes. They were just big piles on the ground.
He landed near ground zero and, like everyone there, struggled to make sense of what had just happened.
The morning of the 12th of September, things were a little up in the air. I don't think any of us knew what to really expect.
But Decker isn't looking at the scene the same way as most first responders. In fact, he's there for something else. What the public didn't know at the time is that there was another looming threat.
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