Several stories belowground, the 7:42 A.M. Amtrak Acela train from Washington, D.C., arrived on schedule. It was packed. Commuters, businessmen and -women, tourists, families, students, and, sprinkled about the train in random cars like poison, nine men, all in their late teens or early twenties, all of Middle Eastern descent. Terrorists. They moved through Penn Station, each man walking alone, blending into the morning commuter tumult. Two of the men headed for the subway, while two others took the crowded escalator to Eighth Avenue and got in line for the uptown bus. Two moved through Penn Station and then Madison Square Garden, emerging separately from the building a few minutes apart, and walked in opposite directions. A few minutes later, at approximately the same time the uptown #1 train pulled out of Penn Station, and the bus shut its door and started to move, the slightly beat-up van pulled alongside one of the two men who’d chosen to walk. The man opened the passenger door and climbed in without saying anything.
