DIVISION OF COUNTER CYBERTERRORISM FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 1 3:14 P.M. As soon as he returned to his office, George Carlton regretted the half bottle of red wine he’d indulged in over a late lunch when he realized whom he was about to meet. He popped a breath mint and willed himself to be more alert. In the years since 9/11, Carlton had experienced no guilt over his decision to sit on Jeff Aiken’s report. He’d always considered it too lurid and imprecise to have had any impact on his superiors. It would only have raised questions about the kind of operation he ran in those days, and nothing would have happened in response to it anyway. Look at that FBI agent in Phoenix. They’d ignored his repeated reports about Arabs learning to fly commercial airplanes but not wanting to practice takeoffs or landings. He’d been lucky not to get fired. Only after he was at DHS did Carlton retrieve the report one afternoon and read it in detail for the first time since he’d received it. He’d been chilled by its prescience.
