he concluded.21
LEGACIES
36. THE NAME
ON SEPTEMBER 13, 2001, Jason Blum, a former police officer who had moved into the private security industry, received a telephone call from Airworks Inc., a New Jersey broker of charter aircraft operations. The company was arranging a charter to carry members of the Bin Laden family out of the United States, its representative said. Given the events of the previous forty-eight hours, Airworks had decided to hire a security guard to protect the airplane’s crew—the pilot, copilot, and several flight attendants. Blum, however, would not be permitted to carry a weapon on board; he would have to rely on his wits and his training in martial arts.1
Blum asked what the Bin Laden family members would have with them. Any guns? Cash? Had they been cleared to depart by the Federal Bureau of Investigation? These issues would be resolved, the charter representative assured him. Blum agreed to take the job. He was later told to arrive at a private aviation terminal at the Los Angeles International Airport at seven in the morning on September 19.
When the day arrived, Blum dressed in a suit and tie and drove to the airport. Several FBI agents met him; they patted him down and looked through his carry-on bag, and then they escorted him aboard a Boeing 727. The plane belonged to Ryan International, a charter company based in the Midwest. Previously, the Baltimore Orioles baseball team, and more recently, the Chicago Bulls basketball team, had used this particular plane to travel between games. Its cabin was large enough to hold about 180 seats if it were configured for a commercial airliner, but to accommodate the sports teams, it had been outfitted in a more luxurious style. There were about thirty comfortable blue leather chairs and a half-circle wet bar at which passengers could stand and talk.
As Blum stepped inside, he saw there were only two people aboard, both women. One introduced herself as an FBI agent. The other, a woman in her midforties, dressed in the elegant but professional style of an American businesswoman, was Najiah Bin Laden.
The FBI agents all departed, the plane doors closed, and Blum sat down to talk with Najiah. She was “visibly upset,” and “just shaking,” as Blum remembered it. She described the novel experience of being patted down by the female FBI agent before she came aboard; he told her he had just been through the same procedure, and they chuckled about it.2
Najiah said that she had been living in Los Angeles, in the Westwood neighborhood, for years, and that she loved Southern California. She rode horses, played polo, and took piloting lessons, she said, and she did not want to return to Saudi Arabia. She talked about “how horrible this was, and how horrible this was for the name of her family,” Blum recalled.
A few days after the attacks in New York and Washington, Najiah continued, she had gone into a large department store in west Los Angeles to purchase some clothing. The cashier looked at her credit card and made derogatory comments, as Blum recalled her account. Afterward, she had begun to fear for her life. FBI agents had visited her at her home on September 17; she told them that she was deeply upset by the suicide attacks because “violence is not the way of Islam.”3
Najiah told Blum that she had not talked to Osama in thirty years. She could not believe a member of her family had done this.
Maybe it will turn out to be someone else who was responsible, Blum said. He mentioned how after the Oklahoma City terrorist attack in 1995, much of the initial speculation had centered on Muslim extremists, but then it had turned out to be a homegrown terrorist plot.
No, Najiah replied, this is Osama’s work.
She held a Koran. As the airplane accelerated down the runway and lifted into the air, she opened its pages and read.4
SOMEWHERE OVER ARIZONA, Blum ducked into the cockpit to speak with the pilot, who was in his late forties or early fifties. His copilot was a woman who said that she had previously flown for Southwest Airlines. The captain asked Blum who he was, who he worked for, and why he was on the flight.
Blum explained that he used to be a cop, but that he was now working as a security guard, to protect the airplane’s crew.
Why do I need security? the pilot asked. They were just picking up some college students in Florida, he said, and some other college kids in Washington, and then taking them to Boston. Then he asked: Do you have a passenger manifest?
Blum paused. He had one, but it was full of Bin Laden names—obviously, the captain had not been told. He felt it was a bad idea to lie to airplane pilots, however, particularly while they were in the air, so he handed the paper over.
“The guy turned white,” Blum recalled, “just absolutely ghost white.” He was visibly angry as he handed the manifest to his copilot. They all passed it around. Then they pulled out cigarettes and started chain-smoking. Blum found his Marlboros and joined them.
The pilot and copilot contacted their charter company and issued a series of profane complaints. The crew told Blum that, no offense, but they were a little worried about his ability to control things on his own once the rest of the Bin Ladens came aboard—should something go wrong.
“You’ve got one woman in her midforties in the center of the plane,” Blum said. There was nothing to be anxious about.
Now the flight attendants also picked up on who was on their passenger list. “They started going berserk,” Blum recalled. The attendants paced back and forth to the cockpit.
Finally they landed in Orlando. It was late afternoon East Coast time. The charter crew had decided upon their demands: because they were concerned about their safety and also felt they had been deceived, they were not going to fly any farther than Orlando unless they were each paid an additional $10,000.
Blum learned that a TV channel was reporting that a flight related to September 11—the report was sketchy about the nature of the connection—was preparing to take off from Orlando. Great, Blum thought. He started to worry about some nut turning up with a rifle to take pot shots at them on the tarmac or to try to shoot them out of the sky.
He went back out to the 727 to monitor who and what went aboard. Their flight plan was now on indefinite hold because of the crew’s demands. Three FBI agents patrolled the tarmac and the terminal.
Blum talked on his cell phone with a manager at Ryan Air: the longer we sit on the tarmac, Blum pleaded, the bigger target we become.
Blum spotted a tall man, perhaps six feet four inches tall, and handsome. He wore a thin mustache. He looked exactly like Osama Bin Laden, Blum thought, except that he wore designer sunglasses and a five-thousand- dollar Bijan suit.
Khalil Bin Laden introduced himself and apologized to Blum; he said he was sorry that Blum even had to be there.
Najiah came out and asked Khalil what the long delay was all about. Blum explained: The flight crew was not made aware of your identities. One problem, he continued, is that they are terrified to fly with you. The other is they want more money.
Give them whatever they want, Khalil said, exasperated. “Let’s just get out of here.”5
ON THE EVENING of September 13, the same day Jason Blum was first contacted about the Bin Laden flight,
