Several weeks after 9/11, the senior FBI agent in Harrisburg, George Venizelos, received an alarming tip: A terrorist planned to ride an Amtrak train from Philadelphia to the state capital, carrying an atomic bomb.
In response, Amtrak closed the rail line and began searching. Venizelos soon received another surprising call, this time from FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III.
Mueller wasted no time. “What’s the story?” he asked.
Amtrak had not found anything yet, Venizelos recalled telling Mueller, but he promised to call back. Venizelos dug deeper and quickly concluded that the tip, like most cases pursued in the fall of 2001, was spurious, based on a vague call to a U.S. embassy overseas.
For Venizelos, who became special agent in charge of the FBI’s Philadelphia Division late last year, the incident marked the beginning of his 10-year relationship with Mueller and his involvement with terror cases, imagined and real.
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