Lost Light

wear.
    “This is a significant arrest,” said Abraham Klein, an assistant U.S. attorney in the Los Angeles anti-terrorism unit. “Our efforts around the world have been geared toward cutting off funding for terrorists. This suspected terrorist is believed to be a person intimately involved in financing terrorist activities here and abroad.”
    Klein and other sources said Aziz could be a key figure in efforts to stop the movement of money-the lifeblood of long-term terrorism activity-to those targeting American interests.
    “Not only did we take away a good chunk of cash with this arrest but, perhaps more importantly, we took a person who was in the business of delivering money to terrorists out of circulation,” said a Justice source who spoke on the condition he would not be identified.
    Aziz is a Jordanian national who attended high school in Cleveland, Ohio, and speaks fluent English, the Justice source said. He had a passport and an Alabama driver’s license in his possession that both identified him as Frank Aiello.
    Aziz’s name was placed on an FBI watch list four years ago after information was developed that connected him to money deliveries made to terrorists involved in the bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa. Aziz was nicknamed “Mouse” by federal agents because of his small stature, ability to stay hidden from authorities in recent months and the difficulty agents had in pronouncing his first name.
    After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, a higher alert status was issued in regard to Aziz, though sources said there was no evidence directly linking Aziz to the 19 terrorists who carried out those suicide attacks.
    “This guy is a money man,” the Justice source said. “His job is to move money from point A to point B. The money is then used to buy materials to make bombs and weapons, to support the lifestyles of terrorists while they plan and carry out their operations.”
    It was unclear why Aziz was apparently attempting to take U.S. currency out of the country.
    “The U.S. dollar is good anywhere,” Klein said. “In fact, it is stronger than the currency in most of the countries where these terrorist cells exist. The U.S. dollar goes a lot further. It could be that this suspect was taking the money to the Philippines to simply help pay for an operation.”
    Klein also suggested that money could have been headed for terrorists planning to infiltrate the United States.
    Klein refused to say how much money Aziz was transporting or where it came from. In recent months federal investigators have suggested that a large source of financing of terrorists has come from illegal activities within the United States. For example, the FBI linked an Arizona drug operation last year to a terrorist financing network.
    Federal sources also told the Times last year that it was believed that desolate areas of Mexico might be the location of terrorist training camps linked to Al Qaeda. Klein refused to comment yesterday on the possibility that Aziz might have been headed to such a camp.

    I sat there staring at the screen for a long moment, wondering if I had just stumbled onto something more significant than a way to take a jab at the feds. I wondered if what I had just read could in some way be connected to my own investigation. Could the agents on the ninth floor in Westwood have connected the movie money to this terrorist?
    My thoughts were broken by a loudspeaker announcement that the library was closing in fifteen minutes. I clicked on the PRINT button for the story and went back to the story list. I scrolled through the headlines, looking for follow-ups to the Aziz arrest. I found only one, which was published two days after the first story. I called it up and found it to be only a short. It said that an arraignment for Aziz was postponed indefinitely while he was continuing to be debriefed by federal agents. The tone of the article indicated that Aziz was cooperating with investigators, though it did not specifically or clearly say that. The story said that changes in federal laws enacted after the September 11 attacks gave federal authorities wide leeway in holding suspected terrorists as enemy combatants. The rest of the story was background information already contained in the first story.
    I went back to the list and continued to scroll through the headlines. It took nearly ten minutes but I never found another story about Mousouwa Aziz.
    The loudspeaker announced that the library