The Hunt For The Anthrax Killers

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"When you shake it up, it's fluffy," Patrick says. "It forms a little aerosol in whatever container it's in." That's unnerving because it means the spores will float on even imperceptible air currents--those caused, for example, by air whooshing out of envelopes as they churn through mail sorters. One of the many daunting questions is how much more stock the culprit possesses. The experts are not reassuring on that point. "I think it's prudent to prepare for a mass-casualty event," says Raymond Zilinskas, a former U.N. bioweapons inspector in Iraq.

If an additive was indeed used on the spores, it may tell us more. Then again, it may not. "It's not going to be a smoking gun," warns Richard Spertzel, who also got a firsthand look at the Iraqi stockpile as a U.N. inspector. Even if we can trace a spore to a particular country's stock, it doesn't mean that country sponsored the attack. And anyway, most additives are not specific to a country these days; recipes for their use are available on the Internet.

Meanwhile, behaviorists and handwriting experts have been scrutinizing the letters for clues. They have come as close to consensus as a roomful of psychics would. Some experts say the lettering and word choice suggest a domestic terrorist who is trying to mislead investigators by threatening "Death to America." FBI officials lean in this direction, though they have not yet had any luck comparing the letters with archived threats sent to American abortion clinics and other targets.

Others say the opposite. "The syntax and vocabulary suggests someone who is not proficient in English," says Don Foster, the professor who outed author Joe Klein by analyzing the text of his anonymous Primary Colors. "For example: 'This is next/ take penacilin [sic] now,' instead of something more idiomatic like, 'We're only getting started; time to take your penicillin.'"

Every expert has a pet theory about whether the anthrax could be related to Sept. 11 events. There are wisps of clues that suggest a connection. A Turkish man with a radical past arrested in a German airport on Oct. 17 had a biohazard suit in his luggage. Mohamed Atta, a suspected ringleader of the hijackings, had inquired about crop dusters in Florida. He also met with an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague last spring. But another school of thought holds that the anthrax notes do not fit the al-Qaeda profile: simply put, not enough people have died. "I wouldn't call this an attack," says Jason Pate, manager of the Monterey Institute of International Studies' weapons of mass destruction terrorism project. "I'd call it harassment."

Together, Ken Alibek, who was a key figure in the Soviet bioweapons program until he defected in 1992, and Patrick, his U.S. counterpart, probably know more about weaponized anthrax than most scientists in the nation. But neither has been consulted to help with the investigation. Both criticize the government for holding back so much information and issuing many contradictory statements. "We're the only ones who have worked with this stuff and made it, milled it, aerosolized it and measured its properties," says Patrick. "Who the hell in the FBI has ever seen weapons-grade anthrax powder? They, as well as the doctors at the CDC, know nothing about the behavior of the spore in aerosol, and this is the secret to the whole shooting match. I can see where the public would be thoroughly confused."

Often the hardest part about managing crises is the problems that existed before. They persist and usually get worse. Before Sept. 11, the FBI's notorious lineup of recent blunders--involving espionage suspect Wen Ho Lee, Russian spy Robert Hanssen, Waco and Ruby Ridge--bespoke an agency culture that was seriously troubled. The 17 years it took the bureau to catch the Unabomber didn't inspire confidence either.

Meanwhile, in the population at large, the vengeful and neurotic have not magically been reformed. Law-enforcement agents have turned into butlers for a public that, unlike its leaders, has no shortage of imagination. Samples of dirt, detergent and sugar are clogging Fort Detrick and the few other labs that can test for anthrax. An oozing Albuquerque package is found to contain homemade tamales. White powder that brings to a halt a Little Rock, Ark., rally for drug-free schools turns out to be powdered sugar from a funnel cake.