What does Johnelle Bryant say about the episode? Wouldn't she be the best source for confirming or disputing Steyn's account? Has anyone even tried to follow up with her? Blogger preferred, of course.

If there is some truth to this, that assumes the entry dates were wrong, and god knows how many 10's of millions went into tracking and reconstructing the movements of the hijackers that failed to place Atta or the other hijacker in the April-May timeframe that Bryant claims.

The other thing a lot rests on is Johnelle Bryant's story that Atta totally broke cover and became A Raging Islamoid Madman dropping clues right and left of his nefarious intent. This is the same guy that lived amidst Germans for years without drawing suspicion and was described as "the quiet neighbor" while here in the US. The only story the breaks from the "nice, but women-phobic" Atta cover was his being a prick and leaving an airplane rental in the wrong place and walking away.

If the two meetings with Atta - the raving Atta and the Atta in unclever disguise - are true, and that assumes what we know of his movements is all wrong, the possibility still exists that Ms. Johnelle Bryant is a bit of a fabulist - inventing an exchange to juice up the story and give her GS-9 humdrum life some pizazzz!

No one else was in the room, no one else in her office recollects Bryant talking about the wild conversation she had, the subsequent "in disguise" visit. Brant herself has been "unavailable for interviews" since her ABC day in the sun two years ago. No co-worker will comment on her stability or reputation for veracity. Bryant has been reassigned to the Boonies.

Odds are Steyn was had.

Any doubts I had about Steyn's story have now been removed.

If it was a Cingular or T-Mobile phone (GSM) the phone could work from Prague. I've used mine in Kuwait, Bahrain, Italy and England.

Just my 2 cents.

Steyn's recounting isn't the first place I heard this story. I remember hearing it at least two years ago, and perhaps not that long after 9/11...for whatever that's worth.

Hmm...don't you think this story has a resonance? Does to me. Case closed.

Ken Hall, I too heard the story first about two years ago, but it wasn't quite as wild as the story that Steyn related. As I heard it Atta was still somewhat gynophobic but after that the stories diverged. In the story I heard he presented as straight-forward business plan to open up a crop dusting business and seemed quite rational about the whole thing. Frankly, as a civil service employee, anyone acting like he was proported to in the article would have been escorted off the premises and possibly under guard. We're not that stupid.