Instinct: The Man Who Stopped the 20th Hijacker

At the center of this dramatic true story is Mohammed al Kahtani, allegedly meant to serve as the 20th 9/11 hijacker, whose denial of entry to the U.S. by an Orlando customs officer may have provided just the edge that the passengers of United Flight 93 needed to overpower their captors. The questions that surround him, however, are central to the execution of the war on terror: in particular, was Kahtani a ""highly trained al-Qaeda operative"" or a ""low-level mercenary tortured by his interrogators out of frustration or pure malice?"" From the political fallout of denying foreign visitors entry to the fine line between profiling and professionalism (says one interrogation expert, ""that intuitiveness, that innate ability, that instinct... if you fine tune it, you have a very powerful person"") to the disturbing procedures at Guantanamo Bay, radio talk show host Smerconish (Muzzled: From T-Ball to Terrorism) presents the vivid narrative of United Flight 93 and the issues at hand with the skill of a seasoned reporter. Proceeds from the book support the Flight 93 National Memorial Campaign.