America built a fortress after 9/11. Then the threat started hiding in plain sight

On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, Javed Ali drove past the Pentagon on his way to work in northern Virginia.

Roughly half an hour later, American Airlines Flight 77 slammed into the building.

From his office in Falls Church, Ali could see smoke rising from the Pentagon. A year later, in a turn that captured how dramatically the country had changed, he was walking into the still-damaged building himself — now working in the Defense Intelligence Agency's counterterrorism office.

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