Who Financed 9/11? (page 7 of 7)

"Patriots First"

One of Motley's chief international investigators, a French intelligence expert named Jean-Charles Brisard, was the man who connected Al Qaeda to the Spanish train bombings. Others on the team include D.C. policy insiders like Allan Gerson (among the first to file a civil suit against Libya in the bombing of Pan Am 103), international investigators, accountants, translators, and Internet wunderkinds. It's almost as though -- in pursuing justice for the Burnett family and the thousands of other claimants (mostly family members of those who died in the September 11 attacks) who have joined their suit -- Motley has set up a small international entity of his own.

The team has already collected some two million documents, pieces of evidence and clues they hope will trace the movement of money from well-protected Middle Eastern individuals and institutions into the hands of killers. Some documents include Al Qaeda formation plans and a fund-raising scheme.

Fond of saying, "Our clients are patriots first," Motley has made this massive database available to the FBI, other branches of the Justice Department and state prosecutors. With all the legal technicalities and millions of pieces of evidence involved in the suit, which seeks $1 trillion in damages, Motley calls it "a labyrinth of caves. Sometimes I feel like I have a coal miner's helmet on and I have to find my way out."

When asked if the events of that day altered his thoughts about the meaning of human life, Tom Burnett's friend Keith Grossman says, "I believe, and I think Tom believed, that there is a purpose to our lives. I look at Tom's life and I believe people are often placed in certain situations for a reason, and I think that Tom -- and others -- were probably meant to be on that plane. Tom grappled with his calling. He loved business, but I think he felt that his calling was something greater. We used to talk a lot about that. He was struggling with a higher, different purpose for his life. I think he found it."

Perhaps the world is ordered that way, and tragic events have a secret meaning we can sense but not grasp. Near the end of that first phone conversation Motley had with Tom and Beverly Burnett, he was kind enough to give them his private phone number, suggesting they call him at any time. The number cannot be revealed in full here, but a year later, when the Burnetts sold the house where they had raised their son, a house full of the sweetest and most tragic memories, and moved to a condominium half an hour away, the new phone number they were assigned, randomly, also included those same numbers in the same order. The numbers were 911.

From Reader's Digest - October 2005

 

• • Sept. 11

• Lauren Manning World Trade Center Survivor
• Badly burned in the World Trade Center, Lauren Manning had the will to live.
• 
• Lauren Manning 5 Years After September 11
• "I'm moving forward."
• 
• Meet the Heroes of September 11
• "Our lives have changed forever."
• 
• Rudy Giuliani: The Leader
• New York City's mayor Rudy Giuliani: "Courage is about managing fear."
• 
• Rudy Giuliani: Guts, Grace and Glory
• In the grim days after September 11, New York's mayor, Rudy Giuliani, kept hearing his father's words: "Courage is doing what you have to do even though you are afraid."
• 
• Rudy Giuliani Gives Away a Special Bride
• Five days after 9/11, Mayor Rudy Giuliani escorts the sister of a fallen firefighter down the aisle.
• 
• Nicolas Cage Star of World Trade Center
• Nicolas Cage takes on his roles with the same intensity he brings to his own life.
• 

• Be Inspired
• 10 Celebrities Who Give Back
• 7 Amazing Stories, $700,000 to Charity
• Virginia Cervasio: Making It Matter
• PLUS:
• Quiz: What's Your Celebrity Cause IQ?