“Strike Two!” called out the Grizzly Bear sized police sergeant. I had responded “Jerusalem” to his question “Where do you live?” For a second time within about 20 minutes, before reacting, I paused and asked myself how necessary was it that I make my flight. I had first asked myself that question upon initially being confronted by Sergeant Grizzly. He had come up behind me and demanded to know “Why are you standing there with your hands in your pockets?” Startled, I jumped and turned around. My nose ended up about an inch from the badge on his chest. “You trying to get my name?” His tone of voice left me waiting for him to say “Boy.” The Sarge was salivating over the possibility of “restraining me” while slapping on the handcuffs. I decided not to give him the opportunity he sought and kept my mouth shut.

It was noon on the first Sunday in June. I was at Dulles Airport on my way to Tampa. The next morning I was to begin videotaping two lectures, Suicide Terrorism and Terrorist Attack Tactics and Techniques, for the S2 Safety & Intelligence Institute. Well over an hour before my flight I was in the line to go through the security check before being allowed to enter the Gate area. In my carry-on baggage I had a cardboard box containing three Israeli light switches, three 3-foot lengths of shiny double electric wire, two strips of nails, two alligator clips and a popsicle stick. I informed the first two TSA officers I saw that I was on my way to give several lectures on Terrorism for Law Enforcement personnel and had training aides in my bag. I asked that they inform whoever was sitting at the x-ray machine. One of the officers went off to do so. The other informed me, “We are professionals and do not get excited by what the x-ray machine shows.” Right, and the check is in the mail.

The TSA officer manning the x-ray machine did get excited. Her supervisor more so. Her supervisor’s (I believe) supervisor more excited yet. Either “supervision” had not been informed of my “self-disclosure,” or they did not care. They proceeded to go through my belongings with a fine tooth comb and lots of the swabs that detect explosives. I stood off to the side, hands in my pockets (less threatening, making it harder for me to touch anything coming out of my carry-on or briefcase). About 7 or 8 minutes into the TSA’s search was when Sergeant Grizzly silently stalked up behind me. I turned back around to continue watching the TSA supervisor’s white glove inspection, painstakingly examining every bit of everything of mine. That is when I realized that the Sarge had been reinforced. Three of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority Police Department’s finest yellow jersey and black shorts wearing “mounted” officers had surrounded me.

Being a 59 year-old, bespeckled, gray haired (cut short - what is left of it), slightly overweight (OK, so I have love handles), white Connecticut Nutmegger born and bred, I must have fit their terrorist profile. Or perhaps it was that the Fu Manchu moustache I had spent the past two months growing to give me the appearance of not being “the above,” actually worked. Additional blue uniformed officers appeared. One played Good Cop to the Sarge’s real, no act, Big Bad Cop.

The police began going through the contents of my briefcase and carry-on. They reviewed the loose-leaf notebook containing my Suicide Terrorism lecture. It was returned without the pages put back. But it was my reporter’s steno-pad that really made their eyes’ bulge. When they began to read it they must have thought they had captured the next incarnation of Abu Nadel-Carlos the Jackel. The notepad contains my observations of security “lapses” at airports and train stations. When traveling I write down the “deficiencies” that I notice, to be used later in my lectures and that novel I will most likely never write. One of the officers demanded to know where was my passport. I told him it was at my son's, that was where I was staying. I was flying domestic. I asked back, why should I bring my American passport?

I asked Sergeant Grizzly to pick a business card (almost all from federal agency security personnel) from those (no longer) in my briefcase and call the individual to confirm who I was and my story. “No.”

I asked Sarge if he knew of so-and-so or so-and-so or so-and-so. “No.”

An hour had expired. I was getting tired of being “the main attraction.” The inspection had turned into a major ransacking, my possessions in pieces were strewn across two tables. It was getting late. Amid the ongoing three-ring circus surrounding me I saw a glimmer of sanity. Good Cop was looking at my carry-on. I implored him to remove the book inside and look at it, in particular the last few pages. Despite his expectation that opening the book would either blow-off his fingers or contaminate him with anthrax, he did.

The look on his face said it all. He saw the back cover photograph of me in my police uniform, “in position” and knew that neither book nor photograph was a staged terrorist trick. Good Cop almost tripped over his own feet rushing around the search tables to get to Bad Cop Sergeant Grizzly. I watch the words, “he is one of us,” being mouthed. The yellow jerseys seemed to evaporate into thin air. Sarge got busy on his Blackberry. Moments later he announced that my book was real, the FBI had checked it out on the Internet and they said I could go. The Sarge, now with his ample size backside covered, left saving if the FBI did not want me he didn’t either.