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Hijackers' final days: From poetry to the prosaic

A security camera took this image of hijackers Mohammed Atta and Abdulaziz Alomari at the Portland, Maine airport the morning of the attacks.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Just before boarding one of the planes that was flown into the World Trade Center, September 11 hijacker Waleed Alshehri left behind a poem.

Discovered by investigators in his rental car at Logan International Airport in Boston, Massachusetts, the poem speaks of traveling into the "face of death with our heads held high."

Alshehri is one of the hijackers whom authorities suspect crashed American Airlines Flight 11 into the World Trade Center. A former FBI special agent said the poem was an attempt to give Americans a better understanding of the attackers' mission.

"It wasn't left for his family," said retired FBI Special Agent Danny Defenbaugh. "It was left for Americans to know the type of dedication and what they have in their soul."

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Authorities have tracked the last days of some of the September 11 hijackers through reports from people they encountered and the clues they left behind -- perhaps intentionally -- before boarding the four planes that killed more than 3,000 people.

'This is a war for them'

Another hijacker -- Ziad Samir Jarrah -- kept his cool when he was pulled over by police for speeding as he headed to Newark, New Jersey, two days before September 11. Jarrah helped hijack United Flight 93, which originated in Newark, New Jersey, and crashed in rural Pennsylvania after passengers apparently struggled with hijackers to take back the plane.

September 11 hijacker Ziad S. Jarrah was stopped for speeding shortly after midnight on September 9.

"This is a war for them," Defenbaugh said of the hijackers. "It's not just from their mind and their heart. This is in their soul."

When hijacker Marwan Al-Shehhi checked out of his Deerfield Beach, Florida, motel, he left behind 757 flight manuals, a book on martial arts and aviation maps of the U.S. East Coast.

Rental car dealer Brad Warrick recalled Al-Shehhi and his partner, suspected ringleader Mohamed Atta, reminding him that their auto was due for an oil change.

Atta, investigators said, flew from Florida to Baltimore, Maryland, where he met a final time with Al-Shehhi the day before they launched their attacks. Both were aboard American Airlines Flight 11, which was the first plane to hit the World Trade Center.

EXTRA INFORMATION Gallery: The hijackers

Outside Baltimore, in Laurel, Maryland, some of the terrorists who would commandeer American Airlines Flight 77 out of Washington's Dulles International Airport stayed at the Pin Del Motel.

The FBI suspects Atta may have had a final meeting with at least some of the hijackers during his Maryland stop. Officials said he made two wire cash transfers from grocery stores near the Pin Del Motel.

Atta and hijacker Abdulaziz Alomari then drove to Portland, Maine, while at least two other hijackers checked into a motel near the airport in Newark, the point of origin of Flight 93.

Preparing for the afterlife?

During those final 48 hours, Atta wired $7,800 overseas. Al-Shehhi transferred $5,400 from a Boston bus terminal. Alshehri wired $5,000. All money was transferred to locations in the United Arab Emirates.

A page from the letter the FBI says belonged to three of the suspected hijackers.

"Why would anyone want to leave [the money] in a country that they hate for someone else to be able to use it?" Defenbaugh said. "Why not give it back so that it could be used again for the cause?"

The night before the hijackings, Atta and Alomari were photographed at an automatic bank teller machine, a gas station and a Wal-Mart.

Cleaning women at their hotel reported that the two men slept on top of their sheets, sources said. Maids found their bathroom floor "full of body hair and water," indicating, investigators said, that the men had shaved their body hair.

Defenbaugh said, "They many times will ... shave so they will have the smoothness to be able to pass on into the afterlife."

Atta left behind in his car handwritten rules of engagement: "Be calm" and "You are carrying out an action God loves."

The same rules also were found in another hijacker's car at Dulles airport in Washington and at the Pennsylvania crash site of Flight 93.

Atta received a final message after taking off aboard Flight 11. Records indicate that Atta's cellular phone had a call from a pay phone at Boston's Logan airport, where Al-Shehhi was about to board United Flight 175 and follow Atta's plane on a treacherous trajectory to the World Trade Center.