We begin in New York in November 1990 when an extremist rabbi, Meir Kahane, is gunned down in a midtown Manhattan hotel ballroom by El Sayyid Nosair, an Egyptian-born American citizen. Agents discover a Brooklyn-based terrorist cell with connections to Osama bin Laden. Egyptian immigrant Emad Salem is recruited by the FBI to go undercover and expose the cell before members execute an attack. However, in 1993 a group of cell members, including Ramzi Yousef, successfully set off a bomb in the World Trade Center killing six people and wounding dozens. Another plot to blow up five New York City landmarks is foiled with the help of Salem. Yousef, who fled to the Philippines after the World Trade Center attack, begins formulating the Bojinka plot, a plan to bomb 11 airlines. In New York, investigators learn that Yousef's uncle helped to finance the attacks; his name is Khalid Sheik Mohammad, the future mastermind of the 9/11 plot.