From the horrific image of Mohamed Atta at the controls of an American Airlines Boeing 767 as it slams into the north tower of the World Trade Center emerges a new picture: Mohamed Atta, spy.

     The hijacker known for his creepy eyes and arrogant disposition traveled extensively across America in the year leading up to Sept. 11. His movements ass up to one thing, two former CIA agents say: This trusted asset of overseas terrorists, safely ensconced in America, was casing potential targets.

     What information did he glean for his overseas handlers? The clues may be in his travels:

     Twice he is known to have examined crop-dusters in Belle Glade near Lake Okeechobee, the region's primary source of water. 

     He flew into the crowded airspace of Miami International Airport and knocked on the door of a federal flight service station in Kendall, both within a short flight of the Turkey Point nuclear reactor south of Miami. 

     He scanned the skies over Palm Beach County and even flew over the domain of the Tennessee Valley Authority, where a chemical plant and a tributary of the Tennessee River caught his eye. 

     "He was just this little bomb walking around going tick, tick, tick," said 25-year CIA veteran Fred Rustmann, who runs CTC International, a corporate intelligence business in West Palm Beach.

     "All of them were out here looking at targets. Somebody gave them a list. They were visiting these sites. They were looking at delivery systems."

     Any CIA agent stationed overseas knows the drill, said Bruce Goslin, a 14-year operative now in Miami with the risk management firm Kroll.

     "You're always looking for places you could have clandestine meetings, safe drops, all that stuff you see in the movies that spies do," Goslin said. "If your job is to go over to America and look for things you can blow up, then every day you're doing that."

     The scary part, they say, is that Atta reported to patient handlers, people known to wait years between meticulously planned attacks. Terrorists could act on his information tomorrow or two years from now.

     What Atta saw and reported can never be known for sure. FBI officials refuse to confirm or deny any reports of his movements. Instead, Atta's activities are pieced together from available witness accounts reported by the media. It is known that Atta flew solo out of Lantana twice, once keeping the plane for 4 1/2 hours, once for 90 minutes. 

     Miami and Turkey Point are about a 30-minute flight from Lantana. Florida Power & Light's St. Lucie reactor is closer. Disney World is about 75 minutes away.

     "A reactor would be very high on their list," said Rustmann, who spent his final two years with the agency as chief of counter-terrorism abroad. 

     A 1982 report recently removed from public view by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission states that a full-throttle strike by an airliner could crack the hardened concrete of a nuclear power plant, causing the release of radiation. And that says nothing of spent fuel rods, often stashed in weaker structures. 

     The NRC has heightened security at the nation's 103 power plants since Sept. 11, spokesman Victor Dricks said. 

     "We've taken every means possible to make sure the plants are safe from attack from land, sea and air," he said. No evidence exists, he said, that terrorists targeted a nuclear power plant. 

     Several nuclear plants also are in the vicinity of an Atta sighting in southeastern Tennessee, including Sequoyah, operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority.

     Junk car dealer Danny Whitener, 48, said he is positive he spoke to Atta at a tiny airstrip in Copperhill, Tenn., The Associated Press reported Oct. 18. 

     Atta refused to believe it when Whitener told him that the round steel tanks of a nearby copper processing plant, which once stored sulfuric acid, were empty. 

     "He was just persistent about the chemical company," Whitener said. "I told him the tanks were empty. He came back and said 'Don't tell me that. What about all the . . . (rail) tanker cars (surrounding the tanks)?' This guy was just arrogant."

     Atta also wanted to know about the Ocoee River, about three miles away. The Ocoee is a tributary of the Tennessee River, a major regional water source. It is dammed by the Tennessee Valley Authority, which operates a larger dam on the nearby Hiwasse River.

     If Atta did not view the chemical plant as a target, perhaps he viewed it as a base for manufacture of chemical agents, Rustmann speculated. Atta's vehemence indicates more than a casual interest in the plant, Rustmann said.

     "I think he had this on a list of places to look at," Rustmann said. "He's not suave and debonair. He's klutzy. But he was sent out to look at certain things for a reason. He was there casing the place."

     The same could be true of his visits to Miami airports and Belle Glade.

     In August, he drove to the Kendall-Tamiami Executive Airport to visit the Federal Aviation Administration's flight service station, the Miami Herald reported.

     It's not unusual for pilots to call the station for weather and flight information but a visit is odd, said Gerald Davies, owner of Chandelle Aviation in Lantana. Atta may have been examining the station's radar installations, Davies said. 

     Atta sought route information for a flight from Miami to Vero Beach, The Herald reported. 

     In December, while training as a pilot at Huffman Aviation in Venice, Atta flew into Miami International Airport but couldn't get his plane airborne again and left it on the runway, where air traffic went around it until it was towed 35 minutes later, The New York Times reported.

     Flying into Miami offers invaluable experience in flying in busy, commercial air space, Davies said. Atta's decision to abandon the plane caused ripples: The flight school banned its student pilots from flying into Miami.

     Atta's interest in crop-dusters makes more sense since the recent series of anthrax-contaminated mailings. He tried to get in the cockpit of a crop-duster, which pilots say are notoriously hard to fly, but failed.

     Still, he was sure to learn that crop-dusters, which spray liquid, would not efficiently deliver the dry anthrax bacteria.