Except that the FBI airport job is relatively new. It was created just last year, nine years after 9/11.
The agent still doesn't have a computer on his desk. He carries a BlackBerry, but because the FBI is still working to burglar-proof his office, he must return downtown to view top-secret material.
Kirk's posting at the airport provides a window into the FBI's evolving counterterrorism strategy at the local level - an intelligence-driven structure that is expected to continue to grow.
George Venizelos - the special agent in charge of the Philadelphia office; last year he supervised the FBI manhunt that caught the failed Times Square bomber in New York - said Osama bin Laden's death has forced Americans to reflect on 9/11 and recall "how real terrorism is and how dangerous it is."
On Friday, al-Qaeda issued an ominous statement: "We will remain, God willing, a curse chasing the Americans and their agents, following them outside and inside their countries. Soon, God willing, their happiness will turn to sadness. Their blood will be mingled with their tears."
The statement didn't surprise counterterrorism agents here. "Just because we got the bogeyman doesn't mean our mission will change," one said.
In Philadelphia, counterterrorism agents have scored three high-profile successes since 9/11: the busts of the homegrown terrorist known as "Jihad Jane," the five men convicted of plotting an attack on Fort Dix, and the 26 men charged in a Hezbollah gun-running and Stinger missile case.
Local agents have also played minor roles in the attempted al-Qaeda attack on cargo planes, including two that landed at the airport here, and the case of heroin dealer and DEA informant David Headley, a former Philadelphian implicated in the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India.
