In The Rebellion Within (published in the June 2, 2008 issue of The New Yorker), Lawrence Wright describes the known life of Sayyed Imam Al-Sharif—known in some circles of the extremely secretive jihadist underground as Dr. Fadl.

Fadl, an extremely gifted Islamic scholar, met Ayman al-Zawahiri in 1977 while both were attending medical school in Cairo. Within a decade he found himself at the ground floor of the Jihad movement. As a matter of fact, he literally wrote the book on the subject.

Two of Fadl’s texts, The Essential Guide for Preparation and The Compendium of the Pursuit of Divine Knowledge, became (and probably remain) cornerstones of the training and indoctrination of Al Qaeda recruits in the power vacuum of post-Soviet Afghanistan.

Much happened in the following decade. On the sprawling list of Topics Most Americans Ought to Familiarize Themselves With, 1990s-era Afghanistan is certainly near the top. The meteoric rise of the Taliban and the fast polarization of Islamic politics, I should not need to remind you, remain era-defining issues.

But there are lengthy books for that, written by people with so much storytelling ability that I, in comparison, look like a kid scribbling with crayons. I recommend going all-out with Steve Coll’s excellent Ghost Wars.

Anyway, here’s how Fadl ended up¹: In October 2001—seven years after he cut ties with his extremist past and took up supposedly earnest work as a surgeon—was arrested by Yemeni secret police and thrown into an Egyptian prison with a life sentence. Since then, he’s mellowed out, renounced violence and become a vocal opponent of Al Qaeda.

If you’ve got an hour to kill, it’s a great read.

1. Bury leads, much? Why yes. Yes I do. [↑]

The sun-drenched apartment, perched high in a Midtown Manhattan building looking down on the famed restaurant Le Cirque, is as luxurious as one would expect for space that cost $10.4 million. Lined with floor-to-ceiling glass, the living room features low divans wrapped in rich golden fabric. On the vast outdoor deck, as big as many apartments, the views stretch north and east, all the way across Long Island Sound toward Connecticut.

Yet even a casual visitor would notice that something is amiss. Dozens of bare hooks line the white walls; all the paintings are gone. Boxes of paperwork litter the floors. In the kitchen, the knives are missing. Bags of trash overflow. The dining-room table is strewn with containers of half-eaten Chinese food. In an adjacent nook, an older man slumps on a sofa watching CNN on a wall-mounted flat-screen television. Unpaid bills are piling up. As nice as this apartment once was, it now feels like a $10 million dorm room.

That’s because it’s a jail. Sort of. On the orders of a federal judge, its owner is living here under house arrest. That man watching CNN? He’s a retired F.B.I. agent, one of several who rotate through all week long. One morning I arrive after 11. The owner, the man the security guards are watching, is just getting out of bed.

His name is Marc Dreier, he is 59 years old, and his life is over. A smallish, tightly wound man with red, stubbled cheeks and a silvery pompadour, Dreier was once a hotshot New York litigator with multi-millionaire clients. Then he stole $380 million from a bunch of hedge funds, got caught, and was arrested in Toronto under bizarre circumstances, having attempted to impersonate a Canadian pension-fund lawyer as part of a scheme to sell bogus securities to the big American hedge fund Fortress Investment Group. Now, as he wanders into the living room rubbing sleep from his eyes, Dreier is waiting for the judge to tell him just how many years he will spend in prison.

As part of a collaboration with 60 Minutes, Vanity Fair‘s Bryan Burroughs recently sat down to talk with Marc Dreier—the guy behind a four-year, $380 million Ponzi scheme discovered at the end of 2008. Dreier was fortunate (??) enough to get caught just days before Bernie Madoff’s infinitely more extensive heist was brought to light. Needless to say, everybody but the justice department forgot who Dreier was overnight.

Which is a shame. Because not only is Dreier an extremely guilty man, but he’s a vastly compelling character—the sort of guy who admits that the main impetus behind his thieving nature is his constant yearnings for a newer beach house.

Oh yeah. And there’s the really interesting part, as detailed in the first paragraph of the blockquote above: Dreier was arrested in Toronto after trying (and failing spectacularly) to impersonate a Canadian lawyer at a meeting with the head of American hedge fund Fortress Investment Group.

Got an hour to kill?