Gary was the elder, a weather-beaten veteran in his midforties. He was six-foot-four, two hundred pounds. He was a little quiet, an observer, but when challenged, he would “make his points.” Sam was a fresh-faced younger man in his early forties, with light hair and a bright future.
The CIA was a hell of a career choice. The agency was responsible for providing national security intelligence to U.S. policymakers, and collecting information used to stop overseas threats. At the direction of the president, they also conducted missions and engaged in covert activities to help keep the nation safe from terrorist attacks. The work was high-pressure and usually thankless. Mistakes could be fatal.
The CIA was born after the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Office of Strategic Services to coordinate intelligence activities and analyze strategic information during World War II.
After the war, President Harry S Truman recognized the need for a centralized intelligence agency. The Cold War was cranking up, and the United States needed good intelligence to counter threats from the Soviet Union and China. In 1947, Truman signed legislation that created the Central Intelligence Agency. Sixty-three years later, the agency had twenty-one thousand employees and a $15 billion annual budget.
Gary could feel the history every time he walked into CIA headquarters—several buildings on a 260-acre campus in Northern Virginia, a few miles west of Washington, D.C. Even at this early hour, the Counterterrorism Center’s PAD was up and running, with about half its staff of several hundred hard at work.
His office was underground in the main building. It looked like any corporate space with cubicles and drop ceilings. His office had a long slit window that ran across the top of one wall, letting in artificial light from the common area on the other side. You could spend hours there and never know whether it was day or night.
The boss settled in, read the overnight reports from agents all over the world, and scanned his emails. His office was down the hall from Sam’s, and his deputy poked his head in to say hello once he’d read the morning’s “top material.”
Gary and Sam had what they called “a battle rhythm.” They’d check in to ensure they were on the same page, then Sam would head back to his office. He had responsibilities within Gary’s department, but he also had higher-level analytical work and managed other people and missions.
Gary was a “repeat offender,” a guy who stayed long-term on particular projects. Most CIA assignments lasted two years, and those who wanted to advance in the agency moved on to other areas. But Gary wasn’t looking to jump around. He had a good, secure position as part of the war on Al Qaeda, a mission where institutional knowledge was vital. He and Sam were in this for the long haul, organizing the strategic and tactical war on Al Qaeda leadership. They were keen on getting bin Laden, but until recently the bulk of their work had focused on his lieutenants. Lower-level leadership was more tactical, and drove the daily, weekly, and monthly cycle of attacks in the Middle East.
The CIA prosecuted an invisible war against Al Qaeda, on several fronts. While they handled different aspects of that war, Gary and Sam needed each other. They worked together to get the information. Teamwork was key. All intel was shared. With the CIA relying heavily on covert action—lethal drone strikes, Special Forces raids—the right intel meant they could hit any target in any part of the world at any time.
Things had changed profoundly since the time when Gary was bounced from Iraq. When he’d returned to headquarters in 2004, he thought his career was over. He got “a real unpleasant set of reviews and evaluations,” but Gary dusted himself off and moved forward.
When he watched 9/11 unfold on television, Gary promised himself he would not leave the CIA until Al Qaeda was defeated, until the United States had “completely decapitated its leadership.” He wanted to make sure they were never able to launch another attack against the United States. Gary toiled in relative obscurity, tracking down leads as he tried to fulfill his promise. And then, in 2009, after Obama was inaugurated, Osama bin Laden became a top priority again. Gary’s work situation suddenly improved.
When he met Panetta, he felt energized. The new director was a savvy leader who wanted to meet regularly with everyone. Panetta wasn’t a spook. He hadn’t had experience with the CIA before he was appointed by Obama. But Panetta understood how the Washington bureaucracy worked—what he could do and how he could do it. He was well connected and well liked. If Gary’s people came up with the leads, Panetta could make things happen.
Then, when the puzzle pieces joined up and the courier led them to the compound in Abbottabad, Gary and Sam knew it was time to tell Panetta the news. They didn’t exaggerate the importance of the lead. If anyone was skeptical about the compound, Gary was. But it was also “painfully clear that this lead might be significant.”
And Panetta got it. Gary knew just where the director would go with the information. “Get ready,” Panetta told them. After they briefed Obama, the president told them to step it up, to find out who lived in the compound.
Now Gary was working even harder and pushing others in his department to do the same, and it was becoming a bigger deal. Forget about any semblance of family life. Up and out at 5:30 a.m., and home and asleep after 9 p.m. He spent part of his weekends catching up with his work. And now, with Panetta’s constant pressure, the pace was picking up even more. How long could he and the others keep this up? He didn’t know. He only knew they were too close to worry about that now.
COUNTDOWN: 179 DAYS
November 3, 2010
Abbottabad, Pakistan
Dr. Shakil Afridi watched the wiry little man close the door behind him and walk calmly out the front gate. The man was a CIA agent. Right here in the clinic.
Unlike many Pakistanis, Dr. Afridi believed the United States was an ally, doing the right things to help his country through a dark, violent period. Now the Americans wanted to make him wealthy, very fast. And all he had to do was the right thing. He’d be paid thousands just for setting up a hepatitis vaccination program in Abbottabad.
Afridi had run several such programs in the past. It wouldn’t be hard. And it was a handsome offer. What the CIA was asking, among all the hundreds of other shots he’d administer, was try to vaccinate the people living in one particular house in the city. The agent said he’d give him details once the doctor decided to come on board.
Afridi sat quietly and calmed his mind.
This was not a simple decision. Working with a foreign agency like the CIA could spell trouble. If Pakistan’s notorious Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) found out, his life would be in jeopardy. There were plenty of risks, and a long list of unanswered questions. He’d told the agent he needed some time to think about it.
Afridi had a lot to lose. He’d worked hard to become a doctor. A well-respected surgeon, he had just arrived in Abbottabad. The agency had chosen him because of his reputation, the man had said. Charity workers had told the CIA how Afridi had been helping the poor for several years, treating many who had no access to health care.
The doctor was no fool. He knew they were buttering him up, that there had to be more to all this. An entire vaccination clinic program, just to reach the people in one house? Who were they? This was all too sketchy. But it had to be very important, to go to all this trouble.
It would have to be completely secret. He couldn’t tell his wife, brother, no one. His wife was a teacher. They had three young children. What would happen to them if the government found out? The doctor had worked so hard to lift himself out of poverty, to become a professional. Was this opportunity worth risking it all?
Afridi was from a tribal area of Khyber, a part of Pakistan near the Afghanistan border notorious for centuries as a smuggling route. During the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the mujahideen had set up a forward operating base in the region. Khyber was also the heroin capital of Pakistan. The mujahideen operated labs to refine the opium poppie
s that grew in Afghan fields. They used the drug profits to fund their wars.
Dr. Shakil Afridi.
After 9/11, when the United States invaded Afghanistan, many Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters moved to Khyber. Miles of landscape had been scarred from years of U.S. military drone attacks as well as Pakistani anti-insurgent operations.
Afridi grew up amid the suffering and destruction of war. He decided to become a doctor like those who patched up the bloodied fighters in his street. Very few people from his poor rural area got an education, let alone went to medical school.
But Afridi beat the odds. With endless support from his family, he graduated from Khyber Medical College in 1990 with a specialization in general surgery. His practice grew, and eventually he was appointed chief surgeon at Jamrud Hospital. It was there he joined in vaccination programs sponsored by foreign charities that hoped to cure polio in Pakistan.
The campaigns made a genuine difference in the Khyber Agency district. Aid packages from NGOs like Save the Children continued to arrive at his clinic. It was no surprise the network of foreign spies kept an eye on the people involved in multinational aid programs.
Afridi didn’t know it, but he was part of an elaborate plan to identify Osama bin Laden. The CIA hoped that a vaccination drive in Abbottabad could somehow get Afridi or another health professional inside the compound, where they could obtain DNA from the people who lived there. The agency had DNA from bin Laden’s sister, who had died in a Boston hospital earlier in 2010. If DNA samples from inside the compound matched bin Laden’s sister—case closed. Their target was in the house. Then they could start planning their next step.
They didn’t tell that to Afridi. They only said they’d pay him to set up a vaccination program. CIA operators had to make sure they could trust him first.
Working inside Pakistan was treacherous business. Pakistani leaders had been insisting for years that bin Laden had died during his escape from Afghanistan. If he wasn’t dead, he was probably hiding in the mountains in eastern Afghanistan. When it came to terrorism, Pakistan cooperated with the United States, and the government received billions in American aid in exchange. Pakistan was a vital U.S. supply route to the front in Afghanistan. But it was no secret that factions within the Pakistani military and its dreaded intelligence service maintained ties with the Taliban, maybe even Al Qaeda. That rubbed Afridi the wrong way. He’d seen the pain the Taliban and Al Qaeda had caused his people.
Something else niggled at Afridi’s mind. The agent had mentioned a house in Abbottabad. Why did they want to target someone in particular? Why did they have to go undercover? What were they trying to accomplish?
His head was spinning. Were they looking for someone in the military? The prestigious Pakistan Military Academy was there in the city. Only a thousand students were admitted to the school each year, the best and the brightest.
But Abbottabad was more than a military town. It was a summer resort for the elite, with sparkling air, miles of forest, and the Himalaya Mountains as a backdrop. It wasn’t a cheap place to live. Whoever was in that house had to have money. That made Afridi even more nervous.
He sighed and stood. He shut off the lights, locked up, and headed for his car. He’d have to make a decision soon. He wanted to sleep on it.
COUNTDOWN: 177 DAYS
November 5, 2010
Langley, Virginia
Leon Panetta was furious. The people around the table tried not to flinch as he barked. For almost two months, Panetta had been encouraging, cajoling, pushing his analysts to work harder and smarter, to come up with new ideas to somehow identify the people living behind the compound’s walls. The agency had plenty of work all around the world, but Panetta was focused like a laser on this one objective.
“We’re the CIA, for God’s sake! The world’s top intelligence agency. Hollywood makes spy thrillers about us.” He hammered at the tabletop. “But now we can’t figure out who’s inside a house a half mile from the Pakistani Military Academy?”
Property records? Deliverymen? Doctors? This wasn’t some isolated spot. The compound stood in a busy city of two hundred thousand people. There were stores and marketplaces everywhere, perfect spots to collect information. People loved to talk about their neighbors.
“Dig deeper, people!” he growled.
Panetta was usually charming and diplomatic, especially when he was glad-handing politicians on Capitol Hill. He rarely lost his temper. But when he did, he said exactly what was on his mind—and the counterterrorism experts today were getting both barrels.
“This is the top priority of the CIA,” he said. “Don’t worry about budgets. Just figure out who this guy is.”
The meeting had started out calmly enough. Panetta had entered the room feeling optimistic, expecting a few new bits of intelligence from the group. Ever since the president was informed about the “fortress,” a small team of CIA analysts and field operatives had been working endlessly. Agents snooped quietly around the city. They staked out the street long enough to develop a roster of who went in and out of the house, their habits, where they bought flour and olive oil and lightbulbs. They analyzed surveillance and satellite photos. They knew that al-Kuwaiti lived inside the guesthouse, and his brother Abrar lived in the main house, along with their families.
The scrutiny yielded up a significant discovery: the third family—including a man, a woman, and a teenage boy—lived upstairs in the main building. Almost every day, the man emerged from the house and strolled the courtyard for an hour or two. He walked back and forth, day after day, moving around the compound like an inmate in a prison yard. The analysts dubbed him “The Pacer.”
Compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
But the satellite imagery could never provide a clear view of the man’s face, so he couldn’t be identified. Panetta suggested sending in a “human spy,” or moving in closer with electronic devices. The operators said that was impossible, unsafe, unworkable. The last thing they needed was to blow their cover.
As time passed, The Pacer started driving Panetta crazy. Was that bin Laden, walking up and down? A decoy? Was this another setup?
Over the following weeks, they examined every angle, high and low. Osama bin Laden was at least six-foot-four. At a distance, The Pacer seemed to have the gait of a tall man. Panetta had brought in expert satellite-image analysts to nail down The Pacer’s height. But that was a bust. The test results determined the man was somewhere “between 5-foot-8 and 6-foot-8.”
Panetta asked Gary to find a way to get a camera close to the compound: “Do whatever the hell you have to do.” But Gary said it was too risky.
He suggested sending in a team at night to plant cameras in the trees overhanging a section of the yard where The Pacer exercised. Panetta knew it was risky, but how else were they going to get a look at the man’s face?
“You know, I’ve seen movies where the CIA can do this,” Panetta said.
But Gary reminded him this wasn’t a Hollywood blockbuster. Their cameras didn’t have enough battery life to make it feasible. Besides, the trees were deciduous, meaning the leaves would fall off in the winter, exposing the cameras. (Apparently, someone in the compound thought the trees were a security risk, too. A newer satellite image showed they had been cut down.)
“Can we tap into the sewage pipes leading from the compound and do DNA testing on the outflow?” Panetta asked.
That was quickly ruled out. Panetta continued for weeks positing every kind of idea. And Gary, the practical, detail-oriented veteran who headed up the team, almost always delivered the disappointing “why nots.” It seemed to the chief he expended more energy shooting down ideas than finding ways to make them work.
Gary had tried every trick possible without jeopardizing his people on the ground. This wasn’t his first surveillance. He had been around for a while. Gary had seen his share of “tough, tough spots.”
He had served several overseas stints. As head of the Counterterrorism Center’s PAD,
he knew the Islamic world as well as anyone. He and Sam had pushed their team ceaselessly for more and better information. They had done everything they could think of, Gary told Panetta that morning.
The boss hit the ceiling. “Have you people used all the tools in the toolbox?” he said, looking right at Gary.
Gary was quiet, frustrated in part by Panetta’s “inability” to understand that intel work didn’t follow timelines. He knew that Panetta was new, so he hadn’t seen the whole movie. He hadn’t seen the pace with which a case moves. In Gary’s mind, Panetta didn’t have a good feel for the luck factor and how that turns a surveillance around. And Gary knew one other thing: Panetta wasn’t a passive guy. No, he had ideas and spit them out: “Why don’t you try this?” “Why don’t you try that?” But when Gary explained why they wouldn’t work, Panetta would get angry and run hot. Gary knew Panetta viewed the analysts and case officers as “static and inflexible,” not ready to embrace his ideas, and not aggressive enough in generating their own.
Gary was reading his boss right. While Panetta respected Gary, he thought perhaps he was burning out. Gary was an operator, a collector of information. He seemed more oriented to tactics than strategy.
Panetta had seen more of Sam since he took over the agency—they’d consulted on the drone program and a few other issues. In Panetta’s mind, Sam was the officer who put the whole picture together. Maybe it was time for a change.
For now, Panetta could see his anger wasn’t getting him anywhere. Before adjourning the session, he told the team they’d better bring ten new ideas to the next meeting—or else.
The team left the room in silence.
When they were gone, Panetta turned to Morell and Jeremy Bash and expressed his frustration.
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