True Love is Death’s Sole Defeat. We will never be apart, as I hold you here inside me, in my heart forever. Until my days here are over and my time has slipped away, I will hold you to me until we are together again. I love you now, as I always have, as I did before we met.
Beloved Boy, Happy Anniversary Husband. I love you. I miss you so much. Until we are together again.
Jessie
It was bittersweet. He wasn’t physically here in Montauk, but she felt his presence. Thinking of Jerome didn’t make her cry now. It made her smile.
COUNTDOWN: 121 DAYS
December 31, 2010
Monterey, California
Leon Panetta was ready. He had put on his dark suit and polished black belt, fastened the buttons on his white shirt, and slipped on his black dress shoes. His face was shaved smooth and his hair was neatly trimmed. Perfect. Panetta was excited about this dinner party, where he and Sylvia would welcome the New Year with old friends.
It would be his last night out before heading back to Washington. Panetta had spent nearly two weeks of the holiday time at home in Monterey, California, recharging from the endless pressure and secrecy of the bin Laden operation. After his last briefing with the president, Panetta was optimistic. That day, when he returned from the briefing, he huddled with his team. Panetta reiterated what his analysts already knew: The CIA’s top priority—maybe the most important case in the spy agency’s history—was finding out who lived behind the compound’s walls. Panetta knew he’d be facing more stress, more long hours, when he returned to work.
He was seventy-two years old. Most of his friends and colleagues had retired long ago and were enjoying life, but Panetta seemed to be working harder than ever. And that was OK. His father had instilled in him a strong work ethic. This job wasn’t going to kill him. Much of his work involved reading and motivating people. But when it got too stressful, Panetta would try to find time to jump in the pool and swim laps. As a former member of Congress, he could still use the House gym.
Needless to say, Panetta was thankful for this California getaway. When he’d arrived at his childhood house deep in the Carmel Valley, he started feeling refreshed. Accompanied by Bravo, Panetta filled his days with pruning and hauling brush in the orchard. He cut firewood and trimmed the walnut trees. It was invigorating, going home, knowing where every light switch and squeaky floorboard was, caring for the trees his family had tended since 1946. The mailbox at the end of the long driveway still had “C Panetta”—for his father, Carmelo—painted in bright red letters. He’d grown up on this land, and he and his wife had raised their three sons here. His six grandchildren came to liven up the place at Christmas. The pace was a lot slower in California than in Washington, and Panetta loved that.
After leaving the Clinton administration, Panetta had thought he was done with Washington. So he and Sylvia created the Panetta Institute for Public Policy at the California State University in Monterey. He wanted to train young people in the honorable profession of public service. That’s what he was doing when President Obama called.
Obama said he needed someone with integrity to run the CIA, to restore its tarnished reputation.
Panetta said he’d take the job, even though it meant less time at the institute. He left behind the long, quiet days and evenings with family and friends, and morning hours in the orchard. Sylvia didn’t move to Washington with him. Panetta tried to fly home as often as he could, at least once a month. But the separation was difficult.
In Washington, Panetta rented an attic apartment from an old friend. It had one bedroom, a small living and dining area, and a bathroom. It was near Lincoln Park. Every day the man who ran the world’s biggest spy agency would walk Bravo in the park before returning to his digs. His apartment in the attic was good enough. He didn’t spend much time there anyway. Just about every morning, at 6:30, Panetta would jump in his car with Bravo. They wouldn’t return until late at night. The CIA was able to put special equipment in the apartment so he could make classified calls.
In Monterey, Panetta was himself. He kept a low profile and blended right in with everyone else in town, picking up milk at the grocery store or sitting in the back row during Mass at the Carmel Mission. Panetta was a devout Catholic, educated by Jesuit brothers, immersed in a gospel of justice and compassion for the poor. He had instilled that in his sons. Two became attorneys, and one a cardiologist. One had served a deployment in Afghanistan with the Navy Reserve.
As much as Panetta wanted to, he couldn’t shut out the world entirely. There were still moments when his mind drifted back to his office, the conference room, or the courtyard of the fortress in Abbottabad.
He was balancing a lot of competing interests. He had to keep Congress in the loop. At their meeting in September, Obama had sworn everyone to secrecy, forbidding anyone to mention the compound. But the bin Laden operation was costing a lot of money, and CIA funding was granted by Congress. Panetta needed to go to Capitol Hill for a “reprogramming” of funds to continue the stakeout. Just before the holiday, Panetta, without Obama’s knowledge, had briefed key congressional leaders about the operation. He promised to keep them updated and asked the leaders not to leak the information.
It was a risky move, but Panetta didn’t have a choice. During his confirmation hearing, he had given Congress his word that he’d keep them informed of CIA operations. He knew congressional leaders were entitled by law to know. Still, he knew Obama couldn’t find out he’d told them, and neither could anyone else on the bin Laden team. And now the November midterm election had put Republicans in charge of Congress, raising the stakes even higher.
When Panetta got back to Washington, he’d have to tell a small but new group of senators and congressmen why he needed extra funding. People with political agendas, people who might not feel obliged to keep a secret. Republicans had already started fighting Obama over every piece of legislation. Would one of them scuttle months of work to score some political points?
And before he left for Monterey, Panetta did one other thing without the president’s permission. He briefed the leadership of the Department of Defense. His trusted aide Morell, accompanied him when he met in private with Defense Secretary Gates; Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Marine Corps General James “Hoss” Cartwright, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs; and Michael Vickers, the undersecretary of defense for intelligence.
Panetta told them that CIA analysts believed they had found bin Laden. The purpose of the meeting was simple: Even though the president didn’t want to “read in” the military, Panetta wanted to give them a heads-up. At some point, he knew they might need the Pentagon’s help with the mission, and he didn’t want the DoD blindsided. Plus, it would be good to have early buy-in, especially from Gates. He knew Gates might have reservations about a possible attack on the compound because of his experience in a failed operation back in 1980 to rescue American hostages being held by Iran. At the time, Gates was an executive assistant to the CIA director and had been involved in the planning. And the defense secretary had never forgotten the disaster.
Panetta didn’t want to think about all that now. Tonight, he wanted to relax at The Sardine Factory, a venerable seafood and steak house on Monterey’s Cannery Row. It was a local institution, with occasional celebrity sightings and movie shoots. Clint Eastwood had filmed several scenes there for his 1971 movie Play Misty for Me.
The owner, Ted Balestreri, had been Panetta’s friend for forty years, and had recently teased him during a round of golf: “You can’t even find your golf ball. How are you going to find bin Laden?”
When the Panettas arrived, they walked down a flight of stairs and joined a table of some fifteen couples in the wine cellar. Leon felt at ease. He talked and drank and hugged friends and laughed—a laugh so big his face would crinkle up. With classical music playing in the background, Balestreri made sure everyone had far more than enough to eat. It was an endless meal, with waiters bringing
out tray after tray of food. It was exactly what Panetta needed.
After a few glasses of wine, Balestreri began bragging about the restaurant’s cellar, and a rare jewel that had fallen into his hands: a bottle of 1870 Château Lafite Rothschild.
Balestreri’s friends quizzed him on what occasion might make him uncork the $10,000 bottle. “I’m not going to open it up,” he said. But Balestreri turned to Panetta. “When Leon catches Osama bin Laden, then we’ll open that bottle.”
Sylvia glanced at her husband and saw “a certain glint in his eye.”
“You’re on,” Panetta said.
There was no more talk of bin Laden that night. The group welcomed 2011 in the accustomed way. On the ride home, Panetta smiled to himself. If everything worked out, he’d not only get rid of the world’s most wanted terrorist. He’d get to sample a really fine wine.
COUNTDOWN: 120 DAYS
January 1, 2011
Jalalabad, Afghanistan
Robert O’Neill jumped out of bed, pulled on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. He slipped his feet into flip-flops and headed to the Operations Center. It was the first morning of a new year, and O’Neill realized he was dressed for a campground resort, not a military base in the middle of an Afghanistan war zone.
So much had changed with this deployment. No more bullets whistling past his ears, no more jumping out of strike-force helicopters into the dark. O’Neill was still a Navy SEAL, but now he was management. He worked behind the battle lines, directing operations from the base in Jalalabad and keeping the top brass informed about where “high-value targets” might be.
There wasn’t much demand for spit-polished collar brass and salutes these days. O’Neill had let his beard grow, seeing as it was winter. It came in red.
Things were a little slower than usual. Fighting usually slackened in midwinter as opposing sides dug in to establish gains already made, or made plans to retake losses. This winter was no exception. Coalition troops were solidifying positions in former Taliban strongholds in the south, holding ground and working with locals.
Meanwhile intelligence showed that the Taliban continued trying to create a shadow government in parts of eastern Afghanistan.
For O’Neill, the most dangerous operation so far in this deployment had been bringing back an important insurgent who had been captured in the remote Kunar Province. O’Neill was asked to coordinate the handoff. He went along, just to be sure everything went smoothly.
Even a simple prisoner exchange was fraught with peril. As O’Neill’s van approached the designated spot for the exchange, he became concerned about a setup. Was there a suicide bomber waiting near the designated exchange site? When his van approached the other vehicle, the men transporting the prisoner looked at O’Neill and hesitated—with his long red beard, he looked more like a local than a SEAL. But O’Neill didn’t hesitate. When the vehicles stopped moving, he jumped out, grabbed the prisoner, threw him into his van, and took off.
Here at the Jalalabad base were all the comforts of home. The place had been upgraded significantly since he was there last. He now had his own dormitory room with a private bathroom and personal computer. In the past, his days had started at sundown, but now he rose at the break of dawn. He was almost safe here. Once in a while, a mortar might land inside the perimeter, but the base was so fortified that injuries were unlikely.
O’Neill’s family still worried about him. When his dad called, O’Neill couldn’t tell him much, but he tried to sound optimistic. He turned the conversation to news from home, and usually asked his father to send something he couldn’t get on base—like tins of chewing tobacco. He was just then looking out for a delivery of Velveeta cheese and Rotel salsa, to make hot nacho dip for their upcoming Super Bowl party. No one knew yet which teams would play in Super Bowl XLV on February 6, as the NFL playoffs were still going on. He knew it wouldn’t be the Washington Redskins, his favorite team. They’d had another miserable season.
This morning, like the others, O’Neill walked into the Operations Center and grabbed some espresso. He checked his emails and looked at reports from Operations. It was important to keep his commander informed of what was happening in different spots. The war was slowly moving nearer to the Pakistan border, where the Taliban and Al Qaeda were dug in.
The bad guys didn’t play by American rules. They were waging guerrilla war, crisscrossing the border without any restraints. Meanwhile, U.S. forces had to have a good reason to launch a strike inside Pakistan. It was a frustrating, sometimes infuriating game of whack-a-mole.
O’Neill didn’t hold out much hope they’d ever find bin Laden. By now, the head of Al Qaeda had become a ghost, a punchline. Sometimes when they found an insurgent, an interrogator would jokingly ask, “Where’s bin Laden?” The insurgent never knew. No one knew, right? The answer was always “You’ll never find him.” But even after all these years, bin Laden was bigger than life, the spiritual leader. As long as he might be alive, the terrorists had hope.
O’Neill read through the reports. The night had passed quietly. He debated whether to go to the gym now or later. He tried to keep his mind focused on here-and-now Jalalabad, but sometimes he thought about home, his family, the future.
He had been in the military for fifteen years. He’d decided to go for twenty, to work his way up to master chief petty officer. That would mean more money when he retired. And when he retired, what then? Where would he live? Virginia Beach? San Diego? What would he do there?
O’Neill couldn’t be a SEAL forever. He wasn’t in the same kind of danger as the previous deployments, but you never knew what might happen. The roads outside the base were sown with IEDs, and it wasn’t unusual for people to be blown up just driving out to pick up prisoners. Enemy snipers lurked in the hills overlooking the base, and now and then somebody would take a hit in the head.
How many more deployments did he have in him? How long could he keep saying goodbye to the people who loved him?
His family. His wife… sometimes her voice, a little phrase she’d said on the last phone call, would skitter across his mind. He’d shut it down instantly. In Afghanistan, he kept his personal life neatly compartmentalized. He had to get through the day. He focused on what he had to do, and he did it well.
After hours he sometimes thought about home. He let his gaze linger on the drawings and photos his kids gave him. He wondered what they’d learned in school that day, what they’d had for breakfast, if their teachers were nice. When they thought of their dad, what did they remember?
O’Neill never went too far down that road. It was too many goodbyes, he knew. One of these years his kids would be gone, grown up, and he’d have missed out on most of being their dad.
Being a SEAL wasn’t a job or a career. It was a way of life. It took over everything.
O’Neill knew he was good for maybe one more deployment. As far as Afghanistan, who knew when Americans would leave? It certainly wouldn’t be anytime soon.
For now, he was taking it one day at a time. He kept his mind off that other shit. He sighed, signed off the computer screen, and rose from his desk. The gym. A good workout would clear his head.
COUNTDOWN: 107 DAYS
January 14, 2011
Langley, Virginia
Panetta returned from his vacation just in time for the Arab Spring to break out. On a screen by his desk, he watched the celebration in the streets of Tunisia. For almost a month, protesters had called for longtime President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to step down. They’d suffered under his authoritarian rule for years, and wanted to taste freedom for themselves.
And now the old autocrat was on the run. Panetta and much of the intelligence world were stunned to learn that Ben Ali had fled Tunisia and was seeking refuge over the border in Libya.
The CIA director wondered which Middle East regime might be next in the pro-democracy sea change. His money was on Egypt, a country ruled for decades by strongman Hosni Mubarak.
Everybody loves a move
to democracy, but Panetta was worried that regime change chaos might create a power vacuum in the Middle East. The sudden loss of a longtime leader left an opening for fanatical anti-American groups to step in and take over—creating a danger to U.S. interests.
It had happened before and led to one of the greatest failures for the U.S. military. In Iran in 1979, massive protests against Shah Mohammad Reza led to his overthrow. The Shah’s repressive regime was replaced by an Islamic republic led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a fiery Islamic fundamentalist who had been expelled from Iran for speaking out against the Shah.
Khomeini’s extremist Revolutionary Guard had cracked down on anyone opposed to their strict new religious rules. The Shah, who had been suffering from cancer, fled to the United States for medical treatment. On November 4, 1979, Islamic militants stormed the U.S. embassy and took fifty-two Americans hostage. They demanded the Shah be returned to Iran to face trial for his reign of terror.
President Jimmy Carter refused. Operation Eagle Claw, a military rescue operation, was mounted to free the hostages. In April 1980, an elite team was organized to take back the embassy compound. But at a rendezvous point in the Iranian desert, a severe sandstorm caused several helicopters to malfunction, including one that veered on takeoff into a large EC-130 transport plane. Eight American servicemen were killed, and the mission was aborted. It was an international humiliation that likely cost Carter his reelection.
The hostages were finally released on January 20, 1981, a few hours after the new U.S. president, Ronald Reagan, was inaugurated. All told, they were held 444 days.
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