The Triple Agent

Near the Pakistani town of Miranshah, two of the agency’s drones had been monitoring the same mud-brick building for hours, watching for any sign of movement. The man inside was believed to be Sheikh Saeed al-Masri, but the truth was, the agency was less than sure. Earlier in the spring the CIA’s targeters had come close, but the sheikh slipped away before the Predators were in place. This time a tip led the agency to a cluster of buildings a few miles northwest of Miranshah. The structures were watched for days as counterterrorism officers narrowed down where precisely al-Masri was staying and who else shared the space with him.

The CIA did know that there were noncombatants in the compound, because at least two women and several children had been seen entering. The risks were grave this time, but the potential prize was huge: al-Qaeda’s No. 3 commander, on this day of all days.

If it was really him.

The service ended with no further word from Pakistan. Panetta paid his respects to Hanson’s family, and the CIA director’s black car pulled out of the cemetery and headed north, away from Washington and toward Baltimore. Panetta had an appointment at the National Security Agency, the government’s electronic eavesdropping service, and the hunt for al-Masri would follow him there.

Panetta had scarcely arrived at the NSA building when he was summoned to one of the agency’s secure phones. The CIA’s counterterrorism chief had fresh news, not all of it good.

“We think we’ve got this guy, but there may be some collateral damage,” the chief was saying, referring to the women and children believed to be in the building the agency’s drones were watching.

Panetta’s heart sank. Nothing was coming easy with this one. He called Emanuel’s office again. The White House was nervous too.

“It’s your decision,” Panetta was told.

The CIA director sat quietly for a moment, the day’s events replaying in his brain. He picked up the phone again and called his counterterrorism director.

“Look, I need to know how certain you feel about the target,” he began. “This is really important.”

“Eighty percent,” the counterterrorism chief was saying. “Maybe ninety percent, in terms of knowing we have the right target.”

The numbers weren’t the ones Panetta was hoping for. But this might well be the best chance the agency would ever get.

“I don’t see how I can’t do it,” he finally said. “Go ahead.”

Panetta hung up the phone and tried to focus on his meeting. Later in the afternoon he received reports about the missiles’ deadly flight and the utter destruction of the targeted building. He learned of the recovery of bodies, and he was given the news—painful to contemplate for him—that two women and a child were among the dead. As for the fate of al-Masri himself, there was only silence out of Pakistan. Nothing more was learned during the rest of the day, or the following morning, or the day after that.

Then, on Memorial Day, the agency’s surveillance network picked up the first snippet of conversation hinting of a momentous change in al-Qaeda’s highest ranks. The terrorist group had lost one of its leaders, and the formal announcement would be posted soon on one of the usual jihadist Web sites. Al-Masri, the operational commander, had been targeted by a CIA missile at a safe house near Miranshah on May 21 and was now dead.

Panetta immediately picked up the phone and called his friend Emanuel at the White House.

“Rahm,” he said, “we just took out Number Three.”

The whereabouts of No. 1, bin Laden, and No. 2, Zawahiri, remained unknown.

EPILOGUE

On May 1, 2011, the same fierce desire to avenge September 11 that led to a terrible miscalculation at Khost produced a long-sought victory. Less than one year after al-Masri was confirmed dead, the hunt for bin Laden also ended.

Bin Laden, the CIA discovered, had been hiding not in the dusty borderlands between Afghanistan and Pakistan, but in a green valley town in Pakistan called Abbottabad, noted for its pleasant weather, shopping malls, and top-rated golf course. There, a half day’s drive from the Afghan border, his followers had constructed a palatial compound for the al-Qaeda chief, far from the buzzing CIA drones and shielded from neighbors by twelve-foot walls topped with razor wire.