27. The Payback Begins

27 THE PAYBACK BEGINS

Undisclosed Location Overseas

September 2001

“Mufasta” boarded the airliner, moving through the aisle until he found his window seat. He peered outside at the airport terminal, his first view of freedom in fourteen years. He should have been dead. A cold-blooded killer responsible for both point-blank executions and a mass-casualty event that killed or wounded 141 people, he’d been caught by an erstwhile ally’s Special Forces team and taken down with three of his minions.

Condemned to death for his deeds, regime change saved his life. His sentence was commuted to life in prison. XXXXXXXX years later, he was released.

His victims included people from around the world—the UK, India, Italy, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates, and of course, the United States. XXXXXXXXXXX

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Thanks to an astute analyst, XX learned he would soon be released. A special greeting was arranged for this psychopath.

Mufasta thought he was flying home XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

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Mufasta sat quietly in his seat as other passengers boarded and found their seats around him. The last time he was in an airplane, he’d been dumped facedown and cuffed by an ally’s Special Forces team. Since then, all he’d known were bars. His freedom seemed a godsend.

As the hustle and bustle calmed around him, passengers clicked their seat belts and settled down for the long flight. The middle seat next to Mufasta was empty, but an “Asian” male took the aisle. He nodded casually at Mufasta, synched his lap belt in place, and pulled a magazine from his carry-on bag.

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This was scant days after 9/11. The remains of the dead in New York were still being recovered. The fires at Ground Zero still burned. The country was in a state of shock, reeling from the attack, grieving for lost loved ones. Wanting to strike back at whoever did this. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

XXXXXXX Too risky. Too many unknowns. Lack of political will to strike back at these maniacs.

But now, the whole country realized we’d indulged these shitheads long enough. It was time to start taking them down. XXXXXXXXXXXXX

The flight took off, climbed to altitude, and began cruising at forty thousand feet. Mufasta glanced over at the man in the aisle seat. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

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The murdering psychopath spent the entire rest of the flight ogling a magazine.

XXXXXXXX. Condition White achieved.

The plane landed at a scheduled stop in a different foreign nation. Mufasta’s itinerary included a change of flights to grab a connecting one home. Passengers began to pull their carry-ons from the overhead bins. Others filed toward the front and rear exits. Mufasta’s ticket put him in the rear of the plane, so he should have debarked via the back stairs under the tail. Unbeknownst to him, a van was waiting for him down there.

As he got into the aisle, he spotted a woman on a cell phone. Briefly, they made eye contact. It was one of those little moments that go unremarked a dozen times a day for average people carrying on with their lives. But in the dark world, that’s a tripwire. Mufasta’s situational awareness returned in a rush. He’d made one of the officers, and she knew it, too. Mufasta bolted for the front of the aircraft, rushing past her and pushing passengers out of the way.

A scramble ensued. If Mufasta made it down the stairs into the terminal, he’d be beyond XXX reach. One officer contacted the van and told the driver to swing around to the front of the airplane.

Mufasta made it to the front exit stairs. He was halfway down, then saw the van, door open, waiting for him. Wide-eyed in terror, the terrorist spun around and ran back up the stairs—and right into XXX Navy SEAL.

The Senior Chief stopped him in his tracks, spun him into a headlock, and said, “Welcome to America, motherfucker.”

Seconds later, the Chief tossed him into the van, where FBI agents cuffed him. He was driven to an aircraft waiting not far away and was soon on his way to the United States to stand trial for his crimes against Americans.

Mission accomplished. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Though he wasn’t part of the 9/11 attacks, he was a fellow jihadist traveler. We needed this win XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.

That success following so quickly on the heels of 9/11, it should have been XXXXXXXXXXXX celebrated publicly. The country needed the morale boost.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX And the terrorists needed to know it, too. It didn’t matter when they carried out attacks against Americans, XXXXXXXXXXXXXX Sooner or later, we will track them down and bring them to justice.

While the CTC focused on 9/11 and al-Qaeda—it had become clear within a few days of the attacks that Bin Laden was behind them—I’d made a point of telling our Group Chiefs to stay on their targets. This was the sort of moment in which other terror organizations would smell opportunity and come after us, too.

At the same time, we began ramping up our capabilities and team for the war on al-Qaeda. That meant going into Afghanistan and working with the Northern Alliance. We’d need somebody to spearhead our covert operations there who thoroughly understood al-Qaeda.

Nobody was more qualified for the job than my tocayo, Hank Crumpton (tocayo is a Spanish endearment for someone who shares your first name: Henry/Enrique, in this case). He’d been part of the team that investigated the 1998 embassy bombings as well as the USS Cole. He’d worked right alongside the FBI in their International Terrorism Operations Section for a year, focusing on Bin Laden and al-Qaeda. He had the creds, and he was aggressive, creative, and willing to take risks. He’d also been on the ground in the thick of things in the past. He was an operator who understood the street and how things got done at HQS.

Tenet and Cofer wanted him back. The covert operation in Afghanistan would be under the CTC’s auspices, which meant technically he’d be part of the ops groups. This could have been awkward because he was senior to me.

I called Hank a few days after 9/11 at his new home overseas. He’d just taken his dream job as Chief of Station in a great country—heck, he hadn’t even fully unpacked yet. My call came through late in the night in his corner of the globe.

He answered it at once.

“This is Ric. Get to the office. Call me on the secure line.”

About fifteen minutes later, he called me back.

“Cofer asked me to call,” I said to him. “This is not an order. This is a request. We are going into Afghanistan. We want you to organize and lead the war. Tenet has approved it.”

He remained silent, waiting for more.

“I don’t need an answer right now, but soon. Think about it.”

Hank didn’t need to think about it. “When do you want me back?” he asked.

I gave him another out. “You can think about it.”

“I already have. When do you want me back?”

“Okay,” I told him. “Get here as soon as you can. But take care of your family first.”

“I’ll book a flight now and let you know. Tell Cofer thanks.”

“Yeah. And, Hank?”

“What?”

“All of us here, we knew your answer.”

Hank later wrote in his memoirs, “At that moment, the only thing that matched my faith was my hatred for al-Qaeda. I wanted to kill them all.”

We all did.

Not just those of us in the CTC. In the days that followed, people from different branches flowed into my office, willing to do anything to get into this fight. “John M.” was a recent Chief of Station. He’d had an incredibly distinguished career, both in the field and here at HQS. Set to retire in a few weeks, he stormed into my office and announced that he’d tear up his retirement papers for a job in the CTC.

I knew John by reputation only, but it was a stellar one. He was a former college sprinter, a U.S. Naval Academy grad who’d served in the fleet as a nuclear engineer. He held an MBA and worked for a while in the private sector after leaving the navy. John was one of the few officers to infiltrate overseas tribal groups in pursuit of terrorists, including one particularly notorious assassin. He’d carried out covert actions around the world throughout his career. In the process, he became one of the most highly decorated officers in the Agency. His missions were so secret, however, that very few people below the seventh floor knew his deeds that earned those medals.

He would be an incredible addition to the team. I told him I needed a few days, but I’d get back to him. I called Hank. “I think I’ve found your deputy,” I told him. “John M.”

“I know John,” Hank replied. “He’s a great guy. But didn’t he retire?”

“He changed his mind. On 9/11, he refused to evacuate and came to the CTC to do whatever he could.”

“That guy’s a stud. Yeah, I want him.”

The new team was coming together.

From the flow of volunteers who came to me looking to help, two others stand out. “Tom” and “Bud” were both former officers who’d left the Agency for six-figure jobs in the private sector. They wanted back in.

That was the spirit that burned in all of us after 9/11. Our nation had been attacked, and we all wanted to fight back. When I see how CIA officers are portrayed in movies, I recoil in anger. We’re painted as drug-dealing crazies (like in American Made), or amnesiac killers à la Jason Bourne. The truth is, we are patriots to the core. It defines who we are more than any other part of our identity. From that love of country comes our sense of service and duty to our people. It is a calling, not a career. The days after 9/11 drove that home when so many good men and women stepped up and were willing to do whatever it took to defeat al-Qaeda.

When Hank arrived in the building again, our seniority issue proved to be a moot point. I functioned for his group as a source for support and resources. Cofer, Ben, and I let him plan and execute what he thought was best. What they developed and engineered has been detailed in many other books, so here I’ll just say that it was a brilliant, outside-the-box black op that combined operators on the ground with technology that seemed to come straight out of science fiction. A handful of CIA officers, and subsequently Special Forces teams, helped the Northern Alliance regroup and help drive the Taliban out of power. It was a remarkable achievement, and the credit for it goes entirely to Hank and his remarkable team. They are a case study of what can be achieved with the right balance of intellect, aggressiveness, and a willingness to try new things.

The armed Predator drone system was among the new things XXX deployed to Afghanistan that fall. As American special operations teams went into action, they were heavily supported by airpower—USAF heavy bombers often flying from stateside bases along with U.S. Navy aircraft XXXXXXXXXXXXX or carriers thousands of miles from the battlefields. The distances involved sometimes meant short loiter time over targets for the navy planes. Until we secured our own air bases in Afghanistan, that would continue to be a problem. Reportedly, some of the pilots flew twelve- to fourteen-hour missions, using amphetamines to stay awake between tanking up from aerial refueling aircraft. It was a grueling experience for them.

Meanwhile, the Predators could be launched XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX without having to worry about pilot fatigue. Plus, their loiter time in the battle area was nothing short of incredible. It didn’t take long for the Predator to become one of our most vital assets in the covert war in Afghanistan. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX it paid massive dividends. History will remember the weapon like the World War II–era jeep and the Vietnam War’s Huey helicopters. It was that influential.

Predator operations included looping the CTC into the missions. At our operations center inside HQS, we kept a team in place 24-7. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

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XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Ben, and I, along with a senior FBI agent working with us.

On a Saturday in October, I filled in for Ben at the “Predator feed center” while he had a high-level meeting in D.C. to attend. It never failed to astonish me that I could XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX see in real time bad guys on the ground twelve thousand miles away. The technology was positively futuristic. The camera resolution, the near-instantaneous communication between the drone pilots, the stakeholders, and the weapon platform itself relied on satellite technology that seemed the stuff of pulp spy novels.

It was the next best thing to being there myself.

On that day, with guidance from multiple INTs (in the intelligence community, we refer to the different disciplines as INTs: SIGINT, HUMINT, etc.), one of XXX Predators discovered a heavily armed Taliban compound. This place was a veritable Afghan fortress, complete with guard towers, antiaircraft weapons, one primary, large building, and tidy rows of military vehicles.

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XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX A couple of fighter-bombers raced to the area, but for whatever reason, their crews could not locate our target.

The senior military officer XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX suggested one of the Hellfire missiles at the largest building to mark the target for the navy. XXXXXXX

XXXXXXXXXXXXX The missile impacted into the largest building, leaving a hole in the roof. The blast didn’t do a lot of damage, but it did cause an almost ant-like frenzy in the compound. Scores of people bolted from the target building, racing around in all directions in a panicked frenzy.

A moment later, about twenty guys emerged from the building in a cohesive group. This was where our military background kicked in; this group stood out to me and my SEAL companion Hal, who was standing next to me watching the scene unfold. Armed with assault rifles, they moved with military precision until they were clear of the compound. Then they set a 360-degree perimeter with several men we assumed to be leaders in the middle.

Those guys looked like senior people protected by a cadre of personal security types who really knew their business. From that moment, they became our target.

“Keep the Predator on those guys,” I ordered.

The drone pilot adjusted course. The leadership group began to double-time farther away from the compound again in a tactical formation.

In 2001, Predators could only strike stationary targets. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX that October, we had to wait until a group like this one wasn’t on the move.

They kept moving. We followed them, watching their every move with the drone’s camera beaming the scene to us via satellite on the other side of the planet. This went on for an hour. By then, the navy planes had to come off station to refuel and start the agonizingly long flight home.

Finally, the group reached an L-shaped building where most went inside. A few took up security outside in what looked like a shallow trench.

This was our opportunity. The Predator possessed a powerful laser that could be used to designate a target for another aircraft’s laser-guided bombs. We waited until a couple of USAF planes reached the area. We coached them onto the building, then lased the target for them.

They dropped two bombs. The first sailed down to impact right in the space between each bar of the L. It smacked into the ground and failed to explode. Dud. Unbelievable. The second landed a hundred yards upwind, blowing up in open ground and causing no damage.

The leadership team boiled out of the building and started running for safety. The air force planes soon ran out of endurance, too. They headed for home, leaving XXX Predator with one missile left to keep station over these guys.

For hours, XXX the Predator played cat and mouse with these guys. Finally, they came to a tractor with a flatbed trailer towed behind it. It was sitting on a dirt road, and as our target group approached, the driver jumped out. A second later, a dog jumped out as well.

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XXXXXXXXXXXX The Taliban crowded around the tractor. A few of the men climbed onto the trailer in back.

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I looked around the room. Everyone was vociferously worried for the dog. After all, we’re Americans.

I turned to Hal and said, “We’re trying to kill twenty-some people and everyone’s worried about the dog.” We had to laugh.

He smiled and shook his head. For a nation raised on Lassie, Homeward Bound, Benji, Air Bud, Marley & Me, All Dogs Go to Heaven, and others, I suppose it was too much to figure we’d fire without giving thought to the pup down there.

At the time, XX aircraft could not fly below ten thousand feet. That was to protect them from the Taliban’s known antiaircraft gun and missile systems. So we couldn’t just order a gun run to strafe these guys as they rode along. Besides, we had another gap in our air support. Until they stopped and looked like they’d be sitting there for a while, all we could do was follow.

Nearly six hours after we first discovered these guys, they rolled up to a big, hangar-style building. The tractor came to a stop. The driver opened his door, and the dog leaped from the cab. Everyone in the ops center cheered.

A second later, XX last Hellfire struck the trailer.

Our screens went black as smoke boiled up over the impact site. Everyone held their breath. Where was the dog?

The breeze blowing across the Afghan countryside soon dispersed the smoke cloud. Our view of the target area resolved into a horror show of broken bodies lying sprawled all around the charred remains of the tractor and trailer. A few men, still alive, were crawling toward the building. The dog appeared at the edge of the blast seat, unharmed.

The dog lived. The bad guys died. A win-win kind of a day if there ever was one. Later that day, when Ben came back from his meeting downtown and I briefed him on what happened, he was extremely disappointed that he’d missed it.

We all wanted a piece of the enemy that fall, even our most senior officers. In our eyes, the Taliban was just as bad as al-Qaeda. They gave Bin Laden sanctuary. They gave al-Qaeda logistical and material support. They allowed Bin Laden to train an army of clandestine warriors to carry out the fatwa against the United States he had issued in 1997. Bin Laden and Mullah Omar, the head of the Taliban, were personal friends, and al-Qaeda took out Massoud to curry his favor. Now, they were going to die, or be driven into the mountains and countryside by our Northern Alliance / special operations teams.

That was for you, John O’Neil. And there will be more to come.

As the fighting unfolded in Afghanistan that fall, the CTC kept tabs on many other terror-related crises around the world. The CTC was growing, flexing to meet the newest challenges wartime brought to us, but at times this left us stretched. Our answer was to work even harder. The people in the CTC continued to put in twenty-hour days, sleeping in their cubicles, on the break room couches. We showered and cleaned up in the gym. Our families saw little of us.

Even when we did make it home for events, we were distracted. I remember my oldest son’s football team played Cofer’s son’s team one Friday night that fall. As our kids dueled on the gridiron, we sat on either side of the field, texting back and forth on our secure government BlackBerrys.

If we weren’t at HQS, we were at home thinking about what we faced. We had epiphanies in the shower or while out exercising. Our families found us distracted at best, distant at worst. But this war—at least this phase of it—fell largely on the Agency’s shoulders. We owed it to the dead of 9/l1 to bring everything we had. Total commitment. The dedication I saw in the CTC that fall was second to none, and I will always be proud to have been a part of it. Blessed, in fact!

Very quickly, it became clear this was not a war that would know national boundaries. Yes, the nexus (for the moment) was Afghanistan. But jihadists allied with al-Qaeda operated on every continent. For us to disrupt their operations and keep Americans safe, those groups had to be dealt with as well. In late 2001, nowhere was that more evident than in the southern Philippines. Abu Sayyaf’s campaign of kidnapping and murder continued unabated. Dozens of local Filipinos died horribly at their hands, usually by beheading. The Philippine Army units trying to track these cells down found the local population largely supported the terrorists, by fear if not ideology. Every move the army made would be reported to Abu Sayyaf by the locals. This made it almost impossible to surprise the terrorists. In fact, Abu Sayyaf sprang several ambushes on the army, inflicting heavy losses among its soldiers.

In response, President Bush offered American troops, training, and technology. The Philippine government accepted, with the caveat that our men and women could not conduct active operations. We would be there only as training support.

It had been almost six months since the Burnhams had been kidnapped by Abu Sayyaf. Pressure mounted on the president to do something about the two missionaries who had been celebrating their eighteenth wedding anniversary when they were captured. Finding them in the jungles of the southern Philippines in an area where outsiders were instantly viewed with suspicion—and often attacked—was an exceptionally difficult challenge.

As the hostages languished in the jungle, Senator Dianne Feinstein, the chair of the Senate’s Intelligence Committee, reached out to the National Security Council and demanded a brief on the Burnhams’ situation.

Briefing the senator fell to General Wayne Downing, then the new deputy national security advisor, who had come out of retirement to coordinate the war on terrorism. Since I frequently briefed the NSC and the general, I was tasked to be the Agency’s rep at that meeting.

The two of us showed up at Senator Feinstein’s office prepared to give her the rundown of the situation in the Southern Philippines.

She greeted us brusquely. We sat down in chairs, right across from each other, only a few feet apart. No pleasantries, all business.

“I want to know what we can do to get the Burnhams out of the Philippines,” the senator said.

The question caught us off guard. We had no authority to initiate a rescue operation.

The general spoke first, attempting to outline the situation. Feinstein interrupted him, then cut him off. Clearly, she didn’t want a briefing, at least not one to which she had to listen.

“Senator,” I said, “I’ve been to that area. The terrorists control it. You can’t just show up. Outsiders get their throats cut.”

“What about sending troops in?” she asked.

“The locals tip off the terrorists to any troop movements. You can’t move around in those islands without being seen or heard. A surprise attack is impossible.”

Feinstein glowered at us, then in a shrill, cold voice demanded, “You mean to tell me that after all the money we’ve given to the CIA and the special military that we can’t get our people back?”

I blinked. Was a sitting senator ordering us to carry out an unsanctioned rescue mission with Special Forces troops?

General Downing said, “Yes, Senator, we can do that. But we have no authority to do it.”

“That’s up to our government leaders to authorize. After all, if we go in there without host government approvals, that is considered an act of war,” I added. That really set her bottom on fire!

We tried to explain the situation again, but she would have none of it. It seemed she was angry that we hadn’t already unilaterally invaded an allied nation, descended with the full force of a SEAL or Green Beret team, and taken down Abu Sayyaf on our own.

For the next ten minutes, she upbraided us and our supposed impotence to rescue the Burnhams. It was an astonishing display of ignorance to the basic functions of how the United States employed its special operations assets. This coming from the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who has been read into our world probably more than any other civilian leader in Congress, was especially disheartening.

When in history has a senator personally ordered a military operation be conducted?

Wayne tried yet again: “What you’re asking, Senator, would be an act of war. Any sort of operation to get the Burnhams would require authorization from the National Command Authority along with coordinating with the Philippine civilian government.”

She ended the meeting as curtly as it began, standing up and storming off in a huff as if we were beneath her. Worthless.

She didn’t want a briefing. She called us there to abuse us. And by extension, the Agency and the military.

It was my first briefing with a United States senator. I remember leaving the room thinking, Is that the kind of civilian leadership we really have? Feinstein had a lot of power over the Agency and the military. Her scorn for both oozed out of her with every sentence.

And her scorn was directed straight at General Wayne Downing, a man who’d served his country for nearly forty years. He served in Vietnam, first with the 173rd Airborne, then as a company commander with the Twenty-Fifth Infantry Division, he wore two Silver Stars and the Purple Heart. In Somalia after Bloody Sunday, he went to visit the Rangers who’d been through that terrible battle. While there, a mortar landed practically right beside him, wounding several men nearby and nearly killing him.

In the hall outside her office, General Downing looked at me and said, “What would you give to have that on tape?”

I thought about it for a moment. “General, my left testicle.”

As we walked out of the Capitol Building, I couldn’t help but wonder how we were going to fight and win a war when some of our own civilian leadership had such little understanding of how to fight it beyond the optics and the political posturing for votes.