Spycraft. Part 15

"The reason that technology became available was because of state-supported terrorism. Terrorists could buy the needed technology because Syria, Libya, and a few other countries like Iran and Iraq were giving them money," said Orkin. "Initially they used very simple devices, like timers that you had in your kitchen, alarm clocks, and wrist.w.a.tches with the hole drilled in the center-they really used the kind of basic stuff you see in the movies. I put 1984 as the date when they began to apply newer technologies to these devices. We began seeing multiple examples of the same device, indicating that they were fabricating them in small 'production runs.'"

This was a significant turn of events. Terrorists could now get electronics engineers to design the timing circuit for a bomb instead of relying on someone with little training working in his cellar with a soldering iron. Terrorists, who had traditionally been impa.s.sioned amateurs, were finding allies, tutors, and funding from the intelligence professionals of rogue countries. Established governments were now directly aiding terrorism by providing cash and enabling networks for procurement and s.h.i.+pment of components and devices.

"Throughout the eighties the terrorists progressed from devices that were fairly simple to those of professional quality," explained Orkin. "We saw the devices evolve. We would think, boy that's not a good way to do this, and when the next device came in, we'd see the problem fixed."

Orkin, an intelligence officer as well as engineer, pinpointed a potential vulnerability that might be exploited. The more advanced and technologically specialized each component became, the more likely it could be traced back through supply channels to specific manufacturers. Embedded in every chip and circuit board were technical and engineering details that, when pieced together, sometimes revealed the genealogy of the device, including its sponsor and even a.s.sembler.

For instance, lot numbers denoting manufacturing runs used for inventory control, coupled with standardized fabricating processes, gave virtually every component a personal history. Working out the "technological DNA" of terrorist devices, the foreign-finds experts uncovered yet another disturbing trend: terror organizations were no longer working in isolation. They were now forging ties with rogue nations and each other.

In one instance, when a.n.a.lyzing a device uncovered in the Middle East, he noted features of an elaborate, high-powered radio receiver with British markings. "We kept finding components that were marked from a British company. And when we showed it to the British, they identified it as PIRA [Provisional IRA] technology," recalled Orkin. "British a.n.a.lysis had concluded that PIRA traded technology for guns and explosives with the Libyans. Libya also trained some of the PIRA guys who handed them the technology. There was another incident in Peru. And when we looked at it, we said this looks like the other device from PIRA."

What eventually emerged was a complex, interlocking network of terrorist organizations. For example, PIRA technology could support the ETA (Euzkadi Ta Askatasuna) in Spain and ETA could hand off some of the equipment to s.h.i.+ning Path in Peru, and so on and so on. While these groups did not always share political or social agendas, they did share a common desire for bomb-making technology. "It was getting harder and harder to differentiate between groups by their technology," explained Orkin.

The ringing bells and songs of carolers on Christmas Day 1988 sounded with little joy or peace for families of the 259 pa.s.sengers and crew of Pan Am Flight 103. Four days earlier, just after 7 PM on December 21, a bomb ripped a hole in the forward fuselage of the Boeing 747 as the plane reached its cruising alt.i.tude of 31,000 feet over Scotland. Stunned air traffic controllers at London's Heathrow Airport watched the aircraft vanish from their radar screens, replaced by small blips as nearly 700,000 pounds of airborne debris, including flaming jet fuel, rained down on the small town of Lockerbie.

Two hundred seventy perished that day, all those aboard the plane and eleven residents of Lockerbie. Death and destruction in the air and on the ground turned the antic.i.p.ation and joy of the Christmas holidays that traditionally unites friends and coworkers in a spirit of joyous goodwill into a season of mourning. The next day, CIA casualty officers suspended holiday plans after learning that among the dead was a CIA officer. Another star would be chiseled into the white marble of the Agency's memorial wall of the Original Headquarters Building.

Even for those not directly touched by the tragedy, the grim images of the wreckage on covers of magazines carried a stark reminder that evil honored no holiday. The debris field, spread over more than 800 square miles, was a horrific scene of human remains, personal effects, and pieces of aircraft. The plane had not exploded, but broken apart as it plummeted to earth. Few news organizations captured or broadcast images of the most gruesome elements of the crash site; however, one photo that shocked and sickened the world eventually became a morbid visual shorthand for the tragedy. That was the image of the battered nose section of the 747 with the cheerful script MAID OF THE SEAS resting on its side in a muddy field. Nearly twenty years later, even those who can recall few of the details surrounding the tragedy of Flight 103 remember that image vividly.

Terrorism was not new to the Agency or unknown to viewers of the evening news. Nevertheless, Pan Am Flight 103 seemed different. The plane was not in a war-torn country. Those aboard were students, husbands, and mothers. Their faces, revealed to the world smiling in family photos, showed ordinary lives ended in a violent and grotesque manner. What could the perpetrators possibly hope to gain by murdering college students returning home for Christmas vacation? What message were they hoping to send? The senseless slaughter defied all reasonable motivation and strained even the tortured logic of terrorism.

CIA officials quickly concluded that this was a terrorist attack, even if the ident.i.ty of the perpetrators and their motives were unknown. Reports from around the world identified groups eager to claim credit for the cruel spectacle. Critical details began emerging over the following weeks, as investigators a.s.sembled information from agent reports, signals intelligence, and fragments of the plane. The bomb had been concealed in a commercial Tos.h.i.+ba radio ca.s.sette player, the Bombeat (Model RT-SF 16), available in consumer electronics stores. Fragments of the radio, as well as the owner's manual, were recovered in the wreckage of the cargo container where the blast originated.

Traces of the plastic explosive Semtex were found on the radio's circuit board and experts calculated that no more than 400 grams (about 14 ounces) positioned close enough to an outer bulkhead was enough to blast an eighteen-inch a hole through the fuselage. Within seconds after the detonation, the plane decompressed, suffered structural failure, and tore itself apart in the sky. But more puzzling than the presence of Semtex or the ca.s.sette player was what remained of a brown Samsonite suitcase. Tests revealed traces of Semtex on the suitcase fragments, indicating that it more than likely held the bomb. Yet, no such suitcase was checked in as baggage at Malta, the departure point for the baggage container where the blast occurred and investigators were unable to match the brown, hard-sh.e.l.l piece of luggage to any pa.s.senger aboard the plane.

From the start, the investigators focused on the use of Semtex. The explosive of choice among many terrorists, it is difficult to detect, but relatively easy to obtain. Counterterrorism experts suspected Palestinian groups based in Syria, which had used the explosive in past attacks and had a history of relying on consumer electronics as carriers. Iranian terrorists also favored the explosive, a fact that focused attention on an Iranian national aboard the flight's Frankfurt to London leg, who disembarked before the plane's departure for New York.

Although investigators understood what had happened, their study of the debris field and wreckage yielded little about who did it and how the bomb had been placed on the airliner. The break did not come for eighteen months. Then, nearly eighty miles from the center of the debris field, a local man stumbled onto the remnant of a T-s.h.i.+rt bearing the label of Mary's House, a store in Malta's port town of Sliema. Embedded in the material of the garment was a thumbnail-sized fragment of circuit board, about 0.4 inches square. That tiny speck of forensic evidence would eventually lead to the unraveling of a terrorist plot and test the international justice system.

However, the trail to the Lockerbie bombers began not in a European capital or the Middle East, but in sub-Saharan Africa. The Republic of Chad, a former French colony, is known primarily for the exotic name of its capital city, N'Djamena. Despite decades of ethnic warfare and limited strategic significance in the Cold War, the United States maintained relations.h.i.+ps with Chad's government. In the early 1980s, the local security service uncovered what they a.s.sumed to be a case of espionage and quickly moved in for an arrest. When the suspected spy was taken into custody, his suitcase surprisingly contained not a collection of standard spy gear, but a quant.i.ty of Semtex attached to a portable radio.

Without the capability to conduct an in-depth technical a.n.a.lysis, Chad's intelligence service pa.s.sed the device on to the CIA. The device, Orkin noted, was unexpectedly complex. The sophisticated circuitry was controlled by a standard pager traced to a firm, Meister and Bollier AG (MEBO), based in Zurich, Switzerland. Known to have ties to both Libyan and East German intelligence organizations, the company's circuits were apparently now being used in a terrorist IED.

A few years later, in the autumn of 1986, local authorities uncovered a terrorist cache of weapons in Togo's capital, Lome, and U.S. authorities were invited to examine these materials. Among the hodgepodge of aging weaponry and munitions, two state-of-the-art timers stood out, one of which Orkin acquired for a.n.a.lysis. Like the find in Chad, the device was also traced back to Switzerland and MEBO.

Then, in February of 1988, two known Libyan intelligence operatives were arrested in Dakar, Senegal, as they disembarked from their flight. Items found in one of the pa.s.sengers' briefcases included a silenced pistol, ammunition, four blocks of TNT, and two blocks of Semtex, along with a timer. Local authorities allowed CIA officers to photograph the timer. The photograph, like the timers from Chad and Togo, eventually landed at Orkin's lab. Again, MEBO appeared linked to the device.

"In retrospect, the devices from Chad were first-generation," Orkin explained. "Then, we observed that the device from Togo was a prototype. We said, 'If you cut the corners out here and change this and change that, you can put it in a box and make it look nice.' And that's exactly what we got in the Senegal device, it was a packaged unit." The terrorists had learned the engineering principles of form, fit, and function.

Orkin now had three increasingly sophisticated devices, all from Africa, all physically linked to the same manufacturer in Switzerland, and all with some Libyan connection. A report on each rested in the OTS archives as technological curiosities of no immediate intelligence value.

Then came Pan Am 103. By September of 1989, Scottish investigators converged on Mary's House clothing store in Malta, led there by the sc.r.a.p of T-s.h.i.+rt. The shop's owner remembered the customer who bought the T-s.h.i.+rt, describing him as a Middle Eastern man who shopped indiscriminately, purchasing items without regard to size, as if he were simply trying to fill a suitcase, which, of course, is precisely what he was doing. The police produced a sketch of the buyer from the store owner's recollections, though there was as yet no name to go with the face.

The Scots were still having a difficult time identifying the tiny piece of circuit board found embedded in the s.h.i.+rt. Unable to match it up to any piece of the plane or known electronic component, they sent a photograph of it to the FBI with the understanding that it would not be released outside the Bureau. a.n.a.lysis of the photograph yielded little, if anything, new. After six months, the FBI received permission to show the photo to other U.S. government agencies. That same day, Orkin received an unexpected call.

"The guy calls me from the FBI's explosives unit. He came out to my lab, pulled out the picture, plus a one-page report with a brief description of the fragment that says it's epoxy fibergla.s.s and seven-ply board," said Orkin. "It also makes note of the fact there was green solder masking. Solder masking is used to prevent solder flowing to parts of the board where you don't want it."

Orkin had seen the same design before. The green solder masking, coupled with the curve of the board, matched previous reports done on the devices found in Togo and Senegal and a.s.sociated with Libya. Then he discovered that the fabrication techniques, along with a modified connector, matched the device found in Chad. They all pointed to the Swiss firm MEBO. The connection, though still tenuous, represented a starting point. Beginning with this information about the components found on the African circuit boards, the FBI launched a global investigation.

The FBI traced the components, eventually tracking the timing crystal to a specific company. Asked about the component, the firm consulted its records, which showed that one hundred of them had been sold to MEBO, establis.h.i.+ng a definite link back to Swiss firm. Next, the investigators went to MEBO. As Orkin later heard the story, the investigators were told, "Yes, we built ten with the plastic case and ten without the plastic case for the Libyans." Then, realizing what had been revealed, the manager decided not to talk with the investigators anymore.

Called the MST-13, the timer unit was made specifically for the Libyan government's Ministry of Defense. The precision device could be set to delay an explosion up to 10,000 hours or 10,000 minutes. "This was an elaborate timer with crystal timing controls that were very accurate," explained Orkin. "This timer had been in a suitcase placed on a plane going from Malta to Frankfurt. In Germany, the luggage was changed to another flight going to London, and then put on Pan Am 103. It was set to wait many hours before triggering the explosion."

Based on the recovered evidence, the timer apparently had been set with the intention of sending the plane down into the Atlantic. However, an unexpected weather delay at Heathrow Airport and high winds diverted the flight path over Scotland. Had the plane taken off as scheduled, the bomb would have detonated over the ocean and all evidence likely destroyed or lost forever.

With these discoveries, suspicion s.h.i.+fted from the Syrians and Palestinians to the Libyan government. A defector named two Libyan intelligence officers whom he claimed were behind the Pan Am 103 bombing. The first, Abdel Ba.s.set Ali al-Megrahi, was identified as the Mary's House customer who purchased the T-s.h.i.+rt and other clothing used to fill the suitcase containing the Semtex. The second Libyan, Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, had a cover job with Libyan Arab Airlines at Malta's airport. This put them in a perfect position to smuggle the brown Samsonite suitcase into the plane's cargo hold. The problem for investigators and prosecution was that both suspects were now back in their home country, where Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi was steadfastly rejecting requests to hand them over for trial.

More pieces of the puzzle fell into place in March of 1990, following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Semtex, the plastic explosive used, was manufactured in Czechoslovakia. The name was derived from the first four letters of the company that first manufactured it in the 1960s, the Semtin Gla.s.sworks, plus the suffix "ex" denoting the English word for "explosive." During a well-publicized press conference in London, Czechoslovak President Vaclav Havel revealed that his country, while under Communist rule, sold an estimated 1,000 tons-2 million pounds-of Semtex to Libya. The Libyans, Havel added, had refused to return the explosives.

By 1992, with evidence pointing decidedly at Libya, the case came before the United Nations Security Council. Sanctions were imposed and negotiations with the Libyan government dragged on for six long years. Then, in 1998, as sanctions became an economic burden, the Libyans finally agreed to turn over the two accused men for trial. The trial was scheduled to take place at Camp Zeist, a former U.S. military base in the Netherlands that had been declared within Scottish jurisdiction for purposes of the trial.

As the prosecution began a.s.sembling the case, it became clear the timers would play the key role in linking the two Libyan intelligence officers to the flight. According to Scottish law, the prosecution was obliged to show the defense how the investigators were led to the timing device. This put Orkin, whose entire professional life had been conducted under a cover una.s.sociated with the CIA, in an unusual position. He would appear in open court as an expert witness in an internationally watched trial.

The Agency offered unprecedented a.s.sistance in the trial. Not only would Orkin testify, but two former chiefs of station would also be made available, if necessary, to appear in open court. Contents of cla.s.sified operational cables were provided as evidence.

Orkin's role was to deliver the critical testimony that linked the devices to Libya, ill.u.s.trating a technological trail that started in Switzerland, progressed through Africa, and ended, tragically, in a field in the Scottish countryside. He was the single witness who could provide irrefutable scientific credibility to a detective story that began with a minuscule piece of plastic found by chance. But the trade-offs were stark. His presence at the trail could potentially blow his cover and, if he were identified, put his life and the lives of his family in jeopardy.

To protect their ident.i.ties, the court agreed that Orkin, along with the chiefs, could testify using alias names and wearing tailored disguises. The alias, chosen sometime earlier for the tech who had a reputation for clever puns and elaborate word play-he was "Mr. Orkin," the bug killer. Whether the Libyans recognized the popular American extermination service was unknown, but as the trial date approached, the key witness became increasingly concerned with his choice of alias. What seemed amusing and fitting at the outset was now worrisome. Could the defense attorneys somehow use the pseudonym to discredit his testimony? Was he being too clever in such a serious matter?

To prepare the witnesses' disguises, OTS selected a senior disguise officer who combined a sense of artistry to fit the person to the materials as well as match the materials to the subject. It was an exacting process. Orkin needed to not only look natural, he had to feel genuine within the disguise and be relaxed on the witness stand. The obscure OTS engineer would be transformed into the internationally recognized electronics expert "Mr. Orkin."

The OTS disguise specialist eliminated Orkin's trademark facial hair, shaved here and added there where previously none existed. "I had a nerdy, old blue suit, white s.h.i.+rt. I almost put a piece of tape on my gla.s.ses to finish the effect," he remembered. "Then there was a stink raised by the Defense lawyers. They said, 'We don't want people coming in here in s.h.i.+rley Ba.s.sey fright wigs.' When we finally sat down with the defense attorneys for a preliminary meeting, after twenty minutes or so of lawyer-type discussion, they asked, 'Are you in disguise now?' I was and they couldn't tell. So much for fright wigs."

Orkin flew to the Netherlands and met with the prosecutors for a briefing on courtroom procedure. Using technology as evidence and experts to explain it was tricky business. Detailed scientific mumbo jumbo could confuse those without a technical background, and engineers, trained to think and speak with precision, could be trapped by clever legal questioning. For example, Orkin was reminded, a lawyer might ask if a scientific result is "100 percent accurate," to which an engineer might answer in the negative, because the results were only 99.99 percent accurate. The possibility that the two suspects would escape justice through just such wordplay weighed heavily as the prosecutors prepped Orkin on how to make his data clearly understood in the courtroom.

"We're going to ask you this, this, this, this, and this, and we're going to establish your credentials," the prosecutor told Orkin. "Don't volunteer any more information. Just answer the question I ask you. I know what you know, and if I want more, I'll ask for it. If I don't, then let it go. But don't start expounding."

Prosecutors warned Orkin that the two defense attorneys had already established a "good cop/bad cop" routine during the previous days of testimony. "They told me that one of the attorneys stands up, is a real sweet guy, and tries to get you to say something you shouldn't say. Then the other guy gets up, questions your parentage and everything else to try to get you upset," he recalled.

Orkin arrived in court in his nerd disguise and spent forty-five minutes on the witness stand answering questions for the prosecution. He detailed the elements of reverse-engineering that linked the fragment to the timer and the timer back to MEBO. Whether the technical details confused the defense attorneys or they merely discounted the importance of the science was unclear. However, after Orkin's extensive prosecution testimony, the defense "good cop" attorney simply said, "No questions." The "bad cop" lawyer then rose and asked a question that revealed a naivete of technical matters.

"Isn't it true that all electrical devices contain electronic components?"

"By definition," Orkin answered bluntly.

No more questions followed.

By the end of the proceedings, there was no doubt that the timers originating with MEBO ended up in the hands of the Libyan government. Added to the mountain of technical evidence was the testimony of two Tos.h.i.+ba Corporation employees who confirmed that in 1988 Libya purchased 20,000 ca.s.sette recorders of the same model that concealed the bomb.

In all, the defense attorneys for the Libyan operatives called only three witnesses during the eighty-four-day trial. On January 31, 2001-more than thirteen years after Pan Am Flight 103 was destroyed-the three-judge panel returned a verdict: one conviction and one acquittal. The judges wrote: .

The evidence, which we have considered up to this stage, satisfies us beyond reasonable doubt that the cause of the disaster was the explosion of an improvised explosive device, that that device was contained within a Tos.h.i.+ba radio ca.s.sette player in a brown Samsonite suitcase along with various items of clothing, that that clothing had been purchased in Mary's House, Sliema, Malta, and that the initiation of the explosion was triggered by the use of an MST-13 timer.

The court found Abdel Ba.s.set Ali al-Megrahi, the mastermind of the plot, guilty of murder. His sentence was a minimum of twenty years' imprisonment. His accomplice, Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, who, authorities alleged, supplied luggage tags and a.s.sisted in getting the brown suitcase placed on the flight, was found not guilty by virtue of lack of evidence.

Terrorism moved from Scotland to sub-Saharan Africa when al-Qaeda sponsored bombings of the U.S. emba.s.sies in Kenya and Tanzania on August 7, 1998. These were immediately followed by credible reports that other emba.s.sies in Africa, Europe, and Asia were also in danger of attack. A U.S. emba.s.sy in the Balkans was identified as a specific target. As a precaution, U.S. personnel were temporarily relocated to a compound outside the city. Shortly thereafter, the local security service captured one al-Qaeda operative believed to be involved in the plotting but a second suspected member of the cell remained at large.

The at-large terrorist suspect, identified as a primary al-Qaeda forger who specialized in altered travel doc.u.ments, was married to a local woman who claimed to have no knowledge of her husband's whereabouts. His capture could produce a wealth of intelligence through the identification of the alias ident.i.ties of other al-Qaeda operatives along with exemplars of their pa.s.sports, driver's licenses, and other travel doc.u.ments. The death and injury suffered by U.S. officials in the Nairobi bombing added special urgency to the search. Finding the other terrorist became an obsession for the handful of case officers and techs.

OTS became involved in the hunt when the techs received word that communications had been intercepted between a suspected al-Qaeda cell in Western Europe and the Balkan terrorist. One particular exchange suggested that the European cell was providing logistical support and funds to the Balkan cell through a female cutout.

An operation combining OTS tracking and audio devices to find the terrorist was proposed. The concept involved implanting a tracking device as well as an audio transmitter in a package sent to the cutout who could be expected to deliver it to the target. Although a solid plan from the intelligence-gathering standpoint, the technical aspect was problematic.

Placing an audio and tracking device in a small package would be difficult, as both would be transmitting for an indefinite time. In addition, after the modified package was inserted into the European postal system, it would be outside of CIA control. Finally, any suspicion of the package by someone in the supply chain would alert the terrorist to his vulnerability.

Brian Mint, a.s.signed to head the OTS tech team, understood the complexity of the operation and voiced his skepticism to the operational team. "We know he needs money," the senior case officer insisted. "He's gotten funds from Western Europe before and he's looking for more. You put money in some package with tracking and audio devices and we can get him."

Although Mint's confidence that a technical package would work did not match that of the case officer, he a.s.sembled a team of engineers to tackle the problem. The tracking and audio devices would require a host that the target and cutout would accept without suspicion. Since money would be the bait, the package also needed to be large enough to accommodate several hundred dollars' worth of European currency in small bills along with the two devices. In that sense, the host needed to serve as concealment for spy gear as well as money-a gift holding two secrets.

A tech was dispatched to look for suitable concealment hosts. European tourist trinkets offered the best options, since an inexpensive "gift" would not be alerting to customs officials or others handling the item during transit. The terrorist would likely a.s.sume the gift was more than it appeared based on its point of origin. Further, he would see the souvenir as a clever piece of tradecraft by his contacts and not examine the object more thoroughly once he discovered the hidden money. The psychological aspect of the "double concealment" was critical. The terrorist must have the intuitive sense to open it, but not suspect its second covert purpose.

Since cavities could be made and restored most easily in wooden souvenirs, the techs settled on a 14 by 10 by 3 34-inch wooden wall plaque. Mounted on the plaque's face was a thin metallic plate engraved with the outline of an Italian cathedral and a script below reading SAINT SUSANNA.

The techs removed the metal faceplate and hollowed out a cavity in the center of the plaque large enough to hold small-denomination bills worth several thousand dollars. An Arabic linguist constructed a handwritten note: "Brother we are with you. Hopefully this will get you by until we're able to contact you again." The faceplate was refastened to the front of the plaque with an adhesive strong enough to hold it in place, but could be easily pried off. The techs then carved a second compartment at the edge of the plaque large enough for electronics and batteries for two weeks of continuous transmissions.

The package, addressed to the cutout, was s.h.i.+pped with labeling to give it the appearance of originating with the European terrorist cell. An OTS team began monitoring the tracking and audio transmissions from specially equipped vehicles.

"We didn't know for certain where the package was going. All we knew was the address of the person we thought was the cutout," said Mint. "If that a.s.sumption was wrong, the operation ended. Further, we didn't know if we would be able to keep our van with the audio receiver within the transmitting distance of the bug. We did what we could and hoped for the best."

The techs tracked the delivery to the female cutout in the Balkans. Immediately opening the package, she read the Arabic-language note and fifteen minutes later, with the package tucked under her arm, began walking across town. Tracking signals suggested she was performing a basic surveillance detection run by making several stops and doubling back on some streets. She boarded a bus that took her into one part of town, changed buses, and headed to a different section. The surveillance team, which was un.o.btrusively following, was eventually led to a neighborhood known for a militant Islamic presence. The cutout entered a two-story house with upper and lower apartments inside a walled compound. When she came out, she was not carrying the package.

Local security established a 360-degree perimeter around the building while the techs set up a listening post in a nearby house within range of the transmitter. An a.s.sault team a.s.sembled. The audio recorded talk among several unidentified people about the package and then sounds of the metal plate being removed from the front of the plaque. The techs and case officers wanted to cheer as the concealment pa.s.sed its first test. The target had recognized that the souvenir was more than it appeared and found the cavity concealing the money.

The techs listened as an excited conversation between the terrorist and his wife was translated. The communication channel with the European cell was working. Throughout the afternoon, the techs continued to receive strong tracking signals from within the house as well as audio. In the early evening, the terrorist's voice suddenly became agitated and his wife sounded emotional. The techs speculated that perimeter surveillance might have been spotted as the terrorist had prepared to leave the house. Then the techs heard the distinctive sound of a weapon being cleared and a round chambered.

After night had fallen and no more conversation was heard, the local operational commander directed an a.s.sault be launched. The techs listened to the commotion as the team entered the house and rushed to the second floor where the terrorist and his wife were believed to be. After a quarter hour of searching, the team reported they had not found the target.

"I thought, How could this happen? We know he was in there. We had him," recalled Mint. "There were only two possibilities. Either he managed to slip through the security around the house or he was still in there, hiding somewhere."

Another hour of continued searching produced nothing. The wife claimed no knowledge of the suspect's whereabouts. Believing the operation had come to a dead end, the techs entered the house to retrieve the plaque, which they found opened underneath the bed of the second-floor apartment. Then, just as they turned toward the door to leave, pistol shots and bursts from automatic weapons fire came from the kitchen, followed by loud noises.

The a.s.sault commander had continued searching the house and entered the kitchen for a final look. Either curiosity or policeman's instinct prompted him to move a small was.h.i.+ng machine from against the wall. As he struggled with the surprisingly heavy appliance, a cavity between the back of the machine and the wall was exposed. At that moment the armed terrorist, who had been hiding inside the was.h.i.+ng machine, fired a single shot that hit the commander in the chest. Another nearby officer returned fire. The terrorist rolled out of the machine and continued to shoot until he was killed with a burst of automatic fire from the a.s.sault team.

Closer inspection revealed that the working elements of the was.h.i.+ng machine had been removed to create a hiding place just large enough for one person. Access to the concealment was obtained by removing the loosely attached tin backing and crawling through to the cavity.

Press reports the following day made no mention of the Agency's operational or technical role in the action, though the a.s.sault team, along with the wounded commander, received deserved accolades. The OTS techs were satisfied to have played an unpublicized role in removing another terrorist from the seemingly endless war.

The six-member OTS special missions team would miss another New Year's Day with their families. Created in the mid-1980s to provide an immediate global response to acts of terrorism, the team was prepared to deploy within hours of being alerted. Team members were trained in post-blast investigation techniques and ordnance disposal and for nearly two decades had disarmed bombs, thwarted terrorist attacks, and led foreign authorities to terror suspects. In more instances than the officers cared to remember, their urgent deployments inevitably cl.u.s.tered around the holiday season. Terrorists, it seemed, favored December for their murderous acts.

In 1983, American and French emba.s.sies were bombed during December, then a few days later the Provisional Irish Republican Army planted an explosive device in London's most famous retail emporium, Harrod's. Peruvian revolutionaries under the banner of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement took several hundred hostages at the j.a.panese amba.s.sador's Lima residence in December 1996, and the same month a suicide bomber struck during an election rally in Sri Lanka, injuring the president. Libyan terrorists bombed Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, just before Christmas 1988. HAMAS blew up a West Bank restaurant in December 2000 and, at about the same time, a bomb in India's Parliament killed thirteen men and women.

However, December 2001 was not like previous years. The United States was at war with al-Qaeda and its protector, the Afghan Taliban government, and the mission would take the bomb techs directly into the combat zone. Some of the team's members came from Headquarters while others flew in from field locations. All were volunteers.

OTS designed and printed propaganda leaflets to support the 2001 war against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Little more than two months had pa.s.sed from the first October air strikes against the Taliban and al-Qaeda terrorist training camps to the liberation of the Afghan capital, Kabul. The Taliban and its al-Qaeda cohorts were clearly on the run. While some Taliban forces were surrendering en ma.s.se in Kandahar, others had taken to the hills, literally high-tailing it on horses and on foot to the White Mountain range and honeycombed cave complexes of Tora Bora.

While the large-scale military operations were all but over and the rapidly advancing forward elements of the CIA's paramilitary units now faced only sporadic small arms fighting, the country was still far from stable. As news broadcasts showed a jubilant population defiantly enjoying activities forbidden under Taliban rule, such as kite flying and men shaving off the formerly mandatory beards, the political and security situations remained dangerously volatile.

The war itself was progressing with lightning speed and, within weeks, the Agency's Afghanistan mission s.h.i.+fted from tactical support of the Northern Alliance to a.s.suring a safe transition to a new government. The request for the OTS officers came as the Taliban abandoned control of the southern third of Afghanistan and the key city of Kandahar. The city had been among the last of the Taliban's strongholds and concern over what unpleasant surprises might be left behind was fully justified. The need for expertise in handling explosives and skills to a.s.sess, identify, and clear buildings of IEDs and conventional munitions became imperative.

The team was given seventy-two hours to ready itself for deployment. The mission was as ambiguous as it was urgent. In reality, no one knew what the team would encounter on the ground or exactly what equipment was needed. Broadly defined, the team would provide ongoing explosive detection, a.s.sessment, and disarming capabilities for Agency and military personnel. They would be operating in areas the Taliban and al-Qaeda had controlled for years, some of it captured only days or hours earlier. They would also likely be called on to provide secondary functions, such as establis.h.i.+ng emergency communications, field engineering, and photography.

Intelligence reports from the field described hundreds of discoveries of tons of ordnance either discarded or cached during the country's two decades of nearly continuous warfare. This meant the team had to prepare to work with explosives of Russian, Chinese, and Pakistani origin, much of it unstable. Most would have to be destroyed to prevent it from falling into the hands of local warlords or opponents of the new government. Ironically, some ordnance and weapons were quite familiar to the OTS officers, as it came from stocks the CIA provided the Afghanistan mujahedin during their 1980s war against Soviet occupiers.

The team's housing would be primitive and amenities such as electricity and running water scarce or nonexistent. They would live next to the native population, some of whom were deeply suspicious of the new U.S. presence or still loyal to the Taliban. Almost every Afghan man was armed. The team could expect sixteen-hour workdays that would leave them covered in dust from unpaved roads and bat guano from caves in a hot combat zone to handle unstable explosives. Nevertheless, it was the kind of job they trained and lived to do.

During an intense thirty-six hours, the team a.s.sembled enough gear, about 5,000 pounds, to sustain them for a series of operations whose length and intensity could not be known in advance. The gear they loaded into the C-17 Globemaster at Andrews Air Force base outside Was.h.i.+ngton included everything from portable x-ray devices to explosives and ammunition.

Handwritten receipt for one million dollars in cash carried in a duffel bag by an OTS officer to Afghanistan, December 2001.

As the plane's cargo doors swung shut and the four jet engines were about to rev up, an urgent message arrived that a final package was en route. With the deadline for departure perilously close, they waited. Then an unmarked truck raced across the runway and pulled up to the plane. Lugging an ordinary-sized duffel bag from the truck, the courier presented a three-by-five card that served as a receipt for the package. "Just sign," the courier instructed the team leader, Mark Fairbain. "You have a million in U.S. hundred-dollar bills bound in $10,000 stacks. Trust me, you don't have time to count it." Looking inside the bag, Mark saw stacks of bills held together by small lengths of cotton string. That was enough and he signed the receipt.

With the gear and million-dollar duffel bag secured, the plane lifted off into the night sky over Was.h.i.+ngton. Then, as the heavy transport gained alt.i.tude, the smell of burning electrical insulation filled the cavernous cargo area. The team did not argue with the pilot's decision to divert to Charles-ton, South Carolina, rather than continue the transatlantic flight with a cargo that included a good deal of explosives.

After swapping out the two and a half tons of gear to the second plane, the team took off for another try to cross the Atlantic. "As soon as we were in the air we were off the jump seats to find a spot on the floor to get some rest," remembered one tech. "The only problem was we had packed away the sleeping bags and ground mats. So we slept on the metal floor with just our coats draped over us."

After an uncomfortable night, and already six hours behind schedule, they awoke in Ramstein, Germany, for a refueling stop. When airborne again, they continued on to Bahrain and from there to a secret airbase in Pakistan. Unable to make up for the six-hour delay, and with dawn breaking, the techs were informed the plane would attempt a dangerous daytime landing, the first U.S. aircraft to do so since the war began.

The southwest area of Pakistan, although not technically hostile territory, had yet to be declared completely secured. The airbase, which had first served as a launching point for search-and-rescue missions into Afghanistan, was now hosting large transport aircraft, such as C-130s and C-17s. The increasing Western presence ignited the ire of local militants whose protests included random ground fire ranging from small arms to antiaircraft guns. Pakistani armed forces found it difficult to suppress the dangerous but largely ineffective attacks.

On approach, the team strapped themselves into their seats just in case the aircraft needed to deploy countermeasures or take evasive action. The precaution, to the team's relief, proved unnecessary and after an uneventful landing, the techs set about off-loading the two pallets of gear and rested in tents that had sprung up in the "boom town" airbase. They would make the trip to Kandahar that night under the cover of darkness.

The final leg would be a 300-mile trip from Pakistan to Kandahar in Air Force MH-53J Pave-Low helicopters. Outfitted with advanced avionics that allow flight close to the terrain's contours, the Pave-Lows were also heavily armed with two mini-guns on the side doors and a .50 caliber machine gun mounted at the rear.

According to the plan, four Pave-Lows would fly in formation crossing into Afghanistan, then separate. Two would go to Kandahar and two to another base. Flight time was estimated at three hours, getting the team to Kandahar sometime after midnight.

Just before dark, the techs loaded the two helicopters with the two and a half tons of containers, boxes, and bags. An extensive preflight briefing covered topics ranging from landing positions to combat search and rescue (CSAR) procedures. Each team member was issued a Glock 9mm before boarding the craft.

Bad luck boarded as well. A warning light blinking in the c.o.c.kpit of one Pave-Low a short time after take-off sent the OTS team back to Pakistan airbase. Once on the ground, the team reloaded their gear and million-dollar duffel bag onto a new Pave-Low, only to be told the replacement helicopter also suffered from mechanical problems. At the last possible minute for the night operation to continue, the ground crew isolated and fixed the problem.

As they lifted off from the base, the noise inside the Pave-Low drowned out conversation. Gunners positioned themselves at the opened side doors and the back ramp was opened for the .50 cal gunner. Crossing into Afghanistan, all three gunners opened up and test fired. Adding to the noise, the opened doors created an uncomfortable internal wind tunnel. "Only then," recalled Mark, "did we learn what a cold rough flight really was, when the helicopter began bouncing up and down from the wind of the southern mountain range."

Three hours later, the chopper hovered over bomb craters and debris before touching down on a dark runway of what was once a state-of-the-art airport. Built in the 1970s, Kandahar International Airport was at one time the largest and most modern in Central Asia, but it had been severely damaged in the Russian invasion in the early 1980s. After the Soviets left, the airport became a stronghold for Taliban and al-Qaeda forces, which turned its runways into minefields. Recent U.S. bombing raids had added to the destruction, pockmarking the tarmac with deep craters and littering it with the debris of war. Now, with the airport recaptured by U.S. Marines and Pashtun guerillas, control of the once modern structure-less than twenty miles outside Kandahar-signaled the end of the Taliban's fixed presence in the area.

With the chopper's blades still turning, the team rushed to off-load the gear in the fifteen minutes the pilot allowed before taking off for the return flight to Pakistan. No reception committee greeted the six as the Pave-Low vanished into the night, leaving the team alone on the darkened runway at four o'clock in the morning. The team stood beside thousands of pounds of high-tech equipment and the money bag they had hauled from plane to plane and chopper to chopper, used en route as a pillow, footrest, and bed. Mark noticed that the strings securing the stacks of hundred-dollar bills had come untied leaving a bag filled with 10,000 loose bills.

Armed with only Glock 9mm sidearms, the team had no choice but to wait in the open on the runway. "We had been told that the Marines moved onto the airfield a few hours before, but they were nowhere to be seen," recalled a team member. "We had no contact plan. Six sets of headlights suddenly popped up at about three hundred meters and headed our way. We hoped they were friendlies." The headlights were from vehicles belonging to two Marine units supported by Delta Force operators.

The Marines greeted the OTS team in short-bedded Toyota pickups woefully inadequate for hauling 5,000 pounds of equipment to the Governor's Palace in downtown Kandahar. Two trips would be necessary, the trip taking an hour each way.

The palace compound had until recently been home to the Taliban's reclusive one-eyed spiritual leader Mullah Omar. A chief architect of Taliban rule, Omar had issued the religious decrees that turned Afghanistan into a repressive regime that provided a sanctuary to Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaeda terrorists. The complex consisted of two large parallel buildings, one the residence and the other the meeting hall/auditorium, with a courtyard between them and narrow walls at each end to create an enclosed rectangle.