The Triple Agent

I think we should talk to our father about this, Assad al-Balawi finally said.

No, he is not to know, came the reply. Will you promise?

Assad consented.

Peace be with you, he said.

And with you.

Humam al-Balawi shoved his ticket and passport in his pocket, turned, and walked up the steps to the gate.

6. TARGETS

Langley, Virginia—May–June 2009

Throughout the spring America’s invisible army of spy satellites and eavesdroppers spread its nets across northwestern Pakistan, arraying the world’s most sensitive eavesdropping gear against one of the most backward regions on earth. Cameras scrutinized every mud house, barn, and goat stall across an area the size of Puerto Rico. Banks of computers trolled phone lines, Internet transmissions, and wireless signals, in an automated search for a single word or phrase that might signal trouble or lead to the capture of a long-sought foe.

In May one such phrase, plucked from routine phone intercepts, sent a translator bolting from his chair at the National Security Agency’s listening station at Fort Meade, Maryland. The words were highlighted in a report that was rushed to a supervisor’s office, then to the executive floor of CIA headquarters, and finally to the desk of Leon Panetta, now in his third month as CIA director.

Nuclear devices.

Panetta read the report and read it again. In a wiretap in the tribal province known as South Waziristan, two Taliban commanders had been overheard talking about Baitullah Mehsud, the short, thuggish Pashtun who had recently assumed command of Pakistan’s largest alliance of Taliban groups. It was an animated discussion about an acquisition of great importance, one that would ensure Mehsud’s defeat of Pakistan’s central government and elevate his standing among the world’s jihadists. One of the men used the Pashto term itami, meaning “atomic” or “nuclear.” Mehsud had itami devices, he said.

After the shock subsided at Langley, skepticism crept in. Was it a translation error? A tall tale? A ruse? Some of the agency’s most experienced hands were openly scornful. Baitullah Mehsud was a semiliterate gangster with a big mouth. His experience with bombs was limited to strapping a few pounds of homemade explosives on a hapless teenager and blowing up a bazaar. Mehsud lacked the resources to acquire a nuclear weapon, and no one would be stupid enough to give him one.

Still, the CIA would quietly dial up the volume on its surveillance of the hilly border region that was home to the Mehsud clan. The heightened listening continued fruitlessly for days, until one evening the agency’s trawlers snagged something big: a secret meeting among members of Baitullah Mehsud’s Taliban shura, or council. The advisers were overheard discussing an interesting ethical dilemma that had been recently thrust upon the group.

Was it permissible under the laws of Islam, the advisers were asking, to use Baitullah Mehsud’s new “devices”?

Now the attention of the Obama administration’s entire security infrastructure was fixed on a small patch of real estate in northwestern Pakistan. The Taliban had remorselessly slaughtered thousands of people, including many women and children, yet these devices had given them pause. The terrorist movement appeared to be taking the unusual step of acquiring religious cover for whatever it was about to do.

In Washington not a word about the new threat would be uttered publicly. But across the Obama administration, government agencies girded themselves to deal with a new crisis. The Energy Department, with its radiation-sniffing planes; the Pentagon; the Homeland Security chiefs responsible for ports and border security—all were put on heightened alert. At Langley, Panetta harangued his counterterrorism teams daily for specifics, his dark eyes flashing from behind his wire-rims. “What the hell are we talking about here?” he demanded. “Did they take something from one of those damned nuclear depots?”

Of all the devastating scenarios Panetta had ever allowed himself to imagine, the worst by far was a nuclear explosion in a U.S. city. There were only a handful of places in the world where agency officials feared that a terrorist might buy or steal a bomb or its key components, and nuclear-armed Pakistan topped the list. Yet it was all but inconceivable that a small-time rogue like Baitullah Mehsud could have gotten his hands on a functioning atomic bomb.