The Triple Agent

He spent much of the day appealing the decision, from one end of the Mukhabarat’s headquarters building to the other. He argued and complained, and when neither worked, he threatened.

“I’m going to Afghanistan, even if I have to make my own arrangements to get there,” bin Zeid said. Then, eyes narrowed to slits, he dropped the ultimate threat.

“I’m going to Afghanistan,” he repeated, “even if I have to go with the Americans.”

Bin Zeid had already laid the groundwork for this threat, and sure enough, a call was made from the CIA’s Amman station to the Mukhabarat headquarters, officially requesting bin Zeid’s presence at Khost. The Jordanian captain was the only one who knew Balawi, the Americans explained, and the informant might balk if he wasn’t around.

“We need Ali,” the CIA caller said.

The Mukhabarat relented.

Bin Zeid and LaBonte were scheduled to leave for Afghanistan on December 6, but the Jordanian was fully packed a day early. There were tearful good-byes from family members, including bin Zeid’s sister-in-law, who had been plagued with feelings of dread since she first learned of the trip.

The men’s wives had been unusually anxious as well. Racheal LaBonte was beginning to fret about the Italian vacation the couple had planned for the Christmas holidays, and she now worried that Darren LaBonte wouldn’t make it back in time. More important, she had managed to piece together the outlines of the mission from snippets of conversation, enough to know that her husband had grave doubts about the informant he was flying to Afghanistan to meet.

“He could turn out to be a suicide bomber!” she finally blurted out.

Often Darren LaBonte would crack a joke to relieve the tension when his wife expressed such fears about his work. This time he did not.

“You’re right, he could be,” he said solemnly. Then, taking her hand, he tried to explain his conflicted feelings about the case. This one was worth the risk, he said, and what’s more, if it succeeded, it might finally be enough for him. He could even walk away from the terrorist-catching business forever.

“If I don’t go, and this case is everything that it’s supposed to be, it would be a big mistake,” he said. “If it’s successful, then I can stop. I can finally say that I’ve done what I came here to do.

“On the other hand, if I don’t go, and something happens …”

He paused. Racheal knew he was thinking of bin Zeid.

“Well, I could never forgive myself,” he said finally.

The two couples gathered for last farewells at the LaBontes’ apartment at 5:00 A.M., just before the two men departed for the airport, and sat for coffee on the balcony. The usual weepy scenes in the terminal attracted too much attention, and besides, this time the wives had planned something different. Both women had been unusually anxious about the trip to Afghanistan, but they decided together to go out of their way not to show it.

The women knew the men shared a fascination with ancient warrior culture, for the armies of Athens and Sparta. In ancient Greece the mothers of Spartan warriors exhorted their sons to bravery with the words that Fida Dawani and Racheal LaBonte now spoke to their departing husbands: “Return with your shields or on them.”

But as the two officers gathered their bags, Fida could not restrain herself. She pulled Darren LaBonte aside, her dark eyes imploring.

“Take care of Ali,” she said.

The Mukhabarat tried once more to block Ali bin Zeid from meeting with the informant Humam al-Balawi. It happened on December 5, as the Jordanian intelligence captain and his CIA partner, LaBonte, were making final preparations for their journey.

That evening one of the Jordanian spy agency’s senior managers phoned an old CIA friend at the Amman station to talk privately about the Balawi case.

We have serious concerns, the Jordanian said before proceeding to lay out two of them.

The first was a matter of historical precedent, he said. The Mukhabarat had been dealing with jihadists of all stripes for many years, and it knew a few things about them, including which ones could be flipped. The low-level types—the thugs and opportunists who glommed on to terrorist movements for personal advantage—could be transformed and might even become useful informants. But radicals and ideologues never truly switched sides. A true believer might lie and deceive, but deep down he could never betray his cause. And Humam al-Balawi had all the markings of a true believer.

It was a compelling argument, coming from a Mukhabarat veteran who had interrogated scores of radical Islamists. The CIA officer listened attentively.

The second concern derived from the Jordanian’s observations as the case had unfolded in recent weeks. Wasn’t it curious, he asked, that Balawi kept insisting that the meeting take place in Miranshah, rather than inside a fortified base where his security would be assured?

He could be leading you into an ambush, the Jordanian officer warned.