The Way of the Knife

The Penguin Press

Published by the Penguin Group

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Copyright © Mark Mazzetti, 2013

ISBN 978-1-101-61794-6

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Photograph credits appear
here
.

FOR
LINDSAY
AND
MAX

CONTENTS

TITLE PAGE

COPYRIGHT

DEDICATION

PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS

PROLOGUE:
THE WAR BEYOND

1:
PERMISSION TO KILL

2:
A MARRIAGE AMONG SPIES

3:
CLOAK-AND-DAGGER MEN

4:
RUMSFELD’S SPIES

5:
THE ANGRY BIRD

6:
A TRUE PASHTUN

7:
CONVERGENCE

8:
A WAR BY PROXY

9:
THE BASE

10:
GAMES WITHOUT FRONTIERS

11:
THE OLD MAN’S RETURN

12:
THE SCALPEL’S EDGE

13:
THE SCRAMBLE FOR AFRICA

14:
THE UNRAVELING

15:
THE DOCTOR AND THE SHEIKH

16:
FIRE FROM THE SKY

EPILOGUE:
A SPY IN LEISURE WORLD

PHOTOGRAPHS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A NOTE ON SOURCES

NOTES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

PHOTO CREDITS

INDEX

PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS

THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (CIA)

Charles Allen, Assistant Director, Collection, 1998–2005

J. Cofer Black, Director, Counterterrorist Center (CTC), 1999–2002

Dennis Blair, Associate Director, Military Support, 1995–1996; Director of National Intelligence, 2009–2010

Richard Blee, Chief, Alec Station (bin Laden Unit of Counterterrorist Center), 1999–2001

William Casey, Director, 1981–1987

Duane “Dewey” Clarridge, operations officer and founder of the Counterterrorist Center

Raymond Davis, CIA contractor, arrested in Pakistan in 2011

Porter Goss, Director, 2004–2006

Robert Grenier, Chief of Station, Islamabad, 1999–2002; Director, Counterterrorism Center, 2004–2006
*

Michael Hayden, Director, 2006–2009

Stephen Kappes, Deputy Director, 2006–2010

Art Keller, operations officer in Pakistan, 2006

Mike, Director, Counterterrorism Center, 2006–

Ross Newland, operations officer in Latin America and Eastern Europe; later, top official at CIA headquarters

Leon Panetta, Director, 2009–2011

James Pavitt, Deputy Director, Operations, 1999–2004

David Petraeus, Director, 2011–2012; Commander, United States Central Command, 2008–2010

Enrique Prado, operations officer working the Counterterrorist Center and later a Blackwater employee

Jose Rodriguez, Director, Counterterrorist Center, 2002–2004; Deputy Director, Operations, 2004–2007

George Tenet, Director, 1997–2004

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

Robert Andrews, Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict, 2001–2002

Stephen Cambone, Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, 2003–2007

Michael Furlong, Defense Department official involved in information operations who eventually oversaw private spying operation

Robert Gates, Secretary of Defense, 2006–2011

General Stanley McChrystal, Commander, Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), 2003–2008

Admiral William McRaven, Commander, Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), 2008–2011

Admiral Michael Mullen, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, 2007–2011

Thomas O’Connell, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict, 2003–2006

Leon Panetta, Secretary of Defense, 2011–2013

Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, 2001–2006

THE WHITE HOUSE

John Brennan, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, 2009–2013

Richard Clarke, Counterterrorism Coordinator, 1998–2001

PAKISTAN

Shakil Afridi, Pakistani physician hired to spy for the CIA

Lt. General Mahmud Ahmed, Director-General, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), 1999–2001

Lt. General Ali Jan Aurakzai, Pakistani military commander responsible for operations in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA)

Raymond Davis, CIA contractor arrested in Lahore in 2011

Lt. General Ehsan ul Haq, Director-General, Inter-Services Intelligence, 2001–2004

Jalaluddin Haqqani, leader of criminal network based in Pakistani tribal areas who has carried out attacks against American troops in Afghanistan

General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, Director-General, Inter-Services Intelligence, 2004–2007; Chief of Army Staff, 2007–

Baitullah Mehsud, Pakistani Taliban leader after the death of Nek Muhammad Wazir

Brigadier-General Asad Munir, ISI station chief in Peshawar, 2001–2003

Cameron Munter, United States Ambassador in Islamabad, 2010–2012

Lt. General Ahmad Shuja Pasha, Director-General, Inter-Services Intelligence, 2008–2012

Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, head of Lashkar-e-Taiba (“Army of the Pure”)

Nek Muhammad Wazir, Pakistani Taliban leader in tribal areas

YEMEN

Ibrahim al-Asiri, master bomb maker for al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)

Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, son of Anwar al-Awlaki

Anwar al-Awlaki, radical preacher and member of AQAP who was an American citizen

Ali Abdullah Saleh, President, 1990–2012

SOMALIA

Aden Hashi Farah Ayro, early leader of al Shabaab

Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, leader of Islamic Courts Union

Michele “Amira” Ballarin, American businesswoman and government contractor

Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, Kenyan member of al Qaeda’s East Africa cell killed in 2009

Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPCT), collection of CIA-funded Somali warlords

Al Shabaab (“The Youth”), armed wing of Islamic Courts Union

PROLOGUE:
THE WAR BEYOND

“Good intelligence work, Control had always preached, was gradual and rested on a kind of gentleness. The scalphunters were the exception to his own rule. They weren’t gradual and they weren’t gentle either. . . .”

—John le Carré, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

E
scorted by Pakistani policemen, the burly American spy was brought into a crowded interrogation room. Amid a clatter of ringing mobile phones and cross talk among the cops speaking a mishmash of Urdu, Punjabi, and English, the investigator tried to decipher the facts of the case.

“America, you from America?”

“Yes.”

“You’re from America and you belong to the American embassy?”

“Yes,” the anxious American voice boomed above the chatter. “My passport—at the site I showed the police officer . . . It’s somewhere. It’s lost.”

On the jumpy video footage of the interrogation, he reached beneath his checkered flannel shirt and produced a jumble of identification badges from a lanyard around his neck. It was one of the few things he had managed to hold on to after the chaotic scene at the traffic circle.

“This is an old badge. This is Islamabad.” He showed the badge to the man across the desk and then flipped to a more recent badge proving his employment in the American consulate in Lahore.

A telephone rang, and one of the officers in the crowded room dispatched with the call quickly. “We arrested an embassy man. I will call you back.” The interrogation resumed.

“You are working at the consulate general in Lahore?”

“Yes.”

“As a . . . ?”

“I, I just work as a consultant there.”

“Consultant?” The man behind the desk was skeptical. He paused for a moment and then shot a question in Urdu to another policeman. “And what’s the name?”