Douglas Laux - Left of Boom: How a Young CIA Case Officer Penetrated the Taliban and Al-Qaeda

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ALL STATEMENTS OF FACT, OPINION, OR ANALYSIS EXPRESSED ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR AND DO NOT REFLECT THE OFFICIAL POSITIONS OR VIEWS OF THE CIA OR ANY OTHER US GOVERNMENT AGENCY. NOTHING IN THE CONTENTS SHOULD BE CONSTRUED AS ASSERTING OR IMPLYING US GOVERNMENT AUTHENTICATION OF INFORMATION OR AGENCY ENDORSEMENT OF THE AUTHORS VIEWS.

THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN REVIEWED BY THE CIA TO PREVENT THE DISCLOSURE OF CLASSIFIED INFORMATION.

Dedicated to my brother, the only one who truly knew until now.

We will get you CIA team. God willing, we will get you.

H UMAM K HALIL AL- B ALAWI,
J ORDANIAN SUICIDE BOMBER

It was ten oclock the morning of December 30, 2009, as I slid into a booth at the State Lake Tavern in downtown Chicago, focusing on my girlfriend Kate, who literally glowed in the overhead halogen light. She was everything Id ever dreamed about and morebeautiful, vivacious, caring, fun to be around, sexy, and intelligent.

You look great this morning, I said, pouring on the Midwest charm despite feeling anxious about meeting her BFFs in the afternoon, which was meant to serve as an introduction to the big blow-out celebration wed planned for New Years Eve.

Thanks, she cooed back.

Im a damn lucky guy.

I know. Her smile never failed to amaze methe way it transformed her face and seemed to light up the space around her.

Part of me told me to grab her, take her up to our room, and rip her clothes off. Another part of me suggested that I order a Bloody Mary first, then consider the day ahead. I wanted Kates friends to like me.

Kate and I had been introduced by her mother, whom I met while watching an Ohio State football game at the Rhino bar in Georgetown. Her mom was there in her role as a lobbyist, entertaining some business associates. I was there with some of my rowdier friends cheering on the Buckeyes. She ended up buying us shots, and let drop that her daughter would soon be moving to DC. Cool lady.

A year later, Kate and I were two twenty-somethings in love. I sipped the Bloody Mary as she studied the menu. I think Ill order eggs Benedict, she announced.

Great, I said, while my mind searched for the word for egg in Pashtu.

What?

It was a natural response. For the past ten months Id been studying the language full-time. Just last Friday I had passed my competency exam with a 3/3 ILR (Interagency Language Roundtable scale), which was pretty surprising considering that up until the attack on the World Trade Center I couldnt pick out the country of Afghanistan on a map. Nor had I left the Midwest at that point. I certainly didnt know that the Pashtuns were the most populous tribe of Afghanistan, and that there were an additional twenty-nine million Pashtu speakers in Pakistan.

Kate knew nothing about the language training, or the identity of my real employer. I had told her I was a . I used the same cover with my parents and close friends.

What are you having? Kate asked.

Lets see.

As I picked up the menu, I felt something vibrate in my pants pocket. Although I hate people looking at their phones while theyre sitting with others in a restaurant, something told me to check it.

On the little iPhone screen I read four words that would dramatically change my life: Dude, we got hit!

The message was from my buddy Ben Z., who had recently deployed to Afghanistan, right in the middle of the shit. Something inside me released a burst of adrenaline, which caused my brain to spin.

I texted back, What the hell happened? Explain, through the Google text program (Google Voice) that transferred my message to the other side of the planet in a matter of seconds.

Camp Chapman. Initial reports, bad. Lots of our guys.

KIA? I texted back.

Dont know yet.

Forward Operating Base Chapman was located just outside the town of Khowst, in an area controlled by the Taliban, close to the border with Pakistan. Named after Special Forces sergeant Nathan Chapmanthe first US serviceman to die in combat in Afghanistanit sat on an arid three-thousand-foot-high plateau and was surrounded by high mountains. The area was under the political and military control of warlord Jalaluddin Haqqani, who had spent years during the Soviet war on the CIA payroll and was still a close friend of Osama bin Laden. Haqqani, as I had learned, was a complicated and difficult character, less interested in ideology, theology, and nation building than in maintaining his lucrative drug-smuggling empire. In a land of shifting allegiances and vendettas, he was currently our enemy.

The CIA station in Khowst was tucked inside the much more expansive military base, separated by its own high-security fence, and patrolled by exSpecial Forces civilian contractors armed with automatic weapons. I knew several young CIA officers assigned there and had trained with them at the Farmthe Agency training facility in southern Virginia, where we had all been sent to learn the basics of running clandestine operations.

I was currently in Chicago, not DC, so I couldnt march into headquarters and offer my assistance. Nor was I geared up to deploy. In fact, HQ had me scheduled to ship out in June 2010. In the intervening six months, I was slated to receive the weapons and other types of training required before going to a forward base.

So I sat amid tables of people drinking, eating, conversing, and watching college football on TV and considered the implications of an attack on a place they had never heard of, and probably couldnt pronounce.

Most likely they thought, like most Americans, that the Agency had thousands of officers deployed all over the globe. But they were wrong. Even in a hot spot like eastern Afghanistan we had only a handful. So losing even one or two would be a severe blow. There were sources to run and valuable intel to gather on the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The safety of tens of thousands of US and NATO troops depended on it. Political pundits might argue and would be correct to assert that an attack like the one at Khowst could actually compromise the security of the United States.

Kate, who had been rambling on about the Kardashians, noticed the change in my demeanor and stopped.

Is everything okay? she asked.

I lied: Yeah.

You dont look okay.

Really?

Yeah, Doug. Whats wrong? You feeling nervous about meeting my friends?

No. Not at all. I guess my stomachs feeling a little funny.

Who are you talking to? she asked with a little more edge.

I lied again: My brother.

Whats he want?

I knew where this was going, so I lied a third time. He wants me to come see my niece, at some point while Im in Chicago.