The Triple Agent: The al-Qaeda Mole who Infiltrated the CIA by Joby Warrick (Eng

Description: The Triple Agent by Joby Warrick A stunning narrative account of the mysterious Jordanian who penetrated both the inner circle of al-Qaeda and the highest reaches of the CIA, with a devastating impact on the war on terror. Warrick goes deep inside the CIAs secret war against al-Qaeda. FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the Pulitzer-Prize winning reporter, a stunning narrative account of the mysterious Jordanian who penetrated both the inner circle of al-Qaeda and the highest reaches of the CIA, with a devastating impact on the war on terror."Warwick is a brilliant reporter...A gripping true-life spy saga."—Los Angeles TimesIn December 2009, a group of the CIAs top terrorist hunters gathered at a secret base in Khost, Afghanistan, to greet a rising superspy: Humam Khalil al-Balawi, a Jordanian double-agent who infiltrated the upper ranks of al-Qaeda. For months, he had sent shocking revelations from inside the terrorist network and now promised to help the CIA assassinate Osama bin Ladens top deputy. Instead, as he stepped from his car, he detonated a thirty-pound bomb strapped to his chest, instantly killing seven CIA operatives, the agencys worst loss of life in decades. In The Triple Agent, Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter Joby Warrick takes us deep inside the CIAs secret war against al-Qaeda, a war that pits robotic planes and laser-guided missiles against a cunning enemy intent on unleashing carnage in American cities. Flitting precariously between the two sides was Balawi, a young man with extraordinary gifts who managed to win the confidence of hardened terrorists as well as veteran spymasters. With his breathtaking accounts from inside al-Qaedas lair, Balawi appeared poised to become Americas greatest double-agent in half a century—but he was not at all what he seemed. Combining the powerful momentum of Black Hawk Down with the institutional insight of Jane Mayers The Dark Side, Warrick takes the readers on a harrowing journey from the slums of Amman to the inner chambers of the White House in an untold true story of miscalculation, deception, and revenge. Notes Pulitzer-Prize winning reporter Joby Warricck pens a stunning narrative account of an agent who penetrated the inner circle of al-Qaeda to send shocking revelations to the CIA, only to then detonate a 30-pound bomb and kill 7 secret service agents. Author Biography JOBY WARRICK covers intelligence for the Washington Post, where he has been a reporter since 1996. He is a winner of the Pulitzer Prize and has appeared on CNN, Fox, and PBS. Review "Warrick is a brilliant reporter. . . . A gripping true-life spy saga." —Los Angeles Times "Riveting and harrowing, laden with deception and duplicity, The Triple Agent is a remarkable, behind-the-curtain account of the CIAs darkest day in Afghanistan." —Rajiv Chandrasekaran, author of Imperial Life in the Emerald City "Absolutely first-rate, breakthrough reporting." —Bob Woodward, author of Obamas Wars "A fast-paced and compelling narrative that reads like a Hollywood screenplay. [Warrick] provides a rare look at the careers and personal lives of CIA officers, including the courageous women who played key roles. . . . Spellbinding." —The Philadelphia Inquirer "Warrick has reconstructed, in vivid and telling detail, the sequence of events that led Humam al-Balawi to kill seven CIA operatives in a suicide attack in Afghanistan in December 2009. . . . It is a chilling tale, told with skill and verve." —The Economist "The Triple Agent is a superlative piece of reporting and writing. . . . Unforgettable. The Triple Agent is one of the best true-life spy stories I have ever read." —David Ignatius, columnist for the Washington Post and author of Bloodmoney "A startling and memorable account of daring, treachery, and catastrophe in the CIAs war against al-Qaeda. . . . A powerful and fast-paced story of our time." —David E. Hoffman, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Dead Hand "An extraordinary story of intrigue and betrayal. . . . Warrick shows how the pressure for results led the CIA to take shortcuts when it came to handling an agent who some feared, correctly, was too good to be true." —Foreign Affairs "Potent, swift. . . . Warrick is very, very good. He burrows deep inside not only the CIA, which might be expected, but also the Mukhabarat and ISI, Pakistans main spy agency." —The Washington Post "A fascinating . . . postmortem on the 2009 ambush on the American compound at Knost, Afghanistan. . . . Riveting. . . . Sketches careful, illuminating portraits of those who died." —The Plain Dealer "Warrick demonstrates the initiative that has marked his newspaper career. . . . An alarming narrative, especially because of its understated, never-shrill tone." —Kirkus Reviews "Riveting. . . . A must-read." —Associated Press "Insightful and riveting. . . . Mr. Warrick adds a wealth of new detail to a narrative that reads like the best spy fiction." —The Washington Times "[An] accessible and fast-paced debut. . . . [Warrick] gives this story a cinematic feel with suspenseful foreshadowing, rich character development . . . and a remarkable amount of heart." —Publishers Weekly "A grim reminder that the U.S. war on terror as it has been conducted is deadly, expensive, and mostly futile." —Houston Chronicle "The Triple Agent is by turns harrowing and heartbreaking, fascinating and frightening. . . . . A tale that reads like a thriller and stretches from the dusty back alleys of Waziristan to the plush executive floor at Langley." —James Bamford, author of the bestselling The Puzzle Palace, Body of Secrets, and The Shadow Factory "Were Shakespeare alive, he would find ample material for a high tragedy among the players in . . . The Triple Agent. All the ingredients are there, including betrayal, shame, heroism, and more than one person with a recklessly determined hubris worthy of King Lear himself. Yet as those who have operated in the world of human intelligence will viscerally feel, this is not cathartic fiction, but a factual account of a modern day human intelligence operation gone terribly wrong, involving real men and women, with all the failings thereof." —Foreign Policy Review Quote "Warrick is a brilliant reporter. . . . A gripping true-life spy saga." - Los Angeles Times Excerpt from Book PROLOGUE Khost, Afghanistan--December 30, 2009 For ten days the CIA team waited for the mysterious Jordanian to show up. From gloomy mid-December through the miserable holidays the ofFicers shivered under blankets, retold stale jokes, drank gallons of bad coffee, and sipped booze from Styrofoam cups. They counted distant mortar strikes, studied bomb damage reports, and listened for the thrum of Black Hawk helicopters ferrying wounded. And they waited. Christmas morning arrived on a raw wind, and still they sat. They picked at gingerbread crumbs in the packages sent from home and stared at the ceramic Nativity Figurines one of the officers had set up in lieu of a tree. Then it was December 30, the last dregs of the old year and the tenth day of the vigil, and Finally came word that the Jordanian agent was on the move. He was heading west by car through the mountains of Pakistans jagged northwestern fringe, wearing tribal dress and dark sunglasses and skirting Taliban patrols along the treacherous highway leading to the Afghan frontier. Until now no American ofFicer had ever seen the man, this spectral informant called "Wolf," whose real name was said to be known to fewer than a dozen peop≤ this wily double agent who had penetrated al-Qaeda, sending back coded messages that lit up CIA headquarters like ball lightning. But at about 3:00 p.m. Afghanistan time, Humam Khalil al-Balawi would step out of the murk and onto the fortiFied concrete of the secret CIA base known as Khost. The news of his pending arrival sent analysts scurrying to Finalize preparations. Newly arrived base chief Jennifer Matthews, barely three months into her First Afghan posting, had fretted over the details for days, and now she dispatched her aides to check video equipment, Fire off cables, and rehearse details of a debrieFing that would stretch into the night. She watched them work, nervous but conFident, her short brown hair pulled to the side in a businesslike part. At forty-Five, Matthews was a veteran of the agencys counterterrorism wars, and she understood al-Qaeda and its cast of fanatical death worshippers better than perhaps anyone in the CIA--better, in fact, than she knew the PTA at her kids school back home in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Hard-nosed and serious, Matthews was one of the agencys rising stars, beloved by upper management. She had leaped at the chance to go to Khost in spite of the quizzical looks from close friends who thought she was crazy to leave her family and comfortable suburban life for such a risky assignment. True, she would have much to learn; she had never served in a war zone, or run a surveillance operation, or managed a routine informant case, let alone one as complex as the Jordanian agent. But Matthews was smart and resourceful, and she would have plenty of help from top CIA managers, who were following developments closely from the agencys Langley, Virginia, headquarters. Their advice so far: Treat Balawi like a distinguished guest. Matthews signed off on a security plan for the visit, though not without carping from some of the Special Forces veterans in her security detail. Her primary concern was not so much for the agents physical safety--the men with the guns would see to that--but rather for preserving his secret identity. The CIA could not afford to allow him to be seen by any of the scores of Afghans working at the base, except for the trusted driver who was now on his way to pick him up. Even the guards at the front gate would be ordered to turn away to avoid the risk that one of them might glimpse Balawis face. Matthews picked a secure spot for the meeting, a gray concrete building in a part of the base that served as the CIAs inner sanctum, separated by high walls and guarded by private security contractors armed with assault ries. The building was designed for informant meetings and was lined on one side by a large awning to further shield operatives from view as they came and left. Here, surrounded by CIA ofFicers and free from any possibility of detection by al-Qaeda spies, the Jordanian would be searched for weapons and wires and studied for any hint of possible deception. Then he would Fill in the details of his wildly improbable narrative, a story so fantastic that few would have believed it had the agent not backed it up with eye-popping proof: Humam al-Balawi had been in the presence of al-Qaedas elusive No. 2 leader, the Egyptian physician Ayman al-Zawahiri, one of the twisted brains behind dozens of terrorist plots, including the attacks of September 11, 2001. And now Balawi was going to lead the CIA right to Zawahiris door. When the debrieFing was over, a medical officer would check Balawis vitals, and a technical team would outFit him for the dangerous mission to come. Then everyone could relax, have a bite to eat, perhaps even a drink. And there would be a surprise, a birthday cake. The Jordanian had just turned thirty-two on Christmas Day, a trivia plum that Matthews had been pleased to discover. In fact his special birth date had very nearly caused him to be named Isa--Jesus, in Arabic--before his parents changed their minds and decided instead on Humam, meaning "brave one." And now this same Humam was speeding toward Khost with what could well be the agencys greatest Christmas present in many a season, an intelligence windfall so spectacular that the president of the United States had been briefed in advance. As she waited for the Jordanian, Matthewss head swirled with questions. Who was this man? How did anyone get close to Zawahiri, one of the most reclusive and carefully protected humans on the planet? So much about the Balawi case was confusing. But Mat-thews had her orders, and she would not fail or inch. Balawi would be given a Fitting reception. There were no birthday candles at the CIAs forward base in violent eastern Afghanistan. But the Jordanian would have his cake. That is, if he ever showed up. By 3:30 p.m. the entire team was ready and waiting outside the interrogation building. Another thirty minutes dragged by without news from the Jordanian, and then an hour, and now the sun was slumping toward the tops of the mountain peaks west of Khost. The temperature dropped, and the nervous adrenaline congealed into plain nervousness. Had something happened? Had Balawi changed his mind? There were no answers and nothing to do but wait. The group of men and women beneath the metal awning had grown to fourteen, an oddly large gathering for an informant meeting. Normally, the imperative to shield a spys identity dictates that no more than two or three ofFicers are ever allowed to see him. But as was quickly becoming clear, there was nothing normal about the Balawi case. There was a sense of destiny, of history being made, one CIA participant in the events later recalled. "Everyone," the officer said, "wanted to be involved in this one." Gradually the ofFicers segregated themselves into small groups. The security detail, two CIA employees, and a pair of guards working for the private contractor Xe Services LLC, commonly known as Blackwater, stood near the gate, talking in low voices, M4s slung over their backs. Three of the men were military veterans, and all four had become chummy. Pipe-smoking Dane Paresi, a former Green Beret and one of the oldest in the group at forty-six, had joined Blackwater after a career that included stints in multiple hellholes, most recently Afghanistan, where his conduct under fire had earned him the Bronze Star. Iraq veteran Jeremy Wise, thirty-Five, an ex-Navy SEAL with an infectious grin, had signed up with the security contractor to pay the bills after leaving active service and was struggling to Figure out what to do with his life. Security team leader Harold E. Brown Jr., thirty-seven, was a former army intelligence ofFicer and devoted family man who taught Roman Catholic catechism classes and led Cub Scouts back in Virginia. Scott Roberson, thirty-eight, had been a narcotics detective in Atlanta in a previous life, and he was looking forward to becoming a father in less than a month. Nearer to the building, two men in civilian jeans and khakis chatted with the ease of longtime friends. Both were guests at Khost, having own to Afghanistan from Jordan to be present at Balawis debrieFing. The big man with ink black hair was Jordanian intelligence captain Ali bin Zeid, a cousin of King Abdullah II of Jordan and the only one in the group who had ever met Balawi. Darren LaBonte, an athletic ex-Army Ranger who sported a goatee and a baseball hat, was a CIA ofFicer assigned to the agencys Amman station. The two were close friends who often worked cases together and sometimes vacationed together along with their wives. Both had been anxious about the meeting with Balawi, and they had spent part of the previous day blowing off steam by snapping pictures and puttering around on a three-wheeler they had found. A larger group clustered around Matthews. One of them, a striking blonde with cobalt blue eyes, had been summoned from the CIAs Kabul station for the meeting because of her exceptional skills. Elizabeth Hanson was one of the agencys most celebrated targeters, an e Details ISBN0307742318 Author Joby Warrick Short Title TRIPLE AGENT Language English ISBN-10 0307742318 ISBN-13 9780307742315 Media Book Format Paperback Year 2012 UK Release Date 2012-05-01 Place of Publication New York Country of Publication United States AU Release Date 2012-05-01 NZ Release Date 2012-05-01 US Release Date 2012-05-01 Pages 288 Publisher Random House USA Inc Publication Date 2012-05-01 Imprint Vintage Books Subtitle The al-Qaeda Mole who Infiltrated the CIA DEWEY 327.12092 Illustrations 16 PP. 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