SEAL Target Geronimo: The Inside Story of the Mission to Kill Osama Bin Laden by Chuck Pfarrer Page B
Authors: Chuck Pfarrer
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toward the ship, looking back at the pilothouse windows. Behind the lifeboat’s windscreen, one head came up. Then another.
Mel had his scope zoomed on the bow. He could see Delta’s face so clearly he could see that his pupils were dilated. Erasto was staring into the night, gawking after shadows, his eyes cranked open to maximum. Two silhouettes in the pilothouse. Just two.
Then, Mel saw Delta jerk to his right. He saw Erasto lift his hand and point off to the east, point away from the destroyer’s starboard quarter. Mel tried to force away the thought that they had seen the HSACs, or that they had heard or seen the helicopter.
There was no time anymore, no seconds or minutes, everything was slow, moving as it does when the slack is taken out of a trigger, when the weapon is against your shoulder and you’ve done everything to stalk and aim and it comes down to an even, straight pull.
Delta was lifting his AK-47. He had a hand on the pistol grip and his fingers were closing over the forestock. Delta was aiming at something off the right side of the lifeboat. Behind the windshield the two shadows moved together, both of them now on the starboard side, one slightly in front of the other.
Mel kept his voice dead flat and even; his breath automatically controlled. Delta was aiming his rifle, but it did not matter, Mel and his boys were at cool zero.
“Who has?”
“Bravo has.”
“Charlie has.”
“Delta has.”
They were flush. Mel keyed the microphone and said over the tactical net: “Fire.”
Three bullets. Three kills. It was over. The pirates who had taken Maersk Alabama were dead, and Captain Richard Phillips was free.
BIN LADEN’S ROAD TO ABBOTTABAD
THE DAY THE WORLD CHANGED
SEPTEMBER 11, 2001
AT 8:46 A.M., ON THE MORNING OF September 11, 2001, American Airlines Flight 11 tore through the ninety-third floor of the World Trade Center’s building number one. There was not a cloud in the sky, and not one person in America’s counterterrorism apparatus, no one from the FBI director to the newest field agent, no one from the CIA director to the first tour case officer, analyst, or technician, no one thought it could be an accident.
From the first terrible instant of the 9/11 attacks American intelligence agencies knew that they had been had.
In the weeks and months prior to 9/11, the FBI and CIA had received and processed dozens of explicit warnings—these included both raw reports from officers and assets in the field, as well as polished memoranda and white papers from foreign intelligence services. Some warned of a general attack, others stated specifically that Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda intended to crash hijacked airliners into American targets.
But all these reports, both foreign and domestic, were ignored.
The information had filtered up through the ossified bureaucracies of two equally dysfunctional organizations. This intelligence crossed the same gray, government-issued desks at both the CIA and FBI. At both places, officers and analysts had their workspaces arranged into cubicle plantations where one anonymous, vindictive, or lazy person could derail an investigation, kill a lead, or spike a report. At the CIA, especially, such lethal office politics had been raised to an art form. And things were nearly as bad at the FBI, where a newly appointed director had surrounded himself with careerist survivors marking time until retirement.
No one who lived through 9/11 will ever forget where they were, what they were doing, or what they felt when they heard the news. The entire country ground to a halt under a staggering series of blows. It was an epoch-changing moment—one of the darkest in American history. The bloody hijackings, the crashes, the fires, the senseless deaths, the constant dread that even worse was to come, made the events all seem like a blur. Even now, America struggles with a sort of posttraumatic shock about 9/11.
There was chaos on the streets of
Mel had his scope zoomed on the bow. He could see Delta’s face so clearly he could see that his pupils were dilated. Erasto was staring into the night, gawking after shadows, his eyes cranked open to maximum. Two silhouettes in the pilothouse. Just two.
Then, Mel saw Delta jerk to his right. He saw Erasto lift his hand and point off to the east, point away from the destroyer’s starboard quarter. Mel tried to force away the thought that they had seen the HSACs, or that they had heard or seen the helicopter.
There was no time anymore, no seconds or minutes, everything was slow, moving as it does when the slack is taken out of a trigger, when the weapon is against your shoulder and you’ve done everything to stalk and aim and it comes down to an even, straight pull.
Delta was lifting his AK-47. He had a hand on the pistol grip and his fingers were closing over the forestock. Delta was aiming at something off the right side of the lifeboat. Behind the windshield the two shadows moved together, both of them now on the starboard side, one slightly in front of the other.
Mel kept his voice dead flat and even; his breath automatically controlled. Delta was aiming his rifle, but it did not matter, Mel and his boys were at cool zero.
“Who has?”
“Bravo has.”
“Charlie has.”
“Delta has.”
They were flush. Mel keyed the microphone and said over the tactical net: “Fire.”
Three bullets. Three kills. It was over. The pirates who had taken Maersk Alabama were dead, and Captain Richard Phillips was free.
BIN LADEN’S ROAD TO ABBOTTABAD
THE DAY THE WORLD CHANGED
SEPTEMBER 11, 2001
AT 8:46 A.M., ON THE MORNING OF September 11, 2001, American Airlines Flight 11 tore through the ninety-third floor of the World Trade Center’s building number one. There was not a cloud in the sky, and not one person in America’s counterterrorism apparatus, no one from the FBI director to the newest field agent, no one from the CIA director to the first tour case officer, analyst, or technician, no one thought it could be an accident.
From the first terrible instant of the 9/11 attacks American intelligence agencies knew that they had been had.
In the weeks and months prior to 9/11, the FBI and CIA had received and processed dozens of explicit warnings—these included both raw reports from officers and assets in the field, as well as polished memoranda and white papers from foreign intelligence services. Some warned of a general attack, others stated specifically that Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda intended to crash hijacked airliners into American targets.
But all these reports, both foreign and domestic, were ignored.
The information had filtered up through the ossified bureaucracies of two equally dysfunctional organizations. This intelligence crossed the same gray, government-issued desks at both the CIA and FBI. At both places, officers and analysts had their workspaces arranged into cubicle plantations where one anonymous, vindictive, or lazy person could derail an investigation, kill a lead, or spike a report. At the CIA, especially, such lethal office politics had been raised to an art form. And things were nearly as bad at the FBI, where a newly appointed director had surrounded himself with careerist survivors marking time until retirement.
No one who lived through 9/11 will ever forget where they were, what they were doing, or what they felt when they heard the news. The entire country ground to a halt under a staggering series of blows. It was an epoch-changing moment—one of the darkest in American history. The bloody hijackings, the crashes, the fires, the senseless deaths, the constant dread that even worse was to come, made the events all seem like a blur. Even now, America struggles with a sort of posttraumatic shock about 9/11.
There was chaos on the streets of
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