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[5] THE DEPLOYMENT John O’Neill was convinced that the 1993 bombing of New York’s World Trade Center was but a first blow in what was intended as a prolonged campaign. Indeed , he was certain that the destruction of the twin towers remained al Qaeda’s prime objective. He was among the first senior FBI officials to appreciate that plots targeting the United States were being hatched in safe havens abroad, rendering the distinction between international and domestic terrorism moot. It was, he believed, self-defeating to try to sustain bureaucratic boundaries that ran counter to reality. Though constituted as a domestic law enforcement agency, the FBI has the mandate to investigate crimes against Americans wherever in the world they occur. A legend in the Bureau, O’Neill was the G-man’s G-man. He was a cop who dressed sharp like a gangster. Known in all of New York’s best spots, he loved to entertain, and he cultivated friends in police and security services the world over. He was smart and independent enough not to be hamstrung by anyone else’s conventional wisdom. He was also brash and difficult, even his close friends acknowledge. In early 1995, he was appointed section chief of counterterrorism at headquarters, and in December 1996 he moved to the New York Field Office as special agent in charge (SAC) of the National Security Division. In a tragic twist of fate, O’Neill became the World Trade Center’s chief of security upon retiring from the Bureau. September 11, 2001, was his first day on his new job. He died in the collapse of the south tower. To this day, when former colleagues invoke his name, their tone becomes hushed with emotion. True to his nature, immediately upon learning of the embassy bombings, O’Neill took the initiative to deploy teams led by Pat D’Amuro to Nairobi and Joe Billy to Dar, notwithstanding Washington Field Office’s jurisdiction over attacks in the Middle East and Africa. He argued that his New York investigators had an active interest in bin Laden and the background knowledge to pursue the case. Ultimately, agents from both Washington and New York descended on the two crime scenes. It was O’Neill’s Washington counterpart, Sheila Horan, who was assigned to command the investigation in Nairobi, while her number two, Ken Piernick, The Deployment 45 was put in charge in Dar. It wasn’t easy on Horan to know that O’Neill was taking a direct interest in her investigation, and had sent over two of his most loyal soldiers. She was no stranger to Bureau politics or its old boys’ network. She was among the earliest female special agents and the first to rise to a senior rank. Not the outsized personality that O’Neill was, she nonetheless carried her authority with confidence. While the involvement of two separate field offices complicated the lines of command, it did not hinder the investigation. Once it was determined that bin Laden was responsible, NYFO was officially designated the office of origin and given jurisdiction for the case. The deployment was a massive logistical undertaking for which the Bureau had no precedent. As Billy put it, “It wasn’t like we were supposed to be ready and came up ill-prepared. This was a totally new thing.”1 It entailed hundreds of agents, crime scene technicians, evidence recovery specialists, forensic analysts, bomb techs, communications specialists, dog handlers, doctors, paramedics, and SWAT teams, all assembled at a moment’s notice, along with all of their gear. Everyone was hurriedly vaccinated and began downing antimalaria pills, knowing full well that it takes time for the immunity to kick in. Given that resources and facilities in Africa were limited or nonexistent, everything they could conceivably need had to be transported to the crime scene, including basics like food, water, medicine, and blood supply (because of the inadequacy of local stockpiles and concerns over the prevalence of AIDS) so as to ensure their self-sufficiency on the ground. Piernick, a former member of the Eighty-Second Airborne, had previous experience of such a large-scale operation: “Deploying is what the Airborne does, so I quickly concentrated on getting our people ready. I got a KC-10, which has a tremendous cargo capacity, loaded up at Andrews Air Force base.”2 The New York contingent commandeered a city bus to drive them to Andrews. To everyone’s immense frustration, the bus was fitted with...

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