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“We’ve just seen the images here,” I said. “Do you know what’s going on?”

“We’re trying to find out. At the moment, we’ve got about thirty agents who were in the vicinity missing. We’re treating this as a terrorist attack.”

After checking the embassy’s security and loading our own personal weapons, we all gathered in a secure conference room and waited for news from New York. More bad news reached us by television: bomb threats in DC, more planes allegedly hijacked, and finally the tragic news of United Airlines Flight 63 crashing over Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

Tom Donlon waited on the phone for fifteen minutes and at last was patched through to headquarters. The call lasted only a couple of minutes, and Tom didn’t say much other than “yes, I understand.”

“Okay,” he said, putting the phone down, “the instructions are for everyone to evacuate Yemen immediately and get on the first plane back to New York. Yemen is deemed unsafe. We don’t yet know who was behind the attacks in New York and Washington, or if more attacks are coming. But given the problems we’ve had in Yemen in the past, we’re to get out. Pack up and be prepared to leave in a few hours.”

For once none of us disagreed with an order to return home. As important as our mission in Yemen was, it could wait. Thousands of Americans were reported killed, and our colleagues were missing. We wanted to get home to help. We packed our bags, shredded documents that we weren’t taking with us, and, the next day, September 12, we headed to the airport.

“Ali!” The CIA [3 words redacted] in Sanaa came up to me as I waited in the airport with the rest of the team to board the plane.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“FBI headquarters is trying to reach you. You need to speak to them.”

“Who at headquarters? What do they want?”

“I don’t know, but they’ve sent a number.” I asked Tom Donlon if he knew why I was wanted, but he was unaware that headquarters was trying to reach me.

Tom and I went to a quiet corner outside the airport terminal, where our team’s communication technician mounted a portable dish and established a secure satellite line. The number belonged to Dina Corsi, the FBI analyst in headquarters who had clashed with Steve Bongardt during the June 11, 2001, meeting in New York. “Ali, there has been a change of plans,” she said. “You and Bob McFadden need to stay in Yemen.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “We have been attacked back home; we need to figure out who did this. Whatever is going on here can wait.”

“We do need to figure out what just happened, which is why we need you to stay in Yemen. It’s about what happened here. Quso is our best lead at the moment.”

“Quso? What does he have to do with this?”

“The [1 word redacted] has some intelligence for you to look over.”

“Okay, I’ll talk to Bob. We’ll stay.”

“One final thing, your instructions from the top are to identify those behind the attacks, and I quote, ‘by any means necessary.’”

“We’ll find them,” I replied.

“One more thing, Ali,” Dina said.

“Yes?”

“Be safe.”

I ran to Bob, who was waiting for me to board the plane, and repeated the instructions I had just received. “‘By any means necessary,’” I said, giving him the exact command I had been told. He nodded gravely. We assembled our FBI and NCIS colleagues who were also waiting to board and told them about our change of plan. Tom Donlon and Steve Corbett, the NCIS supervisor on the ground, decided to stay as well to help with the investigation, and two New York SWAT team agents also volunteered to stay and provide protection. Everyone else got on the plane, and we returned to the embassy.

“Let’s go to my office,” the [1 word redacted] said. He and I were alone, and he closed the door. He took out a file and silently handed it me.

Inside were three pictures of al-Qaeda operatives taken in Kuala Lumpur, [10 words redacted] and photos were all dated January 2000 and had been provided to the CIA by the Malaysian [6 words redacted] agency.

For about a minute I stared at the pictures and the report, not quite believing what I had in my hands. We had asked