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The official set up a formation of soldiers on the tarmac to greet John. As soon as the plane landed, I went into it to find John. At first I couldn’t see him. The plane was packed with people. Then I heard his voice shout “Ali.” He had spotted me. I waved him to the door, and he pushed his way through the other passengers and we hugged. Kevin Donovan, who later became the assistant director of the New York office, was one of the officials with him. I explained what was waiting on the tarmac. They were relieved and even laughed, as it was the opposite of what they were expecting.

John was already familiar with most of the problems that we were having with the Yemenis and Ambassador Bodine, and as we walked through the airport he put his arm around me and said: “Don’t worry, we’ll deal with all these problems. There’s a new sheriff in town.” John always inspired confidence. He had such a reassuring presence, and those who worked for him knew he would do anything he could to support his agents. Still, I was skeptical despite John’s reassurance; knowing as I did both Ambassador Bodine’s personality and John’s, I guessed that the two would clash.

Because of the rapport I had developed with the Yemenis at the airport, and because of John’s status as a “general,” we passed easily through airport security to the waiting escort. I pointed out to John the Binladin construction site with the big billboard as we passed it.

The first thing John did at the Mövenpick was speak to our team. He told them what he told me: that he’d deal with the problems we were having. John’s presence lifted their spirits. Next I took him to see the Cole. The sight of the giant hole on the side, the blood on the floor, the sullen look on sailors’ faces—it was all just as chilling every time I went to the destroyer.

We spoke to the captain of the Cole, Commander Kirk Lippold. John asked him, “How are you doing?” Lippold responded by speaking about his sailors. He told us who was killed, who was injured, and of the efforts being made to save the ship. He spoke slowly, clearly still coming to terms with the magnitude of what had happened. He was a brave and kind man, and it seemed as if each one of the sailors killed was one of his own children. John put his arm around the captain and asked him again, “How are you doing?”

Commander Lippold replied, “I’m not worried about myself.” He then paused and added: “The navy eats its own.”

It was sad to hear that the captain felt that his career was over. It shouldn’t have been. Commander Kirk Lippold was a rising star in the U.S. Navy. He was an Annapolis graduate and had all the right talent and assignments to become a future senior leader in the Department of the Navy. He was not responsible for his ship’s choosing to dock in the port, nor was there anything he could have done to prevent the bombing. And a commander who cared so deeply about his men was someone the navy should hold on to. We told him that. “It doesn’t matter,” he told us, and focused on what needed to be done: his only concern was saving the ship. His courage and resolve were inspiring. The same traits were displayed by everyone else on the ship.

After speaking to sailors and inspecting the blast site, John and I took a walk around the deck of the Cole. From one side we could see the hills of Aden lined up against the horizon. For a few minutes neither one of us spoke. We just leaned on the rails, thinking our own thoughts.

I broke the silence. “If we are right that al-Qaeda is responsible for this attack, as I believe we are, I am sure they had someone in those hills to record the operation to use it for propaganda purposes. That means there’s at least one more person involved in this operation, and he’s still out there.”

John nodded. “So let’s find him.”

It was at the hotel that I first got to meet some members of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center, led by Hank Crumpton. One of the CTC officers—Ed—had been mentioned to me by fellow FBI agent and al-Qaeda expert Dan Coleman,