In September 2001, Rosa Smothers, a 28-year-old IT technician in Florida, learned of the attacks and became consumed by the “urge for revenge” (323). She studied bin Laden extensively, enrolled at Florida State University, and joined the Defense Intelligence Agency before transferring to the CIA as a terrorism analyst. She tracked al-Qaeda’s evolving use of technology, finding hackable gaps in their digital operations.

The post-9/11 period brought a surge of women into counterterrorism. Holly Bond joined the CIA after the 1995 lifting of the ban on gay and lesbian officers. With military bomb-squad experience, she became the first woman to work on machine locks in the physical access group. Women’s advancement accelerated as techniques like targeting matured and became recognized as crucial. Leadership analysts and staff operations officers—largely female disciplines previously seen as secondary—emerged as essential for finding dispersed terrorists.

The work was increasingly difficult. Analysts had to watch and study beheading videos. Rosa Smothers returned from Iraq unable to sleep. NSA analysts at Fort Meade grappled with providing coordinates for drone strikes that might kill women and children. In the face of this, some personnel quit. Sue Gordon later reflected that without the elevated presence of women in targeting and analysis, the hunt for bin Laden might not have succeeded.

In the months after 9/11, Cindy Storer consulted with an operations team headed to Afghanistan. When an officer mentioned finding an offshore ship for a “rendered” terrorist suspect, Storer realized this meant a location where laws against torture could be bypassed. She immediately told management she wanted no involvement.

The “enhanced interrogation program” (331) began in March 2002 when Pakistani officials arrested Abu Zubaydah. To get around US and international laws on torture, the Justice Department lawyers drafted “so-called torture memos” (331) redefining certain physical methods as “not torture,” and arguing that these laws did not apply to US personnel working in countries that permitted torture. Psychologists James Mitchell and John Bruce Jessen trained CIA officers in torture techniques including waterboarding, sleep deprivation, and close confinement. Later reports showed that officers present at the waterboarding of Zubaydah in Thailand were visibly upset and threatened to transfer. There were also concerns that Zubaydah was a minor player and did not have the information sought by his interrogators.

Jennifer Matthews had been instrumental in Zubaydah’s capture and was present during his interrogations, where he identified suspect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) as central to the 9/11 attacks. On March 1, 2003, KSM was captured and taken to a secret prison in Poland. Alfreda Bikowsky served as deputy chief of Alec Station and participated in interrogations, arguing in cables that the techniques unlocked life-saving intelligence. A 2014 Senate report debunked these claims, concluding coercive techniques were useless or counterproductive. The report also revealed errors by Bikowsky, including one leading to the kidnapping of innocent German citizen Khalid El-Masri. The report argued rapport building in interrogations produced better intelligence, citing Hassan Ghul’s revelations about bin Laden’s courier during a relaxed conversation over tea. Officers reading Bikowsky’s reports identified fabricated material and her name became a byword for untrustworthy evidence. 

The program ended in November 2007. Gina Haspel, who had overseen the Thailand prison and aided in destroying interrogation tapes, became CIA director in 2018. Many analysts remained conflicted. Bennett states that the program was ineffective rather than “disproportionate to the crime” of 9/11 (337), although she questions the value and identity of an America that asks its citizens to perform “despicable” actions. The program created lasting CIA recruitment problems from minority communities.

Lisa Harper, approaching 60 and a member of Alec Station, refused involvement in the enhanced interrogation program. She believed torture was wrong, immoral, and bad tradecraft, warning younger officers that the agency would become the fall guy. Unlike colleagues burdened by guilt over 9/11, Harper believed the CIA had done a good job but al-Qaeda had executed a better operation on that single day.

Harper traveled frequently on operational assignments. Around 2004, she joined a team of Cold War veterans investigating whether al-Qaeda might smuggle operatives through Mexico, proving the theory was a red herring. She also worked to improve embassy security in Africa, though she was initially dismissed as a “menopausal Minnie” until a female ambassador recognized her competence.

Harper found that her Cold War skills transferred well to fighting al-Qaeda. She worked with local governments, conducted deradicalization training, and used her knowledge of the Quran—studied through her husband Charlie, a Sunni Muslim from Morocco—to counter false propaganda about Islam. When male assets made advances, she rebuffed them directly. She validated herself by explaining that being a woman provided additional operational cover. She concluded that whether fighting Communism or radical Islam, espionage remained fundamentally the same.

In early 2002, Heidi August visited the Porsche factory in Stuttgart to order a custom car. She then volunteered for deployment to Iraq in early 2003, presenting an updated will before departure. Joining a convoy to Baghdad, she commandeered a former palace kitchen, secured an internet connection, and created a private command center. Her assignment was restoring cellphone and digital services. She hired Iraqi engineers, including women with PhDs, and got Baghdad back online. Experiencing hostility from Iraqis, August predicted Iraq would become “another Beirut,” i.e., an unmanageable and drawn-out occupation. 

Gina Bennett returned from maternity leave and wrote a targeting profile on the jihadist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. In Baghdad in fall 2003, she noticed the unusual absence of women and children outside the Green Zone—a sign of al-Qaeda presence that her male colleagues had missed. She warned a senior official that US occupation had transformed bin Laden’s propaganda into reality. Susan Hasler quit in 2003, demoralized by the increasing radicalization provoked by the Iraq War.

As the war expanded, targeting became central. Zarqawi allied his Iraqi network to al-Qaeda’s, creating ISIS. Nada Bakos managed “cybersleuths” tracking Zarqawi in Baghdad. Lisa Rager joined in 2005 from the tech sector, using cellular metadata and mathematical models to identify network nodes. On June 7, 2006, a bomb dropped on Zarqawi’s safe house; the targeting team that located him was entirely female.

Angie Lewis learned to navigate the ethical gray zone between nonlethal and lethal actions. When her young daughter asked about a Predator drone, Lewis replied it “makes bad guys go away” (352). She reflected that her job was “making bad people have bad days,” (352) adding that only a tiny fraction of the work resembled the action of the film Zero Dark Thirty.

On December 30, 2009, Molly Chambers, a 22-year-old professional trainee on the Jordan desk, was asked to find contact information for the wife of case officer Darren LaBonte in Amman, one of seven CIA workers killed at Camp Chapman in Khost, Afghanistan. Jennifer Matthews was then chief of the base. One of Matthew’s assets, Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi had been allowed to pass into the camp without enhanced checks; recruited as a double agent, he detonated a suicide vest once inside. It was the deadliest CIA day since the 1983 Beirut embassy bombing.

News accounts focused on Matthews’s role, suggesting inexperience and glossing over supervisors’ involvement. Kristin Wood believed Matthews was unfairly blamed due to the leadership’s lack of accountability, similar to how people blamed Matthews for leaving her children in ways they never blamed male casualties like Mike Spann. A younger targeter whom Matthews mentored attended the funeral, vowed to find bin Laden, and later provided the model for Maya in the film Zero Dark Thirty.

In July 2011, Chambers attended the Farm. Posted to Uganda in 2012, she worked with a Counterterrorism Operational Platform, helping find boys kidnapped and forced to fight by militia. In Nigeria, she penetrated Boko Haram after 276 girls were kidnapped from a Chibok school, setting up a safe house near Lake Chad and working with British and French partners to rescue 30 girls at once.

Chambers found her gender and nationality created a “third category” in Islamic countries, allowing her to socialize with both sexes and develop male and female assets. She also encountered sexism from male colleagues, including sexist slurs and being denied the war-zone credit that men received. She reported that being a case officer was 95% misery and 5% satisfaction. She wanted her file to show she took hard, unglamorous assignments and never let colleagues or assets down.

In late summer 2010, Fran Moore, Deputy Director of Analysis, received a report tracking a bin Laden courier vehicle to a large compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The title suggested certainty about bin Laden’s presence, but the details did not support that confidence. Moore cautioned the team about overselling findings and required reviewing every paper before it was sent on.

Moore’s career had been marked by quiet support from women like Mary Margaret Graham. Raised in northern New Jersey by Italian immigrant parents, she graduated summa cum laude from Elmira College in 1982 and joined the CIA during the Casey-era hiring surge. Despite excellent work on a North Korea task force, she hit the “maternal wall” when a junior colleague was chosen over her because Moore “got two kids. Too much on her plate” (375). After 12 years in East Asia, she moved to human resources and learned how women had been historically channeled in the CIA, before returning to analysis under Graham’s urging.

By 2005, the bin Laden hunt had taken important steps thanks to an analyst called Jill, who proposed focusing on the two dozen people bin Laden likely contacted through four vectors: family, couriers, al-Qaeda leadership, and media. Another analyst, Rachel, realized in 2007 that they needed to find people close to bin Laden who used technology, as bin Laden operated under strict blackout. She shifted focus to the courier, found a partial pseudonym, and located his real name—Ibrahim Saeed Ahmed—in 2002 intelligence.

In 2009, President Obama demanded a detailed plan from Director Panetta. NSA matched voice recordings and geolocated the courier’s cellphone. In August 2010, a Pakistani asset tracked his vehicle to an upscale Abbottabad neighborhood. The large compound had few windows, high walls, no landline or internet, and occupants who burned all trash. Careful counting of clothesline items suggested several adults and nine children. Aerial surveillance revealed a tall man who walked in circles but never left the compound.

Moore called in a separate group for planning simulations known as “red-teaming.” Identification confidence levels ranged from 55-95%. Bin Laden had imposed near-total isolation on his multiple wives and children in the compound. Mundy details bin Laden’s misogynistic control of and attitudes towards women. In contrast to the gender segregation at the compound, the tracking team integrated women at every level—analysts, targeters, and senior leaders. The book notes that it was women’s inclusion on the team that prompted it to use the compound’s laundry as a measure of household occupants.

By January 2011, intelligence reached a tipping point. Admiral McRaven developed a raid plan and on May 2, 2011, two Black Hawks descended on the compound. The first helicopter dropped into an animal pen. SEALs entered, shooting the bodyguards and proceeding upstairs. The analysts had gotten everyone’s locations correct. Bin Laden appeared, retreated, and was shot multiple times. The code word “Geronimo” confirmed his identity.

Mundy summarizes the later experiences of women on the team. In summer 2022, the author visited CIA headquarters to interview Rachel, who was humble and emphasized collaboration. Maya, the model for the film Zero Dark Thirty, reportedly left the CIA after not being promoted because “she didn’t exhibit the range of skills” (388) needed, which Mundy argues was due to sexism. Barbara Sude, retired to North Carolina. Gina Bennett, on learning of bin Laden’s death, commented that the real reckoning for al-Qaeda would come when nobody remembered them.

Mundy explores the lives of agency women after leaving the CIA. In fall 2016, Ellie Duckett, a dying Cold War-era case officer, was carried to Carolina Beach for one last ocean visit. Her friend Marti Peterson Shogi, the first woman deployed in Moscow, helped care for her. Duckett had amassed engagement rings but never married, loving her career too much. For Cold War women, a culture discouraging families meant many had no partner to care for them in old age, so they cared for each other. Jeanne Vertefeuille never married, and Sandy Grimes looked after her until the end.

Heidi August lived in Santa Barbara in her mid-70s, driving a red Mini Cooper. Sue McCloud lived in a Carmel beach house and served five terms as mayor after retirement. In 2016, Susan Hasler, Cindy Storer, and Barbara Sude gathered at a North Carolina writers’ retreat with books by Tenet, Morell, and other men. Planning to discuss their careers, they became distracted by the male authors’ omission of women’s contributions. The weekend was cathartic, but they could not get around to writing their own book.

Storer had the hardest time after leaving the CIA. She taught intelligence history and did freelance security analysis in Florida, envious of veterans’ benefits. Studies showed counterterrorism work during the war on terror caused PTSD in analysts as well as operatives. Gina Bennett stayed 20 more years after 9/11. Interviewed after Trump’s election, she said the main security threat came from within America and pointed out that statistically almost no Muslims had joined al-Qaeda. By 2021, citizens had stormed the Capitol. Mike Scheuer, Alec Station’s founder, had expressed QAnon admiration and called for violence.

Lisa Harper retained faith that American values would prevail. She stayed at the agency until 2016, teaching new officers. She belonged to a sisterhood of retired female officers with an online community and had joined a weekly wine appreciation group that had previously been male-only. She took enormous pleasure in her work and would gladly come out of retirement if needed. She had contributed intelligence that reached the president many times and influenced American history. When her interview with Mundy ended, she slipped down side stairs and disappeared. The author never saw where she parked, almost as if she had never been there.