No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama Bin Laden

identifiable remains after that kind of destruction was low.
    If we were going to conduct this mission either with an air strike or raid, they wanted proof it was Bin Laden. The assault was risky, but the air strike added additional complications.

    A few days after we arrived in North Carolina, we saw the Pacer for the first time.
    Standing around the computer screen, we watched drone footage of the compound. The feed was black-and-white with little detail. I could make out the main building and the courtyard that took up the northeastern part of the compound.
    After a few seconds, I saw the Pacer enter the frame. From the video feed, he looked like an ant. There was no way we could make out his face or even how tall he was. But we could see him walk out of the north door and start pacing in an oval clockwise around the courtyard. A makeshift awning was rigged up to cover him, but it only shaded part of the garden.
    “He does this for hours,” one of the agency analysts said. “I’ve seen him walk by guys doing work, but he never helps. He just paces.”
    Sometimes, he walked with a female or a child. None of them stopped to do any work. When a veterinarian came to treat the cow that lived in the courtyard, they moved it to another courtyard for treatment.
    “We believe the reason they moved the cow is they don’t want anyone to see that side of the compound,” the analyst said. “It’s circumstantial, but it looks like they are hiding someone. Hey, take a look at this.”
    Clicking to another day’s feed, we could see the compound and then, from the right side of the screen, a Pakistani helicopter flew over.
    “Where did that come from?” I said.
    “A PakMil Huey,” the analyst said. “Not sure where it came from, but it was leaving the military academy.”
    We all stared at the screen, waiting to see if anyone in the compound reacted. We didn’t see the Pacer sprint to a car and run. Instantly, we all thought the same thing. This meant he was accustomed to hearing helicopters.
    “We might actually be able to get on the deck before they really figure out what is going on,” Charlie said.

    With the mission planned out, we began rehearsals.
    The Black Hawk swooped over the North Carolina pine forest and came to a hover over the compound. From my perch, sitting legs blowing in the breeze just outside the left door of the helicopter, I could see the life-size mock-up of Bin Laden’s compound. Nestled in a remote part of the base, the practice compound was built to scale using plywood, chain-link fence, and shipping containers.
    Sliding down the fast-rope, I landed in the courtyard and moved to the double doors at C1. All around me, my teammates were racing to their objectives. The roar of the engines above us made it hard to talk, but after three days of practice we didn’t need to talk. The whole mission had become muscle memory. Besides some time hacks that were called out over the radio, the net was silent. Everyone knew their individual jobs. We had years and years of experience among the groups, so everything moved smoothly. This target wasn’t any more complicated than hundreds of others we’d assaulted over the years.
    The rehearsals were less about training and more about selling to the White House that we could do it.
    The level of detail on the mock-up was impressive. The construction crews at the base had planted trees, dug a ditch around the compound, and even put in mounded dirt to simulate the potato fields that surrounded the compound in Pakistan.
    After a few runs, we asked if they could add the third-floor balcony and move some of the gates to better simulate the layout of the actual compound.
    Before the next rehearsal, the changes were made.
    The construction crew didn’t ask why and never said no. They just showed up and made all requested changes. We’d never been treated like this. All of the bureaucracy was gone. If we needed something, we got it. No questions asked. It was a far cry from what we were forced to deal with in Afghanistan.
    The only black hole in the practice compound was the interiors. We had no idea what the inside of the house looked like. It wasn’t a big concern. We had years of combat experience, and we could apply it to this problem. We had no doubt we could pull this off; we just needed to get on the ground.
    Stopping at the door of the container that simulated C1, I scanned inside before entering. During the real mission, I had no idea if Ahmed