Quotes

Dialogue

Dan: Right now, this is about you coming to terms with your situation. It's you and me, bro. I want you to understand that I know you, that I've been studying you for a very long time. I could have had you killed in Karachi. But I let you live so you can I could talk. Ammar: You beat me when my hands are tied. I won't talk to you. Dan: Life isn't always fair, my friend. Did you really think that when we got you, I'd be a nice fucking guy? Ammar: You're a mid-level guy. You're a garbage man in a corporation. Why should I respect you? Dan: And you're a money man. A paperboy! A disgrace to humanity! You and your uncle murdered three thousand innocent people. I have your name on a five-thousand dollar transfer via Western Union to a 9/11 hijacker; and you got popped with 150 kilograms of high explosives in your house! And then you DARE question me?!

Dialogue

Jessica: A farmer on the Afghan border near Tora Bora reports a diamond shaped pattern in the hills, tall male in the center of the diamond, flanked by four guards. It's consistent with UBL's movements. Jeremy: That's supposed to be his Royal Guard? Maya: That's pre-9/11 behavior. Jessica: [irritated] We don't have any reason to believe he's changed security tactics. Maya: We invaded Afghanistan. That's a reason.

Dialogue

Maya: [to Ammar, referencing the 2004 Khboar massacre] After we kept you awake for 96 hours, you gave us names of some of your brothers and saved the lives of a lot of innocent people. Dan: Which is the smart thing to do, you're starting to think for yourself. Eat up! You earned it! Dan: So you flew via Amman to Kabul to hang out with your uncle? Mukhtar. Amar: How did you know that? Dan: I told you man, I know you. Alright, you got me - flight manifests. It must've been pretty fucked up for you guys after 9/11. What did you do after the invasion and before you went back to Pesh? Ammar: After 9/11 we had to choose: fight, to protect our turf - or run. Dan: You chose to fight. Ammar: I wanted to kill Americans. We tried to get into Tora Bora, but the bombing was too high. We couldn't cross. Maya: Sorry, who is the "we" in that sentence? Dan: [casually, but annoyed] I can go eat with some other dude and hang you back up to the ceiling. Ammar: Hamza Rabia, Khabab al-Masri, and Abu Ahmed.

Dialogue

Joseph Bradley: Well, that's good. You still don't... Maya: [cutting him off] Yeah, we don't know if Abu is on the outside of the network — part of a series of cutouts and dead drops — or if he has a direct connection to bin Laden. Does bin Laden invite him into the living room and hand him a letter directly? Or is Abu just the last guy in a long line of couriers, so that's why everybody knows him? Joseph Bradley: That's not all you don't know. You don't have his true name, and you don't have a clue where he is. Maya: We know that he's important. The fact that everybody's heard of Abu Ahmed but nobody will tell me where he is suggests that. Joseph Bradley: Maybe. Detainees could withhold his location for any number of reasons. Perhaps they don't know; perhaps this Abu is just a cover story and he's really a fucking unicorn. The withholding doesn't reveal what you want it to, does it? Maya: No. Joseph Bradley: And if you did find him, you don't know that he'd be with bin Laden. Dan: We

Dialogue

Maya: [to Hassan Ghul] I want you to understand that I know you. I have been following you for a long time. I chased you in Lahore. I had you picked up instead of killing you because you're not a violent man and you don't deserve to die. Hassan Ghul: Thank you. Maya: But you do have deep ties to al-Qaeda that I want to ask you about before you get sent to your next location, which might be Israel. However, depending on how candid you are today, I may be able to keep you in Pakistan. Hassan Ghul: What do you want to know? Maya: I'm going to ask you a series of questions based on your knowledge of al-Qaeda and your position as key financier for the organization. Hassan Ghul: I have dealt with the Mukhabarat, I have no wish to be tortured again. Ask me a question, I can answer it. Maya: What can you tell me about Atiyah Abd al-Rahman. Hassan Ghul: He works for Zawahiri. He's in charge of military tactics. Maya: In what context have you heard the name Abu Ahmed? Hassan Ghul: He works for F

Dialogue

Larry: This guy you're obsessed with, what's his name again? Maya: Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti is the nom de guerre. His true name, we think, is Ibraheem Sayeed. His family lives in Kuwait. Larry: Wasn't it, like, eight brothers and a million cousins that we know about? Anyone could be calling home. It's not like he's saying "Hey mom, it's me, the terrorist." Maya: Over the course of two months he's called home from six different pay phones, from two different cities, never using the same phone twice. And when his mother asked him where he was, he lied. He said that he was in a place in the country with bad cell reception - implying he was in the Tribals - but he was in Peshawar. I'm sorry, but that's not normal guy behavior. That's tradecraft. Larry: Maybe he just doesn't like his mom? Look, if he talks about an operation, or refers to anything remotely fishy, I'll get on him, okay? Maya: No. Not okay. Look, Abu Ahmed is too smart to tip his hand by talking about ops on the phone: he works f

Dialogue

Steve: [in CIA conference room, where he and Maya are about to meet with the CIA Director and his Deputies] They're gonna ask: "If bin Laden is at the end of this rainbow, is the Pak military with him? Maya: The question isn't "Are the Paks protecting bin Laden?" The question is "Would he allow himself to be protected by the Paks?" I mean, why would he trust them? He tried to kill Musharaf. [CIA Director and his Deputies walk in] CIA Director: Go ahead. Steve: [gesturing over a map of Pakistan] If you take a right out of Islamabad and drive about forty-five minutes north, you'll find yourself here, in Abbottabad. A middle class community, some ex-military, not particularly interesting to us. Except we did find this compound, which is unique. We got a sixteen foot wall around the entire perimeter, the windows are blacked out. It's a fortress. CIA Director: Can't you put a camera somewhere, in the trees, to get a look into the main house? George: It will probably be discovered. CIA Direc

Dialogue

Maya: I really need to talk to you about beefing up our surveillance operation on the caller. Joseph: We don't have a surveillance operation on the caller. Someone just tried to blow up Times Square and you're talking about some facilitator that some detainee said seven years ago might be working with al-Qaeda? Maya: He's the key to bin Laden. Joseph: I don't fucking care about bin Laden. I care about the next attack. You're gonna start working on the American al-Qaeda cells. Protect the homeland. Maya: Bin Laden is the one who keeps telling them to attack the homeland. If it wasn't for him, al-Qaeda would still be focused on overseas targets. If you really want to protect the homeland, you need to get bin Laden. Joseph: This guy never met bin Laden. This guy's a freelancer working on the fucking Internet. Nobody's even talk to bin Laden in four years. He's out of the game. He may well even be dead. He might as well be fucking dead, but you know what you're doing. You're chasing a ghos

Dialogue

General: [about stealth helicopters] I actually tried to kill this program a couple of times. They've gone through an initial round of testing, and they have excellent radar defeat - we just haven't tested them with people in them yet. You'll notice these stealth panels, similar to what we use on the B2. The rotors have been muffled with decibel killers. It's slower than a Black Hawk and lacks the offense. But it can hide. Justin: Excuse me. Can I ask a question? What do we need this for in Libya? Gaddafi's anti-air is virtually non-existent. George: Gentlemen, can I have your attention? My name is George, I run the Af-Pak division at CTC, and I'm primary on this for the Agency. This is a title fifty operation. Some of us have worked together before. This is a good one. Maya, do you want to brief them? Maya: There are two narratives about the location of Osama bin Laden. The one that you're most familiar with is that UBL is hiding in a cave in the Tribal Areas, that he's surrounded by

Dialogue

CIA Director: I'm about to go look the President in the eye, and what I'd like to know, no fucking bullshit, is where everyone stands on this thing. Now, very simply, is he there, or is he not fucking there? Deputy Director: We all come at this through the filter of our own past experiences. I remember "Iraq WMD" very clearly, I fronted that, and I can tell you the case for that was much stronger than this case. CIA Director: A fuckin' yes or a no. Deputy Director: We don't deal in certainty, we deal in probability. I'd say there's a sixty percent probability he's there. The Wolf: I concur. Sixty percent. George: I'm at eighty percent. Their OPSEC is what convinces me. CIA Director: You guys ever agree on anything? Dan: Well, I agree with sixty, we're basing this mostly on detainee reporting and I spent a bunch of time in those rooms. Who knows? I'd say it's a soft sixty, sir. I'm virtually certain there's some high value target there, I'm just not sure it's bin Laden. CIA Director: Th

Dialogue

Justin: So Patrick, be honest with me. You really believe this story? I mean, [to Maya] no offense, no offense, I don't. [to Patrick] But... Osama bin Laden? Patrick: Yeah. Justin: What part convinced you? Patrick: [motions toward Maya] Her confidence. Justin: That's the kind of concrete data point I'm looking for. I'll tell you buddy, if her confidence is the one thing that's keeping me from getting ass-raped in a Pakistani prison I'm gonna be honest with you, bro. [smirks] I'm cool with it.