The man who nearly apprehended Osama bin Laden doesn’t blend too easily into New York City. Gary Berntsen is the 49- year-old ex-CIA officer who came closest to capturing Osama bin Laden – also known by the CIA as ‘Elvis’ because there were regular alleged sightings of him in late 2001. Now, the retired CIA officer, who ran one of the legendary ‘Jawbreaker’ teams tasked with killing bin Laden, has his own private security company. That means he protects businessmen against kidnap and advises blue-chip clients on how to avoid trouble. Ask him to cast his mind back to how he felt chasing Osama bin Laden and he says, “I am just hunting. And I am looking for opportunities to kill the enemy at every moment.”

Berntsen joined the CIA’s Middle- Eastern division in the early 1980s, at a time when US targets in the region were being attacked by Hezbollah. He quickly forged a reputation as a risk-taker who delivered results. Fellow CIA man and former bin Laden unit chief, Mike Scheuer, says, “Gary made a career of consistently working in some of the most dangerous places on earth.”

Today, six years after he finally cornered bin Laden on the mountains of Tora Bora that lie to the southeast of the capital Kabul, Berntsen is still scathing about his enemy: “Bin Laden believes that everyone should fight to save his life. He believes they should sacrifice themselves for him.” In September 2001 Berntsen’s orders were simple – find bin Laden and kill him.

Needle in a haystack
After 9/11 the rules for tackling terrorism changed dramatically. But finding one man who spoke 30 languages, in a country populated by 20m,wasn’t an easy goal. However, the US had one thing on its side: technology. Laser designators and GPS- based gear used by ground-based Special Forces were able to target and guide close air support teams to drop bombs on Taliban forces with deadly precision.

Conditions were primitive, however. Berntsen says, “We were operating in buildings that had windows blown out. Some of them had roofs on them and some of them didn’t. We’d put plastic on the windows because of dust, which gets everywhere.”

But that same technological advantage could sometimes give the team a false sense of security. Scheuer explains, “The rub comes because the tech guys [in the CIA] do not want anything to do with collecting against obsolete technologies even though those are the most important communications systems used by insurgents on the ground. ”In other words, bin Laden could pass messages via word of mouth or written notes, which are easily destroyed, and thus outwit billion-dollar CIA plans – a possible reason he’s still alive.

Focus on Tora Bora
Back home, the US population thought battalions of its troops were hunting bin Laden – however, this was not the case. Berntsen only had around 60 US men working with him. He had a few thousand Afghans backing him up but in reality their loyalty was questionable. So he had to buy firepower locally. “How much are we talking about?” I ask him in relation to his purchasing power. “Millions!” he replies. “I had a gigantic Rubbermaid trunk, which was stuffed with hundred-dollar bills. I had millions in it.”