The Man And The Hunt

Eli Saslow: He turns on the TV for news about Osama bin Laden at 7 a.m. and keeps it playing until long after midnight, because this is a relationship that has always bordered on obsession. Michael Hurley sits in his Falls Church condominium and watches images repeat across the flat screen just as they have repeated inside his head for almost a decade.

Here is bin Laden standing inside a tent with an assault rifle at his side. Here is a map of the Middle East, detailing some of the very places Hurley went searching for him. Here are blurry images of the CIA classified files he helped create. Here is a former co-worker being interviewed as an expert on counterterrorism.

"The whole thing just feels surreal," says Hurley, a former CIA officer who now does consulting on counterterrorism. "It's like watching a video of this big part of my life."