Shadow Of Fear

We can argue over when the enemy decided to wage war against us--was it the moment the Ottoman Empire fell or when U.S. troops arrived in Saudi Arabia? But we know exactly when we went to war with them: 12:30 p.m. E.T. on Sunday, Oct. 7. Now our pilots are shredding Afghanistan, and the waiting is over, and you didn't need to be in New York or Washington or Kabul to feel like a soldier--or a target. The clock becomes a time bomb: we were warned that retaliation is now certain; we wait, move to higher alert; time passes, tick, tick; see anything suspicious? And we come to realize that something sinister has been planted in our midst, not just the threat but also the fear of the threat.

INTERACTIVE GRAPHICS Map: Hunting Osama Map: Nukes Pipeline Interactive: Taliban P.O.W. Revolt More Graphics Tora Bora Nukes Pipeline Taliban Revolt Last Bastions Women & Islam No Refuge Taliban on the Run Afghan Caves Mood of the Nation Mazar-I-Sharif Terrorist Timeline Al-Qaeda Suspects Flu/Anthrax Sharing Secrets Al-Qaeda's World Ground War 11.4.01 Bush Team Grades Bioterror Threats War in Winter Workplace Safety Afghan Targets Anthrax Pathogen A Ground War An Uneasy Ally Targets Hit Search & Destroy Firepower & Food Frozen Assets Safety Guide Mideast Leaders Agents of Death Afghanistan Military Buildup Terrorist Cells Our Weapons Deadly Paths Twin Terrors   CNN.com Latest news: War Against Terror RECENT COVER STORY Closing In Dec. 24, 2001 Past Issues Taliban Last Days Dec. 17, 2001 ----------------- Lifting the Veil Dec. 3, 2001 ----------------- Hunt for bin Laden Nov. 26, 2001 ----------------- Thanksgiving 2001 Nov. 19, 2001 ----------------- Inside Al-Qaeda Nov. 12, 2001 ----------------- Defender In Chief Nov. 5, 2001 ----------------- Going In Oct. 29, 2001 ----------------- The Fear   Factor Oct. 22, 2001 ----------------- Facing   the Fury Oct. 15, 2001 ----------------- How Real   Is the Threat? Oct. 8, 2001 ----------------- Life on the   Home Front Oct. 1, 2001 ----------------- One Nation,   Indivisible Sept. 24, 2001 ----------------- Day of Infamy Sept. 14, 2001   PHOTO ESSAYS Kabul Unveiled Taliban on the Run More Photos >>> MORE STORIES Where's OBL: Letter from Tora Bora Anthrax: Where the Investigation Stands TIME/CNN POLL: Americans Standing By Bush's War More Stories >>>

By the time President Bush appeared in prime time to invite the country officially both to buck up and freak out, the war at home was already well under way. Haz-mat teams from coast to coast were being called out two and three times a day to decontaminate buildings because someone worried about powder in a package. The Governor of Tennessee put a $10,000 bounty on the head of anyone calling in a bomb hoax because the schools were having to be evacuated so often. A pilot returned to the gate because a passenger switched seats too many times. Donald Trump was reported to be shopping for parachutes.

The President's dilemma--like the country's--was plain. We are at war now, called to fight unseen enemies on multiple fronts. Report anything unusual or alarming, Bush said, in the hope that 280 million investigators have a better chance of foiling the next plot. But we are not trained for this, and an unmarked catering truck on a quiet street prompts three different neighbors to call the cops. "Be on the lookout for mysterious health symptoms," said health czar Tommy Thompson, but who doesn't have those? We were told last week not to panic but to be prepared; to get on with our lives, even though we barely recognize them now that there are F-16s overhead and National Guardsmen at the train station. The Vice President is in the witness-protection program, and the FBI initially coded its Thursday warning of an imminent attack "skyfall." Officials were vague about the target but precise about the timing. They had "certain information" that there would be more attacks, somewhere, "over the next several days." And so people who by last week felt they had regained their footing, who found it liberating to get on an airplane and luxurious to go to a football game on a gorgeous fall day, also found that the path out of our private caves is not a straight and steady one. You can feel cold again just by turning on the news. Or opening the mail.

Once the first cases of anthrax exposure appeared in Florida and the envelope became a potential weapon of mass destruction, we got to see what panic looks like. On Tuesday an office worker in suburban Virginia settled down on a toilet seat, yanked off a piece of double-ply toilet paper and found a message written between the leaves: "You're sitting in anthrax, and you're dead." The investigators rushed in: false alarm. The Nashville, Tenn., haz-mat team was called out five times in 48 hours, all for hoaxes. A woman phoned in a report that her computer keyboard was covered with a powdery substance. The FBI discovered that she had been eating cookies. The State Department was evacuated because somebody spilled some talcum powder. Cipro overtook Viagra as the drug of choice on Internet sites.

That did not seem like sheer hysteria by Friday, when we learned that Tom Brokaw's assistant at NBC had tested positive for anthrax after opening a threatening letter with powder inside. At that moment the New York Times was being evacuated after another letter rained powder in the newsroom; this one was addressed to bioterrorism expert Judith Miller. Initial testing showed no sign of anthrax, but the threat still seemed real, and cunning. You didn't need to shoot the messengers; you just needed to scare them to death, because fear is bacterial as well. It can spread in the air and over wires, infect the marketplace, lay waste to whole industries and leave its victims at home in bed with the covers pulled up. And the worst part was that since there were so many scares, so many hoaxes, we were in some ways doing this to ourselves.

Yet as the week went on, many rattled people found an antidote soon after they felt their first symptoms. Terror squeezes you into a corner; fighting back, even with a superstitious gesture, sets you free. So people updated their wills and then tucked them away again, put fresh batteries in the flashlight but then stuck it in a drawer. "You're less likely to get blown up by a terrorist," said a Washington dad as he dropped his kids at school, "than to get run over by the mom in her SUV who's worrying into her cell phone about getting blown up by a terrorist." While the authorities called for vigilance, we also had a patriotic duty to keep our heads.

A thousand false alarms from an anxious nation are an exquisite diversion for those intent on mayhem; the police cannot be everywhere at once, and there is only so much they can do to button down the cities. Overworked cops who had already been on high alert worked even harder as the frightened calls poured in. "We are at risk of being overwhelmed," says a spokesman for the Kentucky division of emergency management. There are metal detectors at the Liberty Bell; Denver canceled its New Year's Eve celebrations; Ohio called off a corn-husking festival. In Washington, where lawmakers are quietly terrified that the terrorists mean to finish what they started on Sept. 11, officials closed 40 blocks around the Capitol to trucks and taped plastic over Senate office windows. There are enough gas masks in a room off the House chamber for each member and the floor staff, so members are told, leaving five for people in the press gallery, who number in the hundreds.

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