SOMETIME BACK IN THE NINE-ties, I noticed an FBI "Wanted" poster of bin Laden hanging on the wall of the post office in North Bergen, New Jersey. I pointed it out to my friend Bill, who lives in North Bergen, and we both vowed to keep a sharp eye out for bin Laden. I memorized some of the vital statistics listed on the poster. According to the FBI, bin Laden's complexion was "olive"; I found that improbable. It also said that he weighed 140 to 160 pounds, and his height was between six feet four and six feet six. I tried to picture that. If he was 140 and six-six, he wasn't just skinny—he was a bean pole! Later I wrote an article for a national magazine saying that bin Laden is so thin, if he drank tomato juice he would look like a thermometer. I put in some other "thin" jokes as well. That article was on the newsstands on September 11.

Recently, although I am semi-literate on the computer, I figured out how to use Google Earth. It provides satellite photos of any place on the planet. Sometimes when I'm wondering what bin Laden is up to today, I go to Google Earth and take a look at Afghanistan and Pakistan. I zoom in on Kandahar, where he used to live, and then go up to Kabul and see what the downtown traffic congestion is like there. From Kabul I go north into the Hindu Kush Mountains, and then southeastward to Paktia province, where bin Laden supposedly fought hand to hand with a Russian during the Afghan resistance and captured an AK-47, and then I go north again to the Tora Bora hills, where bin Laden and associates escaped from American and other forces in December of '01. Those sure are some bleak and stony and dusty mountains they've got in that part of the world! (As a friend of mine said back in '02 when we were bombing that country, "We're only making Afghanistan look more like Afghanistan!")

The resolution in the satellite photos, unfortunately, is blurry as you get in closer. To date I have not been able to spot a single cave. Close up, the ground is just a smear of browns, greens, and shadows. Still, I get a small rush thinking that somewhere in that actual landscape, our man and his cronies may be sitting on sleeping mats on the dirt floor of a cave, drinking tea and watching CNN. When I'm done with my search, I type in the address of my house in Montclair, New Jersey, and enjoy the roller-coaster swoop as the camera backs out of the mountains, crosses a sea, then Africa, then an ocean, then approaches the East Coast, then stops above my roof. The photo is blurry, as in Afghanistan, but I know what I'm seeing well enough to note that when the satellite went over, only one of our cars was in the driveway.

On the walks I take in my neighborhood and beyond, I sometimes go up to Eagle Rock, the highest point in the vicinity. Eagle Rock affords a good view of Manhattan, about 15 miles to the southeast. At the part of the overlook directly facing the lower end of the island and the hole in the sky where the Trade Center towers used to be, local groups have put up memorials. On one of the lists I read the names of people from Montclair who died: Caleb Arron Dack, Michael L. Collins, Emeric Harvey, Scott M. Johnson, Howard L. Kestenbaum, David Lee Pruim, Michael James Stewart, and Robert M. Murach.

I did not know any of them, though Scott Johnson went to our church. Then I read the other names, perplexed and sad for them all. The thought that a man who lived in those stony, faraway mountains could put into motion a plan that would kill thousands of people here is—no adjective is sufficient. Inconceivable. Reaching from there to here and striking what he aimed at wasn't only like making a basket from the other end of the court, it was like making it from the farthest corner of the parking lot through an open window of the gymnasium.

In July, the Senate voted to increase the reward for bin Laden's capture from $25 million to $50 million. Though that sounds like a lot, actually it's nothing. If Edward E. Whitcre Jr., chief executive officer of AT&T, were to catch bin Laden, the reward though bring him not quite a million dollars more than he received in total compensationlast year. Kenneth D. Lewis, CEO of Bank of America, would hav eto catch bin Laden twice to just barely out-earn his '06 net, Barry Diller of IAC/InterActiveCorp would have to bag the fugitive six times to better what Forbes listed as his '06 net, and Steven Jobs of Apple would have to nab bin Laden a whopping 13 times, or more than once a month, to exceedwhat he received in stick options and other income during '06. In the opinion of a biographer, Osama bin Laden "arguably has changed American society as much as, perhaps more than, any single foreigner in contemporary times." Even if that's an exageration, $50 million for catching Osama stacks up as small change; it makes one wonder if we really understand what's going on.