Across the Great Divide

A towering figure in artificial intelligence, Pearl posted a sign on his office door: "Don't Knock: Experiment in Progress," a fib meant to dissuade interruptions. "He wanted to spend his professional time on research; everything else was a distraction," says his UCLA colleague Richard Korf. At a Seattle conference in 1987, a rising computer executive wanted to meet him, but Pearl -- who had never heard of this guy Bill Gates -- blew him off.

He had hoped that Danny, also a gifted scientist and violinist, would follow him into computer science or study music; journalism, Judea thought, meant being "an ambulance chaser, a stenographer." But he changed his mind as Danny began traveling the world for the Wall Street Journal.

Naturally, the family worried. Though cautious about his safety, Danny often operated in dangerous regions. "He had this illusion that journalists are somehow protected," Judea says now, grimly. His parents were relieved, in late January 2002, that Danny and his pregnant wife, Mariane, were about to leave unstable Pakistan.

In his last phone conversation with his parents, Danny was exultant over the news that the baby was a boy. The next communication from Karachi was a call from Mariane: "Something bad happened to Danny. He didn't come home. He's not answering his cell."

The Pearls' response was methodical, relentless activity. Judea spoke with the State Department and the FBI; he lobbied prominent Muslims like Muhammad Ali and Louis Farrakhan to make public statements. "Two or four o'clock in the morning, his time, Judea would be on the phone," recalls John Bauman, then U.S. consul general in Pakistan. With camera crews, satellite trucks and squadrons of reporters encamped outside the house, nobody slept much anyway.

What's striking, in retrospect, is how optimistic they felt. Four days after his disappearance, Danny's captors sent e-mail to news organizations, appending photographs. The Pearls and their younger daughter, Michelle, alerted to expect the images, gathered around Ruth's computer, waiting, watching. When they saw the photos -- in one, a revolver was held at Danny's head -- they wept not in horror but with "elation": He was alive. "They made some demands!" Judea says. "They didn't want to kill him. They wanted to get something."

Besides, the Pearls were certain that if any of his abductors could speak even a little English, Danny could forge a connection. "He could charm people; he could communicate with people of all levels," Judea says. By now, they told one another as time passed, Danny was probably organizing a backgammon game.

For 30 days, they waited for a ransom demand, more photos, any news at all. They tried to imagine what the terrorists were thinking, "to put ourselves in their minds," says Judea. Even a series of nerve-racking false alarms helped stoke hope. Four times, the family was told that Danny was dead, then that he wasn't. "The longer it went on, the more convinced we were that he was alive," Ruth says.

They were also convinced that Danny's Jewishness, if it became known, could doom him. Like most Israelis, Judea considers himself "a secular Jew," identified with Jewish history and culture but without much interest in religious observance. "I do not believe that there is some entity up there that writes down what you do and what you think, and punishes and rewards accordingly," is his take. But that would hardly matter to Danny's kidnappers, the family thought. So news organizations quoted statements by "his parents" without mentioning their Hebraic first names; Michelle Pearl even re-recorded their answering machine message to eliminate their accents.

Still, an Israeli reporter learned the truth and called Judea to say he was about to publish. "I pleaded with him, 'Don't do that.' He said, 'Why?' " -- pointing out that Israeli records already documented Danny's background. "The excuse I hate the most," Judea says. "You're pouring oil on the fire and it doesn't matter, because there's already a fire." Michelle, hearing her father's end of the conversation, began to scream, They're going to kill him. They're going to kill him. "You are really playing with life and death," Judea told the reporter. In the end, the newspaper held back.

But it didn't matter. Daniel Pearl was already dead, though it was late February before the authorities learned this from a ghastly videotape.

Consul general Bauman broke the news to Judea.

"Is he dead?"

"Yes," Bauman said.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes." There was a video, Bauman explained. "Do you want me to describe it to you?"

"Tell me one thing: Did they cut his head?" It was the one act that couldn't be faked on video, Judea thought, proof of death.

Yes, Bauman said, Danny had been decapitated. "Should I go on?"

"No. It's enough."

At a trial in Pakistan that summer, Sheik Omar Saeed, the British-educated mastermind with a long terrorist history, was sentenced to death, and three others were given life sentences. But two years later, their appeals have yet to be heard, other suspects have yet to be charged, and the Pearls are losing hope, fearing that the perpetrators will find a way to freedom. Anyway, Judea says, "What is hope in this case?"

He quickly channeled his fury, however. "I'm driven by pragmatics," he says. Even if he could retaliate against the murderers, "What do I achieve? There will be 100 more." True revenge, he decided, meant taking aim "at the whole ideology that created the madness." So when he tells audiences that he's offering a "weapon" -- a little intake of breath generally follows -- he explains that he wants to "tame that hate."