The story begins on September 12, 2001, the day America began to gather itself for a response to the unimaginable. Ultimately, that reply would shape the nation's very character.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and best-selling author Ron Suskind tells us what actually occurred over the next three years, from the inside out, by tracing the steps of the key actors; the notables, from the President and Vice President to George Tenet and Condoleezza Rice, who oversee the "war on terror" and report progress to an anxious nation; and the invisibles, the men and women just below the line of sight, left to improvise plans to defeat a new kind of enemy in an hour-by-hour race against disaster. The internal battles between these two teams (one, under the hot lights; the other, actually fighting the fight) reveal everything about what America faces, and what it has done, in this age of terror.

Who is actually running U.S. foreign policy? Is there an operational cell, armed with WMDs, inside the United States? Have some of the world's most dangerous terrorists, including leaders of al Qaeda, been caught and accidentally released? Can America prevail in this struggle against enemies who are patient, ingenious, certain, and have clear tactical advantage?

With his unparalleled access to senior officials, past and present, Ron Suskind, author of The Price of Loyalty, the most revealing book yet written on the Bush administration, finally answers the questions that keep Americans awake at night.