The author, right, shakes hands with Deputy Secretary John Negroponte during the latter’s visit to Seoul.

I was looking forward to a three-day weekend putting the finishing touches on my Army War College thesis when I was approached by Erik Rye from the Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism to look at a grainy videotape.

S/CT is the descendant of an office that was created as a direct result of the Munich Olympics terrorist attack in 1972. Since 9/11, the office has worked with other bureaus and departments to block hundreds of millions of dollars in terrorism-related assets and material support, assist in stopping numerous high-threat terrorists and help other nations build their counterterrorism capacity. The office also coordinates with the Department of Justice and other agencies to bring suspected terrorists residing overseas to justice.

Through Rye, I first heard about an Iraqi-American hostage in Baghdad I will call Samer.

Samer immigrated to the United States when he was in his teens. He joined the military as a way of saying thank you to his newly adopted country and was sent to Iraq after the war started. He was abducted by armed gunmen in Baghdad. No word was heard from him for months until a few days before that three-day weekend, and then only through a videotape that was released by his abductors.

Rye asked me to look at the tape, which he and an interagency task force were analyzing for vital clues about Samer’s location. My 25 years in information technology have brought me some specialized skills that would perhaps allow me to retrieve the text of the message of that brief tape.

In two hours I extracted six words and reported my findings to Rye. "So far you’ve gotten us the first results we’ve seen," he said.

Each bit was more difficult. I worked on the file the rest of the weekend. After 20 or so hours, I was able to extract the full text.

I hope my toil helps Rye and his team find Samer and get him out unharmed. After the time I spent with his image over that weekend, I feel a strange bond with him.

I finally handed in my thesis, too. Rye asked me to look at the tape, which he and an interagency task force were Through Rye, I first heard about an