and my character, brook chandler, is one of them. and there's a feeling generally that one of the aftereffects of 9/11 was an infuse of talent into the agency which wouldn't otherwise be there. eventually, it all came together, al-qaeda, my interest in the intelligence world and, hence, "the devil's light." >> a reminder, you're listening to the commonwealth club of california radio program. we're talking with best-selling author richard north patterson about his book, "the definitely's light." -- "the devil's light." let's take a question from the audience, but before we do that, the characters say a lot of things that i don't think people, politicians and others could ordinarily say for public consumption. one of them, for example, is, um, you have people, cia intelligence people saying, you know, al-qaeda, they're a good organization, you know? tactic wise, you know? >> right. >> they're full of brilliant people. and, in fact, one of them -- i forget the name -- essentially called osama bin laden a genius. now, one question from t