[traffic noise]
NARRATOR>> November 26, 2008.
A man in Lahore, Pakistan
receives a long awaited text message.
It says: Turn on your television.
>> Just hours ago, terrorists launched a brazen attack.
>> The Indian City of Mumbai
is in chaos following a series of terrorist attacks.
[explosion]
>> Okay – there you go. Uh, you heard a big blast.
Uh – right now, uh – inside the Taj Hotel.
NARRATOR>> For three days the world watched
as 10 men laid siege to targets around
the Indian city of Mumbai
– including the iconic Taj Hotel.
[gunshots]
When it was over, 166 people were dead.
[explosion]
>> The attackers were well armed and well prepared
to launch what some here are calling,
India's 9/11.
[siren blaring]
NARRATOR>> The man in Lahore was one of the
plotters of the attack.
His name was David Coleman Headley.
He was an American.
[radio chatter from Mumbai attackers]
>> As a teenager he lived in Philadelphia
with his mother.
[newscast intro music]
>> Hello everybody and welcome to the
Khyber Pass Pub at 2nd and Chestnut streets.
We are live tonight.
NARRATOR>> She was a local celebrity who ran
a popular bar
after divorcing David's Pakistani father.
At the bar, they called him "The Prince."
But the prince had a dark side.
Two years after these images were taken,
he was a heroin addict, and a budding drug smuggler.
>> He was in and out of trouble with the law,
and in 1988, he got busted at an airport
carrying 5 million dollars worth of heroin.
>> Very quickly, Headley cut a deal.
He sold out his partners in crime, and eventually
became an informant for the DEA.
MARK SAGEMAN>> He just turns around immediately
and betrays everybody when it's convenient for him.
Basically it's survival for himself.
NARRATOR>> In early 2000,
his life took a fateful turn.
While working for the DEA,
he took one of several unauthorized trips 
to Pakistan, his father's homeland,
where Headley had spent part of his childhood.
He fell in with a militant Islamist group
called "Lashkar-e-Taiba"
dedicated to waging jihad against India and the West.
[Lashkar-e-Taiba leader speaking Urdu]
SAGEMAN>> What's unusual for him
is that, uh, he joins the Jihad at the age of 40.
He already has a whole history of being a drug dealer,
working for the DEA.
 He's got, uh, numerous wives
sometimes at the same time.
The ideology is secondary
to him being an adrenaline freak.
He just likes the adventure.
He loves the game – he loves the game.
NARRATOR>> The DEA says
it deactivated Headley in 2002.
By then he was already training with Lashkar
in their mountain camps,
 studying ideology and jihad,
and later – learning about espionage.
And he had a major advantage:
Caucasian features and an American passport.
Over a four year period,
he evolved into the perfect terrorist.
[plane engine buzzing]
His Lashkar commanders took notice,
and in 2005 chose him for a critical mission.
For the next two years,
David Coleman Headley would travel in and out of India
helping to scout targets for a terrorist attack.
Officers in the ISI, Pakistan's notorious spy agency,
helped direct his reconnaissance
and develop the plot.
As Headley worked,
the attack plan grew more elaborate.
STEPHEN TANKEL>> And what starts out
as this one-to-two person, hit-and-run attack
against the Taj Mahal hotel,
becomes this 10 person, multiple target attack
of the kind that Lashkar-e-Taiba
has never launched before.
NARRATOR>> With a video camera,
Headley traced the routes and picked
the targets for the attack:
the Taj Mahal Hotel,
the Leopold Café,
the Oberoi Hotel,
the Chabad House Jewish Center...
[train brakes screeching]
and the busiest rail station in Mumbai.
With his work done, Headley went back to Lahore...
>> [newscaster speaking] This is a huge, massive fire...
NARRATOR>> And calmly watched TV
as 166 innocent people died.
>> This is possibly the most, well coordinated...
>> Indian officials described this as a professional,
and highly coordinated terrorist...
NARRATOR >> Almost a year later,
the FBI arrested him as he was planning
an attack in Denmark.
Only then did they learn the extent of his role
in the Mumbai attacks.
NARRATOR>> Headley cut himself another deal,
sharing with the authorities his knowledge
about the workings of Lashkar-e-Taiba
and the ISI.
NARRATOR>> For his role in the murder of 166 people,
he is serving 35 years in prison.
>> [interrogator speaking] You cooperated.
[ominous noise fades in]
