In 1997 Wood was assigned as a case officer in Pakistan, working under Chief of Station Gary Schroen on operations to find and capture Osama bin Laden, a role he would hold throughout the leadup to the September 11th terrorist attacks. Just fifteen days after the hijackings, Wood was one of the seven or eight-man advance Northern Alliance Liaison Team (NALT) led by Schroen and deputy Phil Reilly inserted by Mi-17 helicopter into Afghanistan on September 26, 2001. They brought a range of skills to bear including proficiency in Russian, Dari, and Persian. Building on the Agency's existing relationship with the Northern Alliance, the team collected intelligence on the Taliban, reporting the latest developments back to Headquarters every two hours. Agency officers slept in cramped rooms, often on top of the three cardboard boxes filled with $3 million in $100 bills used to buy support from locals. Small and highly agile paramilitary mobile teams, including CTC Special Operations, or CTC/SO, headed by Hank Crumpton, Greg Vogle, and others followed the NALT, spreading out over the countryside during the day to meet with locals and gather information about the Taliban and al-Qa’ida. In the evenings, they slept outside of town.