On a gray morning two years ago, Brad Doucette awoke before dawn after another restless night.
A top FBI counter-terrorism official, Doucette, 45, had gone to bed late after one more long day. Then his sleep had been interrupted by phone calls from agents in the field.
The first came about 4:30 a.m. and lasted so long that his wife, Suzane, grabbed a quilt and went to sleep in an adjacent bedroom in the couple's 1923 Victorian in the Chevy Chase section of Washington.
An hour or so later, Suzane heard Brad on another call. Her normally calm husband was yelling -- about what, she couldn't make out. By then, it was almost dawn and Doucette began his morning ritual. Preparing her coffee. Making himself toast. Placing his slacks in the pants presser. Setting aside two sodas for his drive to the office.
Normally, Doucette's routine next would have taken him to the shower. But Suzane never heard the soothing sound of streaming water. Instead, there was a loud bang, which she mistook for a lamp crashing to the floor.
"Brad? Brad?" she called out. There was no answer. She hurried to their bedroom.
There, she found Doucette lying motionless on the bed, a tiny spot of blood behind his right ear. He had shot himself with his FBI-issue, 9-millimeter pistol. She reached for the nightstand and a phone to call 911. But the line was dead; Brad had yanked it from the wall.
The coroner's office ruled Doucette's death April 29, 2003, a suicide. Those who knew him say the relentless pressure of working counter-terrorism helped push him over the edge.
"It was 100% the job," said Suzane, a former FBI agent. "The extreme exhaustion. The worry. Not being able to sleep. Not being able to leave Washington."
On Sept. 11, 2001, tracking down terrorists and preventing attacks became the FBI's most urgent priority. Three and a half years later, the relentless pace and the pressure to stay a step ahead of an elusive adversary are wearing down even seasoned agents.
"For many people, once they get home, they can leave their work at the office," said FBI chaplain Joe Williams, a Baptist minister. "The problem for federal agents in counter-terrorism is that they can't let it go. They are always thinking, 'Have I really covered everything today?' "
Doucette had spent nearly 20 years at the FBI. At the time of his death, he was head of an elite unit at bureau headquarters that investigates suspected espionage by Iran and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and other Shiite Muslim extremists.
