Journalism, like any other investigative profession, has its share of thrill seekers. Daniel Pearl is not one of them. Colleagues and friends describe the Wall Street Journal's South Asia bureau chief as a seasoned correspondent who never fails to put safety first when reporting in dangerous places. So when Pearl--who had traveled between Pakistan and India over the past four months on the trail of a variety of terror-related stories--didn't check in as expected on the evening of Jan. 23, his editors had reason to be alarmed.
His disappearance assumed a further urgency three days later when reporters and news agencies...