Danny Pearl was not naive. The Wall Street Journal South Asia bureau chief knew that Pakistan was a dangerous place and acted accordingly. Sources had to prove themselves trustworthy before he would meet them face-to-face. When they did meet, it was in a public place. "I can't imagine him taking a big risk," says his friend Manjeet Kripalani, BusinessWeek's India bureau chief. "I think he was probably betrayed by someone he trusted.

"But he may also have lost sight of caution in pursuit of a scoop. Pearl, 38, was kidnapped on Jan. 23 after arranging to meet members of a shadowy group of Islamic militants outside a Karachi restaurant. Meeting in hotel lobbies, not on streets, is standard practice and also the advice given to Pearl by consular security.

But Pearl never made it inside the restaurant. His captors, claiming he was a spy--first for the CIA, then for Israel—threatened to kill him and issued photos of his being held at gunpoint. President Bush himself appealed for the release of Pearl, the first American journalist taken hostage in the war in Afghanistan. And Pearl's wife, Mariane, who is pregnant with their first child, made an emotional public plea for his freedom on Feb. 4, saying she would be willing to risk her own life to liberate him. "Don't harm an innocent man, because you're just going to create more misery," she told the BBC, adding, "If anyone's going to give his life to save him, it's me." Although Pakistani officials announced several key arrests on Feb. 6, as of press time Pearl's fate remained unknown.

Denying that Pearl has ties to any intelligence agency, his newspaper colleagues have urged the kidnappers to renew contact. Everyone at the Journal is "totally focused on getting his safe return," says managing editor Paul Steiger. "It is impossible for Danny to be an agent for anybody."

Until Pearl's abduction, the life he shared with Mariane seemed charmed. He grew up in Los Angeles, the middle of three children of an academic father and a mother who works as a computer consultant. He attended Stanford University, majoring in communications, and seemed destined to rise quickly. Pearl was soft-spoken, charming and endlessly resourceful. "Danny was a very understated guy with a lot of presence," remembers Lew Cuyler, the now-retired business editor of The Berkshire Eagle in Pittsfield, Mass., who hired Pearl in 1987. Even though he was only two years out of college, "I learned from him," Cuyler admits. "He wasn't going to stay on The Berkshire Eagle forever."

Pearl began working for The Wall Street Journal in November 1990 as a reporter in Atlanta, then moved to the paper's Washington, D.C., bureau in '93. He did such an outstanding job covering transportation there that Steiger tried to persuade him to do it for two more years—but instead Pearl negotiated a plum spot in London. After he started there in early '96, he hit his stride. He reported on the Middle East and later, after transferring to Paris, covered the Balkan crisis. "If you were in the field, you wanted to be with Danny," says his friend A. Craig Copetas, a former Journal foreign correspondent who reported with him in Kosovo. "He was very prudent, very cautious."

In 1998 Pearl met Mariane, a freelance journalist, at a mutual friend's birthday party in Paris. They shared passions for music and travel, and in August 1999 they wed. "It was fairy-tale stuff," says a friend who was among the 200 celebrants at a chateau in Normandy. After what the groom dubbed a "multicultural" ceremony, he jammed well into the night on his violin with fellow musicians. "His wedding became a lovefest," recalls another guest. "There were people from all over the world, and instantly we became this incredibly tight group."

In December 2000 Pearl was named the Journal's South Asia bureau chief, and the couple moved to Bombay. After the events of Sept. 11, he spent more time in Pakistan. Since the kidnapping, Mariane has stayed at the home of a former colleague in Karachi, anxiously awaiting word of Danny's fate. She's in phone contact with her husband's parents and younger sister, who are keeping their own vigil in California. "They're very strong," says Pearl's friend Craig Sherman. "It's not like we're sitting around working on eulogies. We're working on funny stories to tell at the welcome home party."

Reported by: Mark Dagostino and Debra Lewis in New York City, Pete Norman and Eileen Finan in London, Dietlind Lerner in Paris, Melissa Schorr and Karen Brailsford in California and David Orr in New Delhi