13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened in Benghazi Page 8

  As night fell, the two operators drove to the oil company’s offices to scope the place out and to be sure they knew where to take Stevens the next day. On the way back to the Annex, at around 8:30 p.m., Rone and Tig drove past the Compound. All was quiet. Rone called the DS agents on his cell phone.

  “Hey,” Rone told a DS agent, “we figured out where the place is. Do you want us to come over now, to tell you where it’s at, or do you want us to wait?”

  The DS agent told Rone they should wait until morning. As they drove back to the Annex, Rone and Tig talked about how troubling they found it that the DS agents were so unfamiliar with their surroundings that they had to rely on a local driver to get them around Benghazi.

  In general, all the GRS operators worried that the ambassador’s visit was rife with vulnerability. Highest on their list of concerns was the planned American Corner ribbon cutting because it had been announced in advance. But as they talked among themselves, the operators concluded that Stevens could be targeted at any time and at any place during the five-day visit because the State Department security team was so lightly staffed.

  Back at the Annex, at around 9:00 p.m., Tig left Rone and the GRS Team Leader in the Building C Team Room. He walked next door to the room he shared with Jack in Building D.

  When Tig arrived, Jack was getting ready to hit the rack. They said goodnight then retreated to their separate sides of the heavy curtain they’d hung for privacy. Jack undressed and took out his contact lenses, placing them on a shelf for easy access. He carefully arranged clean clothes on a chair next to his bed and stuck his wallet, empty except for cash and a government ID, in a pocket of the pants he’d laid out. As always, he left his boxed wedding ring in a dresser, along with a mesh bag containing his credit cards, driver’s license, and other personal items. The valuables would remain tucked away for the duration of the trip. Jack placed his holstered pistol at the head of his bed, so he’d be armed for a fight at a moment’s notice.

  Jack glanced over to an open gear locker. Like the other GRS operators, he’d arranged his assault rifle, body armor, and other gear close by in response to the intel cable about a possible attack on an American target. Jack slid his two-way radio into a charger on a nightstand next to his bed. All the operators kept the handheld radios within reach around the clock, so they’d be instantly available in case of emergency. His setup complete, Jack was living up to the title of “commando”: He sat naked on his bed, reading e-mail on his laptop computer. He began to mentally compose a message to his wife.

  Tanto had spent part of the day working on the computer mapping software, alerting Annex case officers to known terrorist locations in Benghazi and the city of Derna, some 150 miles to the east. As night fell, Tanto and D.B. were on call as the Quick Reaction Force. They relaxed with coffee as they watched the mythological action movie Wrath of the Titans. During a break, D.B. called home to his family. They returned to the movie as they waited for Oz and the case officer to return from dinner.

  As the protests continued at the US Embassy in Cairo, media reports described turmoil spreading to other Muslim countries throughout the region. The GRS operators had been told about the events in Egypt, but they neither saw nor heard anything to suggest that anyone in Benghazi was upset about an offensive YouTube video clip from an anti-Muslim movie. From all appearances in the quiet neighborhood around the Compound and the Annex, September 11, 2012, would soon pass into history as an unremarkable day in Benghazi.

  Over at the Compound, at 7:40 p.m., Stevens and one of the DS agents escorted Turkish Consul General Ali Akin outside the main gate. The sun had set nearly an hour earlier, so it was dark as they stepped into the empty gravel road. Stevens said goodbye to Akin, then returned to Villa C.

  A half hour later, a British security team dropped off vehicles and communications equipment at the Compound, a routine arrangement following the closure of the British consulate three months earlier. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary when the ambassador went outside the gate with Akin, or when the British team left at around 8:30 p.m.

  By 9:00 p.m., the seven Americans at the Compound were settling down for the night. Communications specialist Sean Smith was in his room in Villa C, where he’d been chatting online with a friend from EVE. Earlier in the evening, when the friend said that they’d be in contact again soon, Smith answered ruefully: “assuming we don’t die tonight. We saw one of our ‘police’ that guard the Compound taking pictures.”

  Three DS agents sat together outside the villa, talking under the stars near the swimming pool. One was Scott Wickland, Stevens’s personal security escort. Also outside was Wickland’s fellow cheesy-mustache competitor, David Ubben. Relaxing with Wickland and Ubben was one of the two DS agents who’d accompanied Stevens from Tripoli. The other DS agent who’d traveled with Stevens sat on sentry duty inside Villa C, watching a video on the flat-screen television in the living room.

  The fifth and highest-ranking DS agent in Benghazi, Alec Henderson, was in the building known as the Tactical Operations Center, the TOC. His shift was over, so normally the video security monitors inside the TOC would be unmanned, an established practice under which the Compound relied on the local guards to keep watch over the perimeter when no agents were on duty. The idea was that those unarmed Libyan guards would radio the DS agents if trouble arose. But Henderson wanted to finish some paperwork, so he’d gone to the TOC before turning in.

  All five DS agents carried only their pistols, as usual when they were within the Compound walls. Their “kits” of body armor, helmet, radio, M4 assault rifle, other weapons, and ammunition were stashed in their individual bedrooms. Wickland’s and Henderson’s kits were in Villa C, Ubben’s was in the TOC, and the kits belonging to the two Tripoli agents were in the Cantina building, across from the TOC.

  After bidding goodnight to the Turkish diplomat, Stevens retired to his room in the villa to unwind. A recent issue of The New Yorker magazine awaited him, but first he recorded his thoughts. “It is so nice to be back in Benghazi,” Stevens wrote in his diary on a page dated September 11, according to SOFREP.com. “Much stronger emotional connection to this place—the people but also the smaller-town feel & the moist air & green & spacious compound.”

  Stevens briefly recounted the day’s meetings, then wrote a final, uneasy diary line for the day: “Never ending security threats…” The three dots of the ellipsis tailed off toward the edge of the page.

  At 9:02 p.m., an unexpected vehicle drove down the gravel road outside the Compound: a Toyota pickup truck with SSC police insignia. The pickup parked outside the main C1 gate, but the men inside remained in their seats, never engaging with the Libyan guards or anyone else from the Compound. The SSC vehicle pulled away forty minutes after it arrived.

  It’s possible that the vehicle’s brief presence came in response to the Americans’ request for around-the-clock SSC protection during the ambassador’s visit. Another possibility was more nefarious: Its movements were somehow connected to the mysterious photographer who’d arrived that morning in a vehicle with similar markings. Perhaps it had nothing to do with either. Or perhaps it was a signal. Almost the moment the SSC pickup pulled away from the Compound, shots and an explosion rang out.

  Several dozen men, chanting in Arabic and firing AK-47s into the air, swarmed through the pedestrian entrance at the Compound’s main gate. Eventually their numbers swelled to more than sixty. Some were bearded, some were clean-shaven. Some wore black T-shirts and camouflage pants, some wore jeans and white or brightly colored shirts. Some wore tactical military-style vests. Some wore flowing “man jammies.” Some carried walkie-talkies. Some were young and lean, others were portly and middle-aged. A few hid their faces with scarves, but most didn’t. The attackers didn’t wear insignia, and none of the Americans saw where they’d assembled or knew exactly when they’d arrived outside the gate. One thing was certain: They displayed a common desire to terrorize Americans at the Special Mission Compound. Or worse.<
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  Who opened the gate wasn’t clear, but responsibility for the entrance rested with the Blue Mountain Libya guards. By some accounts the armed invaders threatened the unarmed guards, who immediately acquiesced. A US government review raised the possibility that the “poorly skilled” local guards left the pedestrian gate open “after initially seeing the attackers and fleeing the vicinity.” No evidence has shown that the Blue Mountain guards were in league with the attackers, but maybe they were incompetent. As the report noted, “They had left the gate unlatched before.” Further complicating matters, the camera monitor in the guard booth at the front gate was broken, and new surveillance cameras shipped to the Compound had yet to be installed.

  When the attackers rushed in, the three armed 17 February militiamen and the five unarmed Blue Mountain Libya guards fled to points south and east inside the Compound. Relying on the Libyan guards to sound the alarm, alert the DS agents, and serve as a first line of defense had been a mistake, as they did none of those things before abandoning their posts. They scurried through the darkness in the direction of the Cantina and the TOC, where they knew they’d find the better trained and better armed DS agents. Some of the Libyans employed at the Compound apparently kept going, all the way to the back gate that led out to the Fourth Ring Road.

  With the main gate open and the guards gone, the attackers met no resistance. They surged unchecked onto the manicured grounds. Almost immediately upon storming the Compound, the attackers had the property under their complete control without a single shot being fired in their direction.

  From that point forward, their actions suggested a blend of tactical planning, perhaps based on reconnaissance, and opportunistic rampage. The attackers grabbed five-gallon fuel cans that were stored alongside new, uninstalled generators next to the 17 February barracks, just inside the main gate. They sloshed diesel fuel around the barracks building and on two vehicles parked nearby, then set them ablaze. As orange flames and acrid black smoke shot into the night sky, the invaders rushed toward the heart of the Compound: Villa C.

  Inside his room in the villa, Sean Smith heard the uproar as it began. “FUCK,” he typed to one of his gaming friends. “GUNFIRE.”

  Alec Henderson, the DS agent doing paperwork in the TOC, heard shots, too, along with an explosion. The DS agents were used to hearing gunfire and fireworks when the sun went down, but these sounded much closer than usual. Henderson stood from his desk and walked to the TOC window but saw only the sandbags stacked outside. As he returned to his desk, Henderson glanced at a large video monitor that simultaneously displayed a checkerboard of black-and-white images from roughly a dozen surveillance cameras scattered around the Compound. His focus narrowed to a square on the monitor that showed the feed from a camera pointed at the main driveway.

  In a matter of seconds, the screen showed sixteen to twenty armed attackers rushing into the Compound through the front gate. At least two carried banners the size of twin bedsheets, one black and one white, both with Arabic writing.

  Tearing himself away from the monitor, Henderson flipped the switch on the alarm system, which blared its warning siren from speakers throughout the Compound. A recorded voice repeatedly warned: “Duck and cover! Get away from the windows!” Henderson pressed the talk button on the public address mic and shouted: “Attention on Compound, attention on Compound! This is not a drill!” He released the button and the recorded voice and alarm resumed, sounding like a British police siren with its endlessly alternating “hi-lo” cadence.

  Henderson grabbed his iPhone and called the nearby CIA Annex and the US Embassy in Tripoli. “Boss,” he told John Martinec, the chief DS agent in Tripoli, “we’re getting hit!”

  As Henderson worked to alert the Compound and secure help, gunshots rang out from multiple locations as the terrorists gained control of the property. Following protocol, he returned to work and established himself as the emergency communications officer, using his cell phone and radios to remain in contact with the Annex, Tripoli, and his fellow DS agents on the Compound.

  The sudden explosion of gunfire and chanting from the men rushing into the Compound roused the four DS agents at Villa C. The Tripoli DS agent who was watching a movie ran outside to join Scott Wickland, David Ubben, and the other Tripoli agent on the patio. Ubben ran about fifty yards to the other side of the Compound with the Tripoli agents, toward the Cantina and the TOC, to collect their M4 assault rifles, armor, and other gear from their rooms.

  As Stevens’s “body man,” Wickland had primary responsibility for the ambassador’s safety. He ran inside Château Christophe and retrieved his kit, which included a combat shotgun along with his assault rifle, body armor, and radio.

  Wickland quickly rounded up Stevens and Sean Smith in the semi-darkened villa. Shouts and chants and pops of gunfire echoed outside. Wickland instructed the ambassador and the communications expert to don their body armor as he locked all three of them behind the gate in the villa’s safe-haven area. The DS agent gave Stevens his cell phone and radioed Alec Henderson in the TOC, to let him know their location and that they were secure for the moment.

  With his rifle, shotgun, and pistol ready, Wickland found a protected place inside the safe haven from which he could watch the gate without being seen by anyone on the other side. The defensive position gave him a clear line of fire to anyone attempting to breach the safe haven.

  Using Wickland’s cell phone and his own, Stevens feverishly called the embassy in Tripoli and his local contacts for help. Stevens twice dialed the number for his top deputy in Tripoli, Gregory Hicks, but Hicks didn’t answer.

  Around 9:45 p.m. at the US Embassy in Tripoli, chief DS agent John Martinec burst into the villa where Hicks was watching one of his favorite television shows.

  “Greg! Greg!” Martinec yelled. “The consulate’s under attack!” By calling the Compound a consulate, Martinec was using common diplomatic shorthand; the Benghazi Special Mission was never officially a consulate. After delivering the message, Martinec rushed back to the embassy’s Tactical Operations Center.

  Hicks reached for his phone and found two missed calls, one from Stevens’s cell phone number and one from a number he didn’t recognize. He hit reply on the second number and Stevens answered: “Greg, we’re under attack!”

  As he spoke with Stevens, Hicks moved toward the embassy’s TOC. Cell phone service was spotty in Tripoli, and Stevens’s call cut out as Hicks began to reply: “OK…” He repeatedly tried both numbers from the missed calls on his phone but couldn’t get through.

  When he reached the embassy TOC, Hicks found John Martinec on the phone with Alec Henderson, his counterpart in Benghazi, who remained holed up in the TOC at the Benghazi Compound.

  Henderson reported that all seven Americans on the Compound were accounted for, and that the ambassador and Sean Smith were inside the safe haven with Scott Wickland. Martinec spread the word.

  Hicks showed another DS agent the unfamiliar number on his phone, the one he’d used to reach Stevens. The agent told Hicks that the number came from a cell phone belonging to the ambassador’s body man, Scott Wickland.

  Martinec ended his call with Henderson and briefed Hicks, telling him that at least twenty armed attackers had breached the Benghazi Compound. Hicks phoned Bob, the CIA chief in Benghazi, who told him that the Annex was aware and preparing to send help. The Annex’s small team of operators was jocking up, each one ready, willing, and confident they could repel the attack and save the trapped Americans.

  When he left Villa C, Ubben ran to his bedroom in the TOC to grab his kit. One of the Tripoli DS agents also rushed to the TOC, mistakenly believing that the ambassador was inside. When the agent learned that Stevens was in the villa, he sprinted several yards across a brick patio and into the Cantina, to reach his bedroom so he could arm and armor himself. There he ran into his fellow Tripoli-based DS agent, and together they decided to return to Villa C to help Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, and Scott Wickland.

 
A brick driveway, roughly five yards wide, separated the Cantina from Villa C. When the two Tripoli DS agents cautiously stepped outside the Cantina, they bumped into one of the local Blue Mountain guards who’d fled when the attack began. Staying together, the three men approached the driveway that they knew they’d have to cross to reach Villa C.

  Armed intruders crowded the darkened driveway not far from where they intended to cross. Trying to reach Villa C would have exposed their whereabouts and made them easy targets in a firefight. The Tripoli DS agents and the Blue Mountain guard retreated inside the Cantina and barricaded themselves in a back room.

  After gathering his guns and gear, David Ubben remained with his fellow DS agent Alec Henderson inside the securely locked TOC, working the phones and radios while watching the video monitors to see the ongoing attack around them. In addition to the US Embassy in Tripoli and the nearby CIA Annex, they called the headquarters of the 17 February militia and the Diplomatic Security Command Center in Washington, where the local time was approaching 4:00 p.m.

  Within minutes of the attack, the seven Americans at the Special Mission Compound were thrown onto the defensive and separated into three locations: Two Benghazi-based DS agents, Alec Henderson and David Ubben, were locked inside the TOC; two DS agents from Tripoli were barricaded inside the Cantina with a local guard; and Ambassador Chris Stevens, communications expert Sean Smith, and DS agent Scott Wickland were left to fend for themselves in the villa’s safe haven.

  The armed invaders had gained the upper hand with a surprise assault. Now they roamed freely through the dimly lit Compound, firing their weapons and chanting as they approached the buildings in packs, destroying what lay in their paths, some stealing what they could carry, all trying to find the Americans.