13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened in Benghazi (23 page)

“We’re good,” Tanto called, still on his knee, gun up, scanning for trouble.

As they returned to the villa, Tanto noticed that the back gate remained open. His mind flashed to the 17 February commander he’d told to lock it behind them.
God dang it
, Tanto thought.
That cockbag motherfucker didn’t shut the back gate.
The gate was perhaps a hundred yards away, so Tanto knew that he couldn’t do anything but stew about it.

Tanto took the point, moving on high alert with his rifle at the low ready position. Jack and Ubben looked like they’d just robbed a Best Buy. They hustled back toward the villa, half crouching as they ran in the dark. Jack felt defenseless with his gun down and his arms filled with
computer equipment, so he kept especially close behind Tanto.

They went directly to the rear of the DS agents’ gray Land Cruiser. The open rear hatch was already half-filled with weapons, but Jack and Ubben dumped the computer equipment atop the long guns and ammo anyway. The armored Land Cruiser, which had bullet-resistant windows and run-flat tires, faced toward the Compound’s front gate. Someone had staged the operators’ Mercedes next to the Land Cruiser, about fifteen feet apart, pointed in the opposite direction.

On the grass and the brick driveway outside the villa, everyone who wasn’t searching for the ambassador was buzzing with concern about their enemies massing for a renewed attack. A shared sentiment took hold that the Americans and their militia allies needed to abandon the Compound immediately. Jack overheard one of the DS agents say that he’d received a phone call warning that “large groups of bad guys are coming.” Jack didn’t know the source of the call, but he had no reason to doubt it.

The operators also learned that the 17 February militiamen who were supposed to block the roadways leading to the Compound either couldn’t or wouldn’t be able to hold off a second assault. The GRS Team Leader called the 17 February commander by cell phone, asking him to fortify their positions so the Land Cruiser and the Mercedes could travel safely back to the Annex. Accounts of the response differ, but several operators said the militia commander admitted that his men were falling back. In that case, the attackers would have a clear path to return and finish what they’d started. Also, there would be nothing to stop them
if they decided to move from the Compound to the lightly defended Annex.

The pings and pops of gunfire began to pick up from beyond the Compound walls. Tanto heard a crack, then another, from the Fourth Ring Road. The open back gate infuriated him more. He also heard shots coming from the east side of the Compound, near the gardener’s shack he’d been watching. Several bullets hit the side of the Land Cruiser, making a sound like coins being flicked against a tin can.

Even as they prepared to leave, and even though their hopes of finding Stevens had fallen, Jack, Rone, and D.B. continued to search the villa for the ambassador. Tanto took up a defensive position on the ground outside. After a short while he began patrolling the grounds, watching several dozen 17 February militiamen who milled around the Compound. Most were young and wiry, but Tanto became intrigued by a short, heavyset man who looked to be in his fifties. The man carried a shiny, nickel-plated AK-47 and dressed as though he’d just left an office job, with dark-blue pants and a tan button-down dress shirt. Tanto couldn’t tell if the man was a battle tourist or a fighter. Tanto kept watching the gates and the walls through his night-vision goggles, checking the dark corners to see if anyone was climbing over.

A call came over the radio from the Team Leader for everyone to muster at the vehicles for immediate departure. No one wanted to leave with Chris Stevens unaccounted for. But they’d searched repeatedly with no success, so it seemed likely to several of the operators that he was in enemy hands. If Stevens somehow did remain inside the
villa, perhaps deep within part of the safe haven they couldn’t reach through the flames, Sean Smith’s death by apparent smoke inhalation convinced the operators that the ambassador was surely dead, too. In that case, the work would no longer be a rescue mission, but a recovery effort. With a force of attackers approaching from beyond the walls, they couldn’t justify retrieving a body if it meant more American casualties. The T.L. made the call to leave, and all the operators were in agreement.

Rone and Jack carried Sean Smith’s body to the back of the Mercedes SUV and placed it inside the cargo area as gently as they could. Tanto came over to see Smith and pay his respects. He’d spoken with Smith only once, and he wanted to be sure that this was the man he’d met. Tanto gently turned Smith’s head to see if he recognized him. It was hard to tell, as Smith’s face was still blackened by soot. Tanto laid his head down and shut the cargo door.

Rone slid into the Mercedes’s driver’s seat. The Team Leader and Henry the translator continued talking with the 17 February militiamen.

The five DS agents crowded into the Land Cruiser, ready to go. Although still worn out from his ordeal and suffering from smoke inhalation, Scott Wickland took the wheel. An agent from Tripoli rode shotgun. Dave Ubben and Alec Henderson squeezed in back with the other Tripoli agent.

Before heading toward the Mercedes, the Team Leader and several other operators warned Wickland to turn left, not right, when he drove out of the Compound. Going to the right, which would have taken him to the east, might have seemed the more natural route, because the Annex was located southeast of the Compound. Also, that was the route the DS agents normally traveled to the Annex.
But the Team Leader had heard by phone that the attackers were massing in that area, and a right turn would put the Land Cruiser directly into their path. By turning to the left, the DS agents would be retracing the route the operators had used, in reverse, which would steer them through areas that might still be protected by the 17 February militia.

From the Land Cruiser’s back seat, Dave Ubben opened the door and called to Jack, who was outside near the Mercedes: “Hey, we don’t have a radio. Do you guys have one?”

Jack went to Rone, who had somehow acquired a second radio. Jack carried it to Ubben so they could remain in contact. As he walked back to the Mercedes, Jack heard a whooshing sound, followed a split second later by an explosion.

Several minutes earlier, Tig had decided to make a few final search runs inside the villa. He called the T.L. on his radio: “I’m going in one more time.”

“No,” the Team Leader replied. Eager to get everyone evacuated, he told Tig: “Stand by. Stand by.”

Tig complied, but only briefly. The operators and DS agents were hanging around the vehicles, so he figured he’d attempt one last search before they left. He considered it most likely that Stevens was still somewhere inside. Tig had been thinking about the aftermath of the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu in Somalia, memorialized in
Black Hawk Down
, particularly the part when locals had dragged the bodies of American soldiers through the streets.
They’re going to be doing the exact same thing to the ambassador
, Tig told
himself.
That’s something I don’t want to see. We gotta find him.

Tig stripped off his heavy Rhodesian assault vest and left his assault rifle outside the villa window. He’d broken his night-vision goggles when he banged them on the window frame during a previous search, so he left them and his helmet outside, too. Carrying only his flashlight and pistol, wearing his thin body armor over his shirt, Tig took several extra-large breaths, held the last one, and went inside through the bedroom window.

The rooms remained hot and smoky, so Tig crawled or slid on his belly. He moved through the bedroom and checked both sides of the bed. Finding nothing, he crept toward the safe-haven hallway, hoping to go deeper into the villa, to other rooms none of the searchers had yet reached.

Tig was halfway out of the bedroom doorway when he heard the explosion.

Tanto was walking between the Land Cruiser and the Mercedes when he heard it:
Kajoom!
He felt the concussive pressure of the explosion, but wasn’t sure where it had come from. He spun toward the front gate and saw 17 February militiamen taking cover. As Tanto ran toward the front of the villa, he came upon two militiamen, one with his left hand bloody and badly mangled.

“What happened?” Tanto yelled.

“Grenade!” the injured man’s friend told him.

At first, Tanto mistakenly thought the man had tried to throw a grenade but held it too long. Moments later, when a second explosion hit, Tanto realized that the Compound
was under attack from rocket-propelled grenades, fired from the direction of the open back gate. Gunfire sputtered toward the Americans and their militia supporters from the area of the Fourth Ring Road.

Counterattack
, Tanto thought.
They’re going to start coming in. They’re going to try to take this thing back over.

Scanning to see where the attackers might enter the Compound, Tanto caught sight of D.B. running to join him near the front of the villa. Bullets flew around them in the dark, sounding like whips cracking again and again.

“Are those motherfuckers shooting at us?” Tanto asked D.B. “Really?”

They were exposed on the front lawn, so Tanto and D.B. ran to take cover at the Land Cruiser. Tanto saw muzzle flashes coming from the back gate. He placed his weapon across the hood of the armored SUV and began firing. Tanto wasn’t wearing earplugs, so the reports from his rifle blew out his left eardrum.

After the first grenade, the Team Leader had radioed the DS agents in the Land Cruiser: “Get the fuck out of here! Go! Go! Go!”

Tanto had arrived at the SUV before Scott Wickland could shift into gear. The DS agents stared at Tanto through the windshield, their faces twisted in anxious grimaces. Tanto called out, “Sorry!” He lifted his gun and stepped back from the Land Cruiser. Tanto gave them a traffic cop wave to send the DS agents on their way.

With the operators and several militiamen providing waves of cover fire, Wickland hit the gas and drove toward the Compound’s open front gate. When he passed under the entrance arch and reached the gravel road, Wickland
either disregarded or forgot the operators’ repeated warnings about which way to go. The disoriented DS agent turned the Land Cruiser to the right, directly into the path of the returning attackers.

“Those dumb motherfuckers!” Tanto said aloud. “Are you kidding me?”