13 Hours The Inside Account of What Really Happened In Benghazi (26 page)

A short time later, outside the villa, Dave Ubben asked Jack to help him retrieve laptops and more classified material from the TOC before the DS agents left. Jack saw Tanto nearby and called him over to help. The three-man team moved tactically, crouched down, guns raised. They believed that the attackers were on their way back to the Compound, and they still harbored concerns that some friendly militiamen might yet turn unfriendly. Although Tanto had previously cleared the TOC with Rone and D.B., he and Jack knew that they needed to consider it under “negative control.”

When they reached the TOC building, Tanto told Jack: “You guys go ahead. I’ll stand by outside and make sure nobody comes in.” Dripping with sweat, his arm throbbing, Tanto took a knee about ten feet from the TOC entrance, covering them. Again he found himself thinking how bright the stars looked in the black sky.

Tanto focused his attention on the northeast corner of the Compound, a darkened area where an empty gardener’s shack was built against the wall. With no light in that area, and a large expanse of dirt around it, Tanto worried that an attack could come from that corner without anyone noticing. He kept watch in that direction.

Jack led the way into the TOC building. He and Dave Ubben moved quickly to the room where Alec Henderson had established the command and communications center when the attack began. They made a two-man tactical entry, with Jack taking the lead and Ubben following immediately behind him. When they were sure it was empty, both men let their weapons hang.

Wasting no time, they grabbed every laptop in the well-lit, ten-by-fifteen-foot room. Hard drives needed to be taken, too, but they were held in place by half-inch-thick black wires. Disconnecting them would take too long, so Ubben held the wires taut while Jack cut them with a serrated paramilitary knife. They added the hard drives to the laptop pile. As they worked, Jack steered clear of a large window opposite the entry door. The lights were on in the TOC, which meant that they were illuminated, easy targets if someone wanted to take a potshot through the window.

After one last look around, Ubben told Jack: “We’ve got everything we need.”

Their guns still hanging by their sides, the two men scooped up the laptop computers and hard drives, and headed for the door. Before stepping outside, Jack caught Tanto’s eye. They exchanged nods.

“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.