The Siege

by Damien Lewis

  I made my way to the guardroom and sacked the first two guys. I got right in their faces and told them they were done. They were only to return once, and that was to hand in their ID badges and any Blue Mountain equipment. One of the two was a big, lazy slob of a guy called Alif—the type of bad apple that could turn an entire crop rotten. He reacted to his sacking just as I suspected he would.

  “I come with my tribe!” he started yelling. “Me and my tribe—we come find you and kill you!”

  “Fine,” I responded. “Bring it on. You know where I live. I’ll be expecting you.”

  “Me and my tribe—we come kill you for this!”

  “Listen, come on your own, man to man, and I’ll be ready and waiting.”

  Big Tom, our driver and now guard force commander, was dancing about with worry. “He will come with his tribe and it’ll be a disaster . . .”

  I told him to shut it. From my experience the guys who threatened to kill you never did anything much. Al Qaeda and their ilk weren’t into issuing death threats. If they came for you, they’d hit you with proper planning and with deadly, murderous intent.

  Dan and I returned to our villa, ate chicken for a second night running, and again Dan was in bed by eight. I stayed up until midnight, bored out of my brain and watching the TV. Luckily, we could get CNN, the BBC, and a few other serious news networks, so at least I could kill time watching some decent current affairs programming.

  Around midnight I heard Dan’s phone ring. A call coming at this time of night just had to spell trouble. I walked to his bedroom and I could hear his voice through the door.

  “What! Where? Who was it? You’ve not caught them yet . . . Any idea why?”

  I tapped on the door and walked in. Dan was perched on the bed shaking his head with worry. “Any injuries? Are all the Americans okay?”

  He listened for a while longer, then ended the call.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “Someone’s attacked the compound.”

  “What d’you mean—attacked like how?”

  “Someone’s thrown a grenade over the compound wall. Luckily, there’s no reports of injuries.”

  “Right, give Lee a ring and see if he wants us. He’s on his own up there.”

  We still had no weapons, but presumably Lee could arm us out of the Mission’s armory if need be. Dan made the call. Lee told us he was in the process of securing “the client.” Dan asked if he wanted us there.

  “No,” Lee responded. “Me and the QRF have it under control.”

  “We’re here if you need us,” Dan told him, and then the call was done.

  Something hit home to me there and then: Lee actually thought more of the QRF than he did of us. I’d never come across such an attitude among serving or ex-Marines. I was a great believer in the American–British special relationship, and normally they and us were tight. Where was this coming from, I wondered. It was thirty minutes past midnight, the Embassy had just been hit, and who knew what the remainder of the night might bring—and all Lee had was the 17th February Militia to back him up. Yet he’d refused our help.

  I returned to my room feeling seriously unsettled. The first night we’d had rounds unleashed right outside our villa walls. Now, on night two, we’d had a grenade thrown into the Embassy grounds. Something was going horribly wrong, if the first two nights were anything to go by, and yet the lone RSO holding fort at the Embassy didn’t seem to want any support or help from us.

  Around 4:00 A.M. we had a call from Lee. Apparently, they’d captured the attackers. One was a serving Blue Mountain guard, the other, one of those that had got the sack. They were under arrest and getting questioned by the Benghazi police. It looked as if the attack was an inside job—rogue guard force members out for revenge.

  Lee ended the call by telling us he needed us in his office at 8:00 A.M. sharp. Dan and I had a long talk about it. We hadn’t hired either of these clowns, so while we’d face the music in the morning this was a problem we had inherited. Still, neither of us was kidding ourselves that it was going to be an easy meeting. I was convinced by now that we’d lost the contract. I was two days in and I feared that I’d let Robert, my boss and my closest mentor, down.

  I put a call through to him in the United Kingdom. I briefed him on what had happened. I could tell that he was fuming. He told me to get it sorted out or else the State Department would be rid of us fast. It was fair enough. Shaking up the guard force was what I’d been sent in to do. Somehow we were going to have to survive the coming showdown with Lee and make things right.

  The drive to the Embassy the following morning was tense and largely silent. We talked the issue over briefly with Tom. There was no actual proof that the two guys had thrown the grenade, but there was no other reason for them to have been there. One had been fired already and the other was on the list of those to go. They’d been caught driving away from the scene of the attack, and in truth there was little chance that it wasn’t them.

  We were at the TOC early, but Lee was ready and waiting. He got us into his office and closed the door heavily. There was no offer of coffee. I felt as if I were back in the headmaster’s study, on one of the numerous occasions when I’d been caught causing trouble at school. It was only going into the British Army that had straightened me out back then—and I didn’t have a clue what would save us right here and now.

  “Last night a grenade came over the compound wall,” Lee started, in a voice like gravel. “The alarm wasn’t raised as the system’s not working yet, but I heard the blast, cleared the area, and secured the client, while the QRF went around the compound to check. They held two of your guard force, and they were taken away by the local police.” Lee fixed us with this hard-ass look. “Make no mistake, I am not fuckin’ happy with your fuckin’ guard force attacking the compound, especially when one of them still works for you guys . . .”

  Lee went on for a good minute in this vein. Finally, I couldn’t resist saying a few words.

  “I’m not being funny, mate, but they’re not our guards,” I cut in. “You hired them: we’re in the process of getting rid of them. So don’t fucking blame us. We didn’t sign these guys up—you or your predecessor did.”

  Dan was staring at me mouth agape. But as far as I was concerned we had nothing to lose now, and anyway, this was the truth.

  I plowed on. “If you’re looking for someone to blame you need to look closer to home, mate. Either you hired them or the guy before you did. Period.”

  Lee stared at me for a long second, then he broke into the beginnings of a smile. “Fair point. You’re right. You’re fuckin’ right. We did hire them.”

  I seized the initiative. “Listen, mate, we’re trying to get rid of all the worst as fast as we can. But we need to get the vetting forms back from you, at which point we can get shot of ten in one go.”

  Lee nodded. “Gotcha. I’ll get onto it. But I got one thousand and one goddamn things to do . . .”

  I had rarely if ever seen a guy under so much pressure. Lee was holding the fort alone, and now he’d been up half the night dealing with a grenade attack. It was piling up on him, and I didn’t for one moment blame him for wanting to unload on someone. But like a truly decent guy he’d come around pretty damn quickly.

  “Okay, guys, thanks, really,” he said. “If you can fix the guard force, that’d be a real help.”

  “You get them vetted, we’ll get them sorted,” I reassured him. “Plus you need to get your alarm working. There’s no point the guard hitting the duck-and-cover alarm if the system doesn’t work. Plus the CCTV needs to be up and running . . .”

  “Don’t I know it,” Lee growled. “I got it on the list of things need doin’ around here.”

  The standard attack response for our guard force was to sound the “duck-and-cover alarm,” one that would alert the entire Embassy to an attack via a series of loudspeakers—only right now that system wasn’t operational.

  Dan and I got up to leave. “Ma
te, if you need us for anything—anything—just let us know,” I added. “We’re here to help.”

  The offer seemed to have hardly registered with Lee. We shook hands and left, but I was determined to come back and see him on my own and get to the bottom of it all.

  I let a good hour go by before I returned to his office. I knocked and entered. “Any chance of a word, mate, just me and you.”

  “Yeah, yeah—no problem. Close the door.”

  This time Lee did fetch coffees. That done, I got right down to it. “So, I’m wondering, is there a problem between you and Dan?”

  Lee fixed me with a look, as if he was assessing what exactly he could afford to tell me. “No, not as such. But man, Dan just looks so worn-out. He looks old and past it. He’s limping about, for Christ’s sake. He doesn’t look up for it.”

  “Fine. But trust me, if you need our help you only have to ask and Dan and I will come running.”

  “Why? What’s your background?”

  “I spent fourteen years in the British Army. After that, three years in Iraq as a private operator looking after U.S. ACE. Then Helmand for three years working with U.S. Marine Corps in Garmsir and Sangin.” Now I went for the killer punch. “Plus I was in charge of a team looking after a guy you may have heard of—Major General James T. Conway.”

  Lee nearly fell off his chair. “No shit! How come you were looking after that guy?”

  I returned the smile. “James T. Conway: six feet four, looks like an American football player and a really nice guy. I looked after him in Afghan and took him around the place. We were his close protection squad in Helmand Province. I even got his coin.”

  “No shit!” Lee shook his head in amazement. “I met the general once . . . The Marines—we love that guy.”

  “Yeah, I know. I know why, too. He’s a top bloke.”

  Major General James T. Conway was the commander of the entire U.S. Marine Corps. He had 250,000 Marines under his command, so a force almost three times the size of the entire British military.

  I told Lee a story about the general. He was the only commander I’d ever known to keep a helicopter pilot waiting. It was at the end of his Afghan tour, and he’d been going around his CP team—meaning, us—shaking each man’s hand. We were ten, and to each he was saying a personal thank-you plus giving us his coin—a commemorative metal disk about the size of a medal, with his personal crest and motto emblazoned on it, plus that of the Marine Corps—Semper fidelis: always faithful. He was halfway through when his personal assistant came hurrying over to warn the general that his helo was ready to get airborne. The general rounded on the man. “Well, you just tell the pilot he can fuckin’ wait.”

  “That’s General Conway, you betcha!” Lee enthused. “Fuck, man, it’s great to have someone here who can help if the shit goes down. I got no one to watch my back.” He was starting to really open up now. “You know, this is my first ever overseas postin’ as an RSO, and what do they do to me—alone in Benghazi.”

  “That’s why I made the offer of help. If you need me to sleep up here on one of the couches, I’ll be here watching your back. I’ll happily fight alongside you, mate.”

  Lee didn’t seem able to thank me enough. The poor bastard had been here for days on end utterly alone and unsupported. He only had two weeks left before another RSO replaced him, but he was already burned-out. Whoever had sent him out here alone—they needed to come see for themselves the level of shit they’d landed him in.

  “Thank Christ, buddy. You know . . . I’ve been kinda struggling. It’s been hard here, all alone, you know?”

  “Like I said, I’m here. I’ll help you—whatever you need.” I felt genuinely sorry for the guy. “You should not be here on your own. It’s madness. There should be four of you, minimum, and ideally eight.”

  Lee shrugged, exhaustedly. “Don’t I know it.”

  He proceeded to talk me around all the weaponry and the ammo stored in the TOC. He unlocked the cases, and there were racks of folding-stock M4 assault rifles, plus pump-action combat shotguns and rakes of ammo. Now this was more like it. There were also enough top-of-the-range SIG pistols to arm five men. He showed me where the keys were kept and how to unlock the cases.

  Game on.

  Lee waved a hand over the racks of weaponry. “Buddy, you ever feel the need—here’s where it all is if the bullets start to fly . . .”

  I told him I’d fight back-to-back with him if need be. “I don’t know if you know Dan’s background, but trust me, he’d fight to the death to protect you, too. Dan did twenty-two years in the Royal Green Jackets—a top infantry regiment—plus nine years as a private operator in Iraq.”

  Lee looked shocked. “Man, I didn’t know. Why didn’t he tell me?”

  “Dan’s not the kind of bloke to volunteer much. He doesn’t boast. But rest assured, he knows what he’s doing.”

  Whenever I’d served alongside them I valued the U.S. Marines highly. They refused to go backward no matter what, and they were fun to be around. From now on Lee and I would greet each other with “Semper fi” whenever we ran into each other. I told him I would fight to safeguard his principal, the lady diplomat, so he didn’t need to worry about standing alone anymore.

  I meant every word of it, too. I’m not the kind who leaves my friends hanging.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The grenade attack, plus our heart-to-heart, was the push Lee seemed to need to get the vetting done. The forms on the ten new recruits came back almost immediately with all being cleared. That done, I could start the training proper. It was all to take place at the Blue Mountain villa, for the State Department contract stipulated that we should have our own “training facility.”

  One guy struck me immediately as having real promise. His name was Nasir, and he was the only one not wearing a figure-hugging T-shirt and jeans. Instead he was dressed in smart trousers and a button-down shirt, which were neatly pressed and ironed. He was super keen to learn, and if his English hadn’t been so poor I’d have made him the guard force commander, in preference to Tom—for there was something about Tom’s attitude that was starting to grate.

  Nasir was maybe thirty-five years old, five feet ten and of typical slim Libyan build. He had honest eyes above a small goatee beard, and he struck me as being a genuinely nice guy. I’m the kind of person who tends to go on first instincts. I’d warmed to Lee from the get-go, even though he hadn’t particularly liked us. Likewise, I was sure I’d hit gold with Nasir.

  Before the revolution Nasir had been a Caterpillar driver, working sixteen-hour shifts and getting paid a lot less than the nine hundred dollars a month we were going to pay for eight-hour guard shifts. He couldn’t be happier with his new job and I appointed him as a guard force supervisor right away.

  Another diamond recruit was Mustaffa, though he and Nasir were like chalk and cheese to look at. Untypically for a Libyan, Mustaffa was a fitness and bodybuilding freak, and he was a massive hunk of honed muscle and sinew. He also sported a full-length beard, and when we’d first checked out the photos of the potential recruits Tom had tried to rule him out.

  “We obviously can’t have him,” Tom had remarked.

  I’d asked why.

  “Look at his bushy beard,” Tom had answered. “He could be an Islamic fundamentalist, maybe even Shariah Brigade.”

  I pointed out that I had a beard, but it didn’t make me a terrorist. I’d grown it specifically so I could blend in better with the locals here.

  I actually suspected that Tom didn’t want Mustaffa around because he looked far bigger and tougher than he did. Mustaffa proved to be as imposing in the flesh as he’d looked in his photo, but above the monster beard he had honest, intelligent eyes. Mustaffa’s English wasn’t great but he was quick to learn, and I made him another guard supervisor, alongside Nasir. He would end up being one of my best recruits, so much so that I nicknamed him “Mr. Reliable.”

  Then there were three guys who’d worked as volunteers for the
Red Crescent—the Islamic world’s equivalent of the Red Cross. They’d been ambulance drivers all through the revolution, and anyone who volunteered to do that kind of work was a good guy in my books. Mohamed Mohamed was a big lump of a man with another monster beard, and in time he’d prove to be a top recruit.

  Abd Monhein was the second Red Crescent recruit, and like Mohamed he hailed from the Khufra region in the southern deserts of Libya. The third Red Crescent guy was Sahad Mohamed, again from Khufra. Sahad was distinctly black African looking, as opposed to the others, who were Arabic in appearance.

  All three of the Red Crescent guys would prove to be first-class recruits, apart from one thing: Abd and Mohamed were horrendously racist. Whenever Sahad was slow at getting anything during the training—as all the recruits were at times—Mohamed and Abd would start in on him.

  “What d’you expect from Sahad—he’s black!”

  “No surprises there—he’s a Kuffir!”

  “He’s stupid like all blacks!”

  In fact, most of the Arab-looking recruits piled in with similar comments. It didn’t matter that they were doing so in Arabic, I could still understand most of what was said. It hadn’t seemed to cross their minds that I might disagree with their racist bullshit. Even Sahad himself seemed so used to the abuse that he didn’t raise any objections. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

  The British Army is far from perfect, but it is one of the least racist institutions you could ever come across. Once a man or woman made it into the forces, their skin color was a complete irrelevance. I’d served alongside just about every ethnic mix you could imagine, both in the regular forces and as a private military operator. Race just didn’t come into it when the bullets started to fly.