by Damien Lewis
“Be careful, Morgan,” Massoud muttered. He tried placing a restraining arm on me.
I shook it off. “No! Fuck them! Let’s get it on!”
One thought was racing through my head now: Do I shoot them? Do I shoot them? Do I shoot them? I couldn’t be the one to move first. I needed them to.
“You fucking people are so fucking stupid,” I spat out. “You idiots are being watched right now by the Americans—don’t you know that? There will be a drone or satellite watching this compound right now. Don’t you get it?” I started laughing. “Don’t you realize the Americans are on their way? And you guys—you’re dead men walking. All of you. You’re all of you fucked.”
These guys seemed to understand enough basic English to get the gist of what I was saying. I saw fear replace the bluster and arrogance in their eyes.
“If I was you guys, I’d fuck off right now . . . Even I don’t want to be around here when the Americans arrive.”
Massoud translated those last words. The five Shariah Brigade fighters didn’t seem so brave now. As they made to shuffle past us Massoud started berating them about how they’d brought shame on Libya.
“Shame is the least of your problems!” I spat after them. “You got the Americans on your ass now, and they’ll hunt you to your fucking graves.”
They tried to walk to the front gate, but once one had started running they all did. Just as I had thought. They were cowards, the lot of them.
We made our way to the main consular building, but still I was shaking with rage. The pool was full of debris: smashed-up chairs, computer gear, desks, a TV. There was Arabic graffiti scrawled all over the white walls. I made sure to photograph every last bit of it. Maybe the evil bastards had been dumb enough to sign their own names, or maybe the names of the factions of the Shariah Brigade they belonged to, or maybe even the names of their commanders—those who had masterminded this night of savagery.
From there we turned left onto the gravel track leading to the TOC. I rounded a corner and there was the burned-out wreck of the canteen. To my utter disbelief two skinny guys came hurrying out laden with gear, and they started to make their way to a rusty pickup truck. They were carrying what looked like a metal filing cabinet. The bastards were still looting.
“WHAT ARE YOU FUCKERS DOING?” I exploded.
Massoud made a run for them. He too was beside himself with rage now. He was screaming at them in Arabic. They dropped their loot, ran for the pickup, and jumped in. I saw him trying to yank the driver out of the window by his hair. This had really pushed Massoud over the edge. Americans were dead, the Embassy was in ruins, his job was gone, and Libya had been shamed in the eyes of the world—and yet there were still guys here looting.
I stepped into the canteen. Everything here had been burned or looted or smashed to smithereens. I searched among the ashes and the debris, and at least there were no bodies. I crossed over to the TOC. Unbelievably, there was still smoke billowing out of the windows—that was how fierce the conflagration had been here.
I stepped inside. It was boiling hot and awash with smoke. I guessed maybe this was the last place that the Shariah killers had managed to torch. If so, maybe it was from here that some of the Americans had mounted their last stand—and that meant there could well be bodies.
I steeled myself to go on.
I pushed farther inside.
The political officer’s room was still burning. It was totally trashed. Filing cabinets and desks were overturned and lying on top of each other. I checked where all the classified documents were stored, but there was nothing left that I could see. The weapons locker was on the floor, and it had been busted open. All the M4s, the pistols, and shoguns were gone. Most of anything that was left here was too hot to handle, but my greatest relief was that none of my friends were lying among the debris here as burned and scorched corpses.
I got out, having spent a good five minutes in there photographing everything. I gulped in big lungfuls of fresh air. I wiped the sweat from my eyes. My hair was soaked and plastered to my scalp. I had one thing left to do now: check the vineyard and the two orchards for bodies. I glanced at my watch. I was worried that those Shariah fighters might have rushed off to fetch their friends. We’d been here a good twenty-five minutes already. I told myself to hurry.
I started to run now, dashing from one patch of vegetation to another, my eyes scanning the ground for any dead Americans. There were none that I could see. Even the scores of Shariah corpses appeared to be gone, so I presumed they must have been in here collecting their dead.
I came to the flagpole, the one on which only the day before the flag had been flying at half-mast, in memory of 9/11. I had a lump in my throat just at the thought of it, and this place being hit on that momentous anniversary. Maybe we should have seen it coming, but we’d had not the slightest sniff of any intel about the kind of attack that hit us. I wanted to retrieve the flag, so I could hand it back to whichever of my American friends had survived, but even that was gone.
I raced through the last patch of cover—the orchard next to the outhouse/gym where I’d come over the wall—then back toward the main gate. I caught sight of Massoud waiting for me. He must have wondered what the hell I was doing, tearing around the complex like a madman. But I couldn’t have lived with myself had I missed one of the guys and his body had been left behind.
As we headed out the gate someone grabbed me by the arm. It was an older Libyan male and I recognized him instantly. It was the owner of the compound.
He gestured at the destruction all around us: “The Americans will give me money, yes? They will pay?”
I stared at him, struggling to keep my anger in check. “Not if I have anything to do with it they won’t.”
I walked to the car. I was incandescent with rage. I saw Massoud and the lone policeman start to whack some more looters around the face, using open-handed slaps.
“Come on!” I yelled over at him. “Let’s go!”
We set off. All the way back to the villa the silence lay heavy and oppressive between us. I kept thinking of those who had died, not that I knew exactly who it was yet. The not knowing was the worst. It was eating away at me. I told Massoud to wait as I went into the villa and grabbed my gear. I just wanted to get to the airport now and get out of this horrific, messed-up city—and to get out with the photographs that I’d taken this morning very much intact.
We set off for the airport. As we drove through downtown Benghazi I glanced around at the familiar sights, ones that were somehow now so alien to me. I knew for sure that I would never return to this place: it would be too much for me ever to come back. Beside me Massoud seemed very somber and shaken.
“What’s wrong?” I asked him.
“I feel very bad for the Americans,” he answered. “What has been done here is a shame on our country. And I regret because I know I will never work for you any again.”
I was all choked up. I liked Massoud. He didn’t deserve any of this. Like my guards, Massoud was one of the good guys.
As we neared the airport I felt as if my world was about to explode. I feared they’d stop me and take the camera; or shove me in front of the hordes of reporters who had to be flooding in to try to get the story right now; or arrest me and throw me into some cell. Massoud must have sensed what a mess I was in. When we got there he told me to wait in the car. He went and talked to some of his Army friends who were manning the airport. Via them I was ushered straight into the first-class departure lounge—bypassing passport control and security.
Fox News was playing on the lounge’s TV set. The Benghazi Embassy siege was headline news, and the death of Ambassador Stevens was now being openly reported. I sat there glued to the screen, knowing that I had to look like absolute death: I hadn’t slept for ages; my hair and beard were caked in sweat, dirt, smoke, and grime; and I was quite literally stinking.
An elderly-looking Arab man approached me. He held out his hand. “Sir, I am so very sorry for what happened to your
friends last night.”
I took his hand and shook it. “Shōkran”—Thank you.
He’d been speaking educated, fluent English. I had never seen him before, but I presumed he wanted to apologize on behalf of his country, and as a Westerner I was the first person he had seen to whom he could do so. A lot of Libyans would be like this man, and like Massoud: they would be full of shame and outrage.
Two Western-looking guys entered the lounge. I saw them pointing at me and whispering. I felt paranoid, like my head was about to detonate in a shower of brains and goo. They came over and started trying to introduce themselves. They had French accents and one pulled out a notebook. Reporters.
“So, you are an American?” he asked.
“Nope. Welsh.”
“Oh . . . Pays de Galles.”
“Yeah.” Pays de Galles is the French name for Wales.
“What were you doing in Benghazi?”
“Working.”
“What can you tell us about the attack on the Benghazi Embassy last night?”
That was it. I lost it. “LISTEN: YOU’D BETTER FUCK OFF BACK TO YOUR SEATS WHILE YOU STILL CAN!”
Massoud came sprinting over. “Yala! Yala! Yala!”—quickly. He grabbed them and led them away.
He came back. “Morgan, are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I grunted. “Just keep those fuckers away from me.”
Massoud got some of his Army friends to throw a cordon around me, keeping everyone away. I was in my own little world now. It was somewhere very close to hell. Are they all dead? I kept asking myself. Should I have tried to shoot the guy with the Dushka, and gone over the wall at the first attempt? If I’d done so, might I have saved them? Should I have got the Ambassador’s body and taken it back to the villa? Should I be dead alongside all my friends?
The same thoughts kept swirling around and around in my head, like a dark storm. I was on the verge of a breakdown.
Massoud crouched beside me and showed me a video clip on his mobile phone. It showed what I guessed had to be some of the good Libyans carrying Ambassador Stevens out of the VIP Villa. Massoud explained that as the battle for the Mission had ebbed and flowed, some of Benghazi’s many good citizens—people of a similar mind-set to him and Zahid—had managed to get into the Mission compound and pull the Ambassador out of the VIP Villa. It must have been those guys who helped get him to the hospital. In the video footage it looked as if they were genuinely trying to help him, but I prayed that his family hadn’t seen any of those images.
I imagined how terrifying it must have been for him, locked in the safe room but with all the noise of the assault hammering in from outside. Then the heat and the flames. I felt anger burning through me again. Such a lovely man. Such a shitty way to die. You poor bastard. This was fucking my head up even more.
My flight was called.
Massoud and I embraced. “Shukran, habibi”—Thank you, my brother—I told him. I had tears in my eyes.
So did he. “You will come back to Libya, Morgan? You will come back?”
“Yes. I’ll be back,” I lied.
I would never return to this place.
I took my bag and walked away without a backward glance. I couldn’t take it anymore.
As I boarded the plane all I could think of was getting a long way away from here, and back to my family.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The two-hour flight to Doha, Qatar, passed in some kind of a daze. We landed and I had a good couple of hours on the ground before the connecting flight to London. I turned on my cell phone and there were scores of missed calls. Almost immediately a call came in from Robert.
“Yeah, it’s me,” I answered. “I’m in Doha.”
“Good to hear it. Listen, the State Department people will be calling you shortly. There will be a shitload of people listening in and it’ll be a conference call.”
“Who exactly will be listening in?”
“High-ups. That’s all I know.”
“Well, fuck me, I guessed that much.”
“Morgan, watch what you say and don’t drop yourself in it. It’ll be the usual crowd: CIA, FBI, DIA, and State. Maybe others. And remember, right now everyone is a suspect as far as they’re concerned.”
Jesus, this was the very last thing I needed right now.
Almost the instant that Robert ended the call my phone rang. It was a “001” number, so I knew it was the United States. I couldn’t bring myself to answer. My mind froze. I let it go to voice mail. I wandered through the Doha terminal until I found a quiet, deserted corner. I sank down on the floor, my head in my hands. Tears streamed down my face. I did my best to keep my head down and hide them.
I wasn’t heaving or sobbing, so no one could really see or hear, but the tears were simply uncontrollable. I was in a bad place mentally. I didn’t even know if I could make it to my next flight, let alone take a call from every American three-letter agency under the sun. I understood why they needed to talk to me. I was the last man out. I’d found the Ambassador. They had no one else. Plus I had the photos and the evidence. But that didn’t mean that I was capable of doing this.
I sat there and cried for a good thirty minutes. I tried to compose myself. I put a call through to Laura, the one person other than Robert I really wanted to talk to right now.
“Are you okay?” she asked me.
“No, I am not. I wish I was dead. I’m finished.”
Laura talked me down a lot, and just the sound of her voice made me feel a little better. I tried to move on. I tried to lift my day pack, but it felt inconceivably heavy. It didn’t weigh more than a few pounds, and it brought home to me how utterly exhausted I was—both emotionally and physically.
I made my way to the business-class lounge. Doha is a plush, space-age kind of an airport, and the lounge was full of swanky-looking international businesspeople and other assorted professionals. I could feel them staring at me like I had horns growing out of my head. I was so wired that I knew if one of them said the simplest word, I would smash their face in.
I took a stool at the bar and ordered a beer. The barman was a really good guy, and he kept refilling my glass as quickly as I drained it. After a good half-dozen beers I was feeling a fraction more human. I checked my phone. Four missed calls from America. I knew they needed to speak to me. No one else had what I had.
I thought: Right, come on then—next call, let’s do it.
Barely minutes later my phone rang. “Morgan Jones.”
“Mr. Jones, this is Sam Peterson from the U.S. State Department. I think you were expecting our call.”
“Yes. I’m good to talk.”
“Right, thank you, sir, because right now we really do appreciate it. Stay on the line: it’ll take a few moments to get everyone patched in and seated and listening.”
I supped some more beer as I waited.
“Okay, we’re all in now. So, Mr. Jones, please tell us everything that you have seen and heard over the last forty-eight hours.”
Fuck me, where did I start? I began relating the lead-up to the attack, then moved on to the events of the night just gone. I found myself reliving it all, and at one moment I found myself breaking down again and the words just wouldn’t come. I heard another voice break into the call.
“Look, this guy just isn’t up to this right now.” Pause. “Sir? Mr. Morgan, we can get someone to that airport to sit with you until your flight is called.”
“No, no. It’s okay. I’m fine.”
“If you want out of that place we can get you to the Embassy.”
“No, I’m okay. I just want to go home.”
“Understood, sir. Well, if you think you’re able to continue?”
I said I was. I talked them through the events leading up to now, and somehow I got through it all. Then the questions began.
“How many attackers were there?”
“I don’t know, but I was told two hundred minimum. Maybe as many as six hundred.”
“What
time did you find the Ambassador dead?”
“Sometime around two in the morning.”
“Who were the attackers?”
“Shariah Brigade.”
The questions went on and on. When they were finally done, I mentioned the fact that I had the photos from the compound, those that I’d taken when I’d gone back to document the crime scene.
“Hell, we need those ASAP. We have zero. We got nothing.”
“I’ll email them as soon as I get home. I’ll need an email address.”
“We’ll get one to you. We would really, really appreciate those photos.”
“You know about the Libyan policeman taking the recce photos?”
“Say again.”
I related the story about the Libyan cop—or the guy posing as a cop—who’d taken all the shots of the Mission’s front entrance the morning before the attack.
“No shit. We gotta get someone over to the U.K. to talk to you. Are you up for that?”
I told them that I was.
“So first priority is to email us those photos,” the guy from State summarized. “Then we’ll see about getting our people to you for a face-to-face.”
That was the call. I downed a few gin-and-tonics just for the extra peace of mind, then made my way toward the gate. I’d barely settled into my seat before I’d fallen into the sleep of the dead.
It was a good nine or ten hours later by the time I finally reached home. Robert was waiting for me, and he warned me that the media had started hounding already. He told me that my default response should be “No comment.” I told him that I didn’t need this shit. I just wanted to be around those I loved in peace and in quiet.
I emailed all the photos that I had taken to the guy I’d spoken to at the State Department. I got a response back almost instantaneously: “Thank you very much for all of them. Brilliant. This is all we have.”
That evening the four dead Americans were named on the news: Ambassador Stevens, Glen Doherty, Tyrone Woods, and Sean Smith. Hearing of Sean’s death was heartbreaking. He’d been there only a week and he wasn’t even a soldier. He was the IT man and a State Department guy through and through. I remembered telling Sean just a day or so before not to worry, for we’d never had a serious attack at the Mission. I’d said it just to put his mind at rest. Now he was dead, and there was a grieving wife and two children in The Hague.
