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

by Mitchell Zuckoff

  They plundered the living room, destroying furniture as they swarmed through the villa. Several reached the safe-haven gate and banged on the bars. They tried to look inside but the area beyond the gate was dark, and they couldn’t see Wickland or the two men he was determined to protect. The attackers attempted to break in, but the bolts and locks held.

  Still unseen, Wickland aimed his assault rifle at the intruders when they reached the gate, ready to shoot if they tried to blast or force it open. Until they made that move, Wickland resolved, he’d hold his concealed position and his fire, to avoid revealing his location and the presence of the ambassador and the information officer. Wickland warned Stevens and Smith to brace themselves for an assault.

  But instead of trying to blow open the gate and enter the safe haven, the attackers moved back. They hauled in the jerry cans of diesel fuel that they’d found near the Compound’s new generator and had already used to torch the vehicles and the 17 February barracks. Wickland couldn’t know whether the attackers believed that the American ambassador was locked inside the villa’s safe haven, but it stands to reason that they knew the barred gate separated them from Americans that they had hoped to reach. The attackers’ intent was evident: They meant to use the Americans’ own fuel to smoke them out or roast them alive.

  The attackers doused diesel on the overstuffed chairs, pillows, and couches, drenched the Persian rugs, and splashed the viscous fuel around the living room. As the intruders left, they set the villa ablaze. Outside, they spread more diesel to set fires against the building’s exterior concrete walls.

  Unable to see deep into the living room from his hiding place, at first Wickland couldn’t tell what was happening. Then the light from the villa’s lamps and chandeliers dimmed. The DS agent realized that he, Stevens, and Smith had a new enemy. The villa was on fire and rapidly filling with toxic smoke.

  The Villa C safe haven was supposed to provide the ambassador and other Americans short-term protection against physical attack until host-country rescuers or American fighters could drive away the invaders or protesters. It wasn’t designed to keep them safe indefinitely, and it wasn’t built to safeguard them from fire or chemical agents. In that sense, the Benghazi safe haven was analogous to a shark cage used by ocean divers. The longer it remained in use, the greater the likelihood that killers would batter their way in or the air would run out. Time favored the enemy.

  Visibility in the villa squeezed down to zero. Breathable air became scarce. The smoke of burning diesel fuel is a lethal black cloud containing dozens of poisons, including benzene, arsenic, and formaldehyde. The trapped Americans felt their breathing become labored. Each time they inhaled, the smoke tortured their lungs with soot, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and razor-like particles of hot ash. The smell of burning diesel can be overpowering by itself, a scrambled sulfur-and-egg mixture sometimes described as the scent of Satan cooking breakfast. Brief exposure triggers painful coughing, nausea, eye pain, and headaches. Loss of consciousness and organ damage come next. Extended contact causes death.

  As the smoke intensified, the three Americans dropped to the floor of the safe haven. Crawling on his hands and knees, Wickland led Stevens and Smith into a bathroom that he knew had a barred exterior window. He rolled wet towels in an attempt to seal the gap between the bottom of the door and the tile floor, but smoke continued to seep inside. Wickland rose to his feet and opened the window in the hope of improving ventilation, but it had the opposite effect. Smoke from outside the villa poured into the bathroom, making it even harder for the besieged men to breathe.

  The villa had neither emergency sprinklers nor a foam fire-suppression system. If the Americans hoped to survive, they’d have to get outside among their enemies, either on their own or with help.

  Wickland, Stevens, and Smith pressed their bodies against the floor, gulping at the little breathable air remaining. The smoke grew so thick that Wickland lost sight of the ambassador and the computer expert in the small bathroom. Starved for oxygen, confined to a smoke-filled room, unable to see his companions, Wickland realized that remaining in place meant death by suffocation.

  The bars on the bathroom window were set in concrete, so Wickland yelled to Stevens and Smith to follow him to a nearby bedroom. There, Wickland knew, an emergency latch might allow him to open the metal window bars from inside. Still unable to see through the foul black smoke, the DS agent crawled out of the bathroom into the safe-haven hallway. He scuttled toward the bedroom. Wickland yelled and banged on the floor as he went, using sound to guide Stevens and Smith, who he believed were following close behind.

  As Wickland moved toward the bedroom, he could hear explosions and gunfire from outside. Bullets and tracers screamed through the overrun Compound. The American DS agents and their paid Libyan militia guards had still mounted no resistance.

  Thinking that Stevens and Smith had followed him from the bathroom, Wickland reached the window at the far end of the bedroom and unlatched the security grill. The vertical window, its lower edge about two feet off the floor, was about five feet tall and three feet wide. His strength waning, Wickland climbed through the window and crumpled onto a small outdoor patio that was partly enclosed by a four-foot-high wall of white sandbags.

  Through a haze of oxygen deprivation, on the verge of passing out, Wickland grasped that he was alone. He’d somehow become separated from Stevens and Smith, while they were either in the smoke-filled bathroom or somewhere in the safe-haven hallway between there and the bedroom. Maybe they had taken a wrong turn, or maybe they had never followed him into the hallway to begin with. Either way, Wickland understood the horrifying reality: The two men he was sworn to protect, one of them the diplomatic representative of the United States, were trapped somewhere inside the burning safe haven. To add to his misery, Wickland heard gunfire and believed that someone was shooting at him from the other side of the sandbags.

  The exhausted DS agent struggled to his feet. Wickland hauled himself back through the villa window, returning to the smoke-filled safe haven to search for Chris Stevens and Sean Smith.

  At the Annex, each passing minute increased the GRS operators’ anger. Rising with it was concern that the invaders had established defenses against a counterattack and tightened their grip on the Compound.

  The attackers had used one of the oldest and most potent weapons of warfare: surprise. Without a quick and overwhelming counterpunch, the aggressors would have time to solidify their tactical gains and increase their chances of achieving their presumed objective: killing or capturing any Americans they could find, above all the ambassador. Chris Stevens’s presence in Benghazi was widely known, especially after the local councilmen had alerted the media to the El Fadeel Hotel event the previous night. Killing or kidnapping an American ambassador on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks would be a major coup for any extreme Islamist group or militia. Reducing an American diplomatic outpost to a charred ruin would be a bonus.

  Inside the Mercedes SUV, Tanto couldn’t contain his fury. “You know how hard it’s going to be?” he asked D.B. rhetorically. “You know how hard it’s going to be to fight back on that objective? We’re losing the initiative!”

  If he had been alone with D.B., Tanto would have raged even hotter, unleashing a stream of creative, emphatic curses that ran through his mind. But with Henry the translator already looking green around the gills in the backseat, Tanto didn’t want to spook the older man into a panic. The operators divided the world into two categories: shooters and non-shooters. Henry was a non-shooter.

  Yet even as he seethed about being held in check, Tanto felt an inner calm. He considered it a gift, and he felt certain from years of military and contracting experience that the more chaotic things became, the more confident he’d grow. To distract himself from the delays, Tanto tried to focus on their assets. Their Quick Reaction Force team would be six shooters strong: five contract GRS operators—everyone but Oz, who was still at dinner—and the GRS
Team Leader. Tanto and the other operators knew that they’d be outnumbered. But they weren’t just any guys with guns. The operators were disciplined and experienced, abundantly armed and as expertly trained as any force their size on the planet. They had the protection of body armor and the advantage of night-vision goggles. All in all, Tanto liked the odds of the Annex team against what he expected would be a disorderly force of raw, chanting, gun-toting radicals.

  That is, unless the continued passage of time gave the enemy an insurmountable edge.

  If the Compound attackers had any military experience whatsoever, the GRS operators knew, they’d be preparing for a counterstrike. The more time the attackers had to dig in, the more likely they’d secure the Compound perimeter and organize defensive positions, at least until they achieved their objectives.

  “They’ve got ahold of everything by now,” Tanto groused. “The longer we’re waiting, the bad guys are going to be entrenched. They’re going to have their bearings.”

  In the passenger seat of the BMW, Jack sat blinking and rubbing his eyes, still trying to adjust his contacts. Even with blurred vision, he wished the delay would end and they could get to work. Ringing in his ears was the voice of the DS agent at the Compound reporting the attack and asking for help. Jack twisted toward the backseat, where Tig heard the same voice in his head.

  “Why the fuck aren’t we moving?” Tig asked, even as he knew the answer. It was plain to all the GRS operators that their superiors were still working the phones to get a firm commitment and a strategy from leaders of the 17 February militia. Tanto echoed Tig’s lament on the radio: “Why the fuck aren’t we moving?”

  En masse, they decided that the time for asking permission had ended. The operators climbed out of their idling vehicles and assembled in a huddle outside Building C, near the Team Leader, Bob the CIA Annex chief, and his second-in-command. Jack caught Rone’s attention and they exchanged incredulous, wide-eyed looks. To Jack, the meaning was clear: This delay is nuts. Worse, it’s dangerous, for the guys at the Compound and also for us. The situation is beyond serious, people need our help, and we’re the only ones available, Jack thought. We need to go.

  Their radios again crackled with beseeching calls from the DS agents at the Compound TOC. “Armed men!”

  “Taking fire!”

  “Taking heavy fire!”

  “They’ve overrun the Compound!”

  “We’re all locked up!”

  “We need help!”

  Yet the CIA base bosses and the Team Leader, all talking animatedly on their cell phones, still wouldn’t give the operators the go-ahead. From overhearing the Annex staffers’ side of the ongoing phone calls, the GRS contract operators became convinced that the agency wanted the 17 February militia to repel the attack entirely on its own, with no direct American involvement other than the DS agents already trapped inside the Compound.

  Several GRS operators considered that wishful thinking at best, negligent leadership at worst. They suspected that they knew a motive for such idle hopes: If the operators’ Quick Reaction Force remained at the Annex, the CIA wouldn’t be forced to reveal or explain its presence in Benghazi. On the other hand, if American clandestine operators and contract security employees went into combat against radical Islamists, the battle would be guaranteed to attract global attention and massive scrutiny. Especially on September 11. During his previous trips to Benghazi, Tig had experienced multiple instances where Bob the base chief had told the operators to “stand down,” even when Americans were potentially in danger, apparently to avoid the risk of exposing the CIA presence.

  Another factor might also have contributed to the delay: The CIA chief seemed genuinely concerned that the Annex might come under fire. If all the GRS operators were at the Compound, the Americans left behind at the Annex would have little chance against a large force of attackers. The contract operators, routinely treated like excess baggage by many of the CIA case officers, were suddenly the most popular Americans in Benghazi.

  Another radio call came from the Compound. The warbling voice of a DS agent was so tightly controlled it sounded constricted. Several GRS operators sensed fear edging toward panic:

  “If you guys do not get here, we’re going to die!”

  That was all it took. Roughly twenty minutes, possibly more, had elapsed since the operators had first mustered at Building C. They were long past ready to go. If a cavalry wanted to do any good, it needed to move out. With or without approval.

  “We need to go,” Tanto told the Team Leader. It wasn’t a question. The four other operators felt the same. Tanto told the T.L.: “Get in the fucking car.”

  The Team Leader ended his phone call and got in.

  They still lacked clearance or a firm idea what support they might get from the 17 February militia. And with the DS agents holed up, the operators had no inside intelligence on what they were about to face. But Rone, Jack, and Tig mounted up in the BMW at the head of the two-vehicle convoy. The GRS Team Leader got into the backseat of the Mercedes SUV, alongside Henry and behind Tanto and D.B.

  Tanto put his hand on the gearshift and hailed Rone on the radio. “Is you up?” he asked, using slang to ask if the BMW team was ready.

  Rone leaned out of the half-open driver’s-side door. He glanced back at the BMW with a we-got-this smile. Rone stuck out his muscular arm, balled his hand into a fist, and flashed a thumbs-up. Tanto returned the thumbs-up.

  Rone shifted the BMW into gear and Tanto did the same in the Mercedes.

  As Tanto drove around the grassy triangular roundabout at the center of the Annex, heading for the gate, he tried to spot the little family of turtles that lived there. He wasn’t sure why, but it was a small comfort, like saying goodbye to a family pet when leaving home for work.

  During the delay, Rone had called Oz at dinner and told him to return to the Annex immediately. “There’s something going on over at the consulate,” Rone said without elaborating. “Be very careful and don’t go anywhere near there. There’s a lot of activity going on.”

  Oz and the CIA case officer had already eaten dessert and thanked their hosts, but the case officer lingered over goodbye.

  “We need to go,” Oz told her in a low growl. He didn’t mention Rone’s call, not wanting to tip their hosts to what was happening. She continued making small talk. In a steelier tone he repeated himself: “We need to go. Right now.”

  She shot him a look.

  Oz’s patience ran out. “Get in the car. We’re leaving.”

  Oz called a final goodbye to their hosts as he hustled the case officer into their vehicle, a small black Toyota SUV with dark-tinted windows. He explained what he knew as he turned on his two-way radio and drove toward the Annex. The case officer started firing questions, making suggestions, and giving Oz driving directions.

  “You need to be quiet, sit back, and keep your eyes open,” Oz told her. “You’re in our world now. Let me do what I know how to do.” She complied.

  Oz already had in mind a circuitous route that would return them to the Annex while avoiding the diplomatic Compound. His route also would steer clear of potential roadblocks in an area where he knew that a black al-Qaeda-inspired flag regularly flew from an apartment building. He blended the Toyota into traffic, driving with a Goldilocks touch: neither too hot nor too cold, neither too fast nor too slow. The case officer wore a headscarf, but Oz was every inch the blond, blue-eyed, beef-fed Westerner. The last thing he wanted was to get stopped at a hostile checkpoint or an impromptu roadblock and try to explain why two Americans were out driving near 10:00 p.m. on a night when the American Compound was under attack.

  Over the radio Oz could hear plaintive calls from the Compound. He wasn’t sure whether the DS agent on the mic said they were “under fire” or buildings were “on fire.” Either way, he knew it was bad. He focused his mind on the fight ahead.

  Oz drove along the Third Ring Road to the Mediterranean coast, then turned onto the main coastal road hea
ding toward the outskirts of Benghazi. He navigated back roads to cut through fallow farm fields; that brought them back onto the street they called Racetrack Road, southeast of the Annex. About twenty minutes after they left their hosts’ home, Oz and the case officer turned onto Annex Road and pulled through the gate. The BMW and the Mercedes were already gone.

  The situation at the Compound kept getting worse. After reentering the villa’s safe-haven area through the bedroom window, DS agent Scott Wickland searched the smoke-filled hallway but still couldn’t find Chris Stevens or Sean Smith. Wickland knew that the two men couldn’t survive long in such conditions, but neither would he if he didn’t get fresh air.

  Fighting for breath, nearly overcome by the heat, Wickland returned to the bedroom and climbed out the window through the open grate. Out on the patio, he regained his bearings and caught his breath. He went back inside, only to be forced out again by the heat and smoke. Still Wickland saw no sign of the ambassador or the communications officer.

  While Wickland continued his rescue effort, attackers swarmed the Cantina, where the two Tripoli-based DS agents were barricaded in a back room with a Blue Mountain guard. Another group of invaders approached the TOC, where Alec Henderson and Dave Ubben were locked inside the secure communications room.

  As they watched the large video monitor, Henderson and Ubben saw multiple attackers trying to break through the building’s reinforced wooden door to reach them. Ubben held his M4 assault rifle and Henderson gripped a shotgun, preparing for close-quarters combat. The intruders approached the TOC in ones, twos, and threes, testing the door and its steel drop bar with flying kicks. One crouched in a football stance some twenty-five feet away and rushed forward at full speed. He plowed his full body weight into the door but it held.