Enemy of the People

by Peter Eichstaedt

  “But a few of them aren’t above accepting an all-expenses paid visit to a fancy mountain ranch retreat,” Kyle said. “Especially a ranch owned by people who share their political views.”

  “Sad but true,” Frankel said.

  “Benedict has his fingers in every political pie imaginable,” Kyle continued. “His money flows from political action committees into the campaign treasuries of dozens of candidates. He almost single handedly supports the right wing of the party.”

  “Even the conservatives can’t get anything passed without them,” Frankel said. “The right wing is a tight-knit voting block.”

  “So, then meeting tells me the conservatives have two choices,” Kyle said. “Make a deal with the liberals or give into the demands of far right.”

  “I think it’s how the Congress works … or doesn’t work,” Frankel said. “So what do you say? Can you do the story?”

  Kyle’s mind was on fire. “I first wrote about David Benedict twenty years ago.”

  “You did? What was that about?”

  “It was back when Benedict had just purchased the Vista Verde Ranch,” Kyle said. “Back then a shepherd, a well-loved old man, was found murdered up in the mountains. The old man had been accused of trespassing and cutting fences to let his sheep graze on the Benedict’s ranch land. So, when the old man was found dead, it triggered a protest by the heirs of the big Mexican land grant up there that dated back to the 1820s. The heirs claimed the Vista Verde Ranch was theirs. They armed themselves and set up camp on a corner of Benedict’s ranch.”

  “How did that turn out?” Frankel asked, again with a chuckle.

  “The leader of the protest was shot and killed by a state police sniper.”

  “That’s a hell of a story,” Frankel said. “Why didn’t I ever hear about it?”

  “It was outside of the beltway, that’s why.”

  “Maybe you can work that into a background piece for us,” Frankel said.

  “There’s something else you should know. The Vista Verde Ranch is also the headquarters of Atlas Global, the big private security company. It’s run by Benedict’s son, Hank.”

  “Atlas Global? That company is all over the world.”

  “I know. They provide contract security for US embassies and private companies operating overseas,” Kyle said.

  “I didn’t know it was based at the ranch.”

  “Hank is one of David Benedict’s five children. They all attended Ivy League schools, but Hank dropped out. At the age of 20, he joined the Navy and become a SEAL. Ten years later, with daddy’s help, he formed Atlas Global Security.”

  “You know all about the Benedicts, I see,” Frankel said.

  “I’ve run into Atlas Global personnel everywhere I’ve worked.”

  “Well, of course you would have,” Frankel said, “if they provide security to US government personnel.”

  “They’ve even got a marine division,” Kyle said. “They provide security for ocean freighters cruising the Gulf of Aden. They like to shoot Somalia pirates.”

  “What does any of this have to do with the meeting at Vista Verde?” Frankel asked.

  “Not much, I suppose. But, I know someone who works for Atlas,” Kyle said. “He’s tight with Hank Benedict. They served together in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

  “You have an inside source! That’s great,” Frankel said. “So, we need an advance story on the meeting. Throw in all that background.”

  “And you’re sure President Harris has agreed to the Vista Verde Ranch meeting?” Kyle asked.

  “Yes,” Frankel said. “Why? Is that surprising?”

  Kyle took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this, Ed.”

  “What’s the matter?” Frankel asked, sounding irritated. “It’s a plum assignment. Our chief political reporter and a columnist, both want to go out there, but can’t. The press corps will be very limited. Just one reporter each from the TV majors, and Wolfe news of course, a couple of the news services, the New York Times, us, and the LA Times.”

  “Hmmm. Not a lot,” Kyle said.

  “President Harris, along with the House Speaker and the Senate majority leader are flying out there tomorrow, Thursday afternoon. The plan is for them to meet Friday, Saturday, and Sunday morning, then return to Washington DC on Sunday afternoon. They supposedly will have something to announce at noon on Sunday before they return. It’ll be easy.”

  Kyle sighed. “Okay. I can handle a weekend assignment.”

  “Thanks. I knew you could.”

  Kyle signed off with Frankel, closed his eyes, and exhaled. He swallowed the last of his mescal and stared across the living room to the handmade polished tin cross on the wall. It was going to be a longer week than he’d expected.

  Chapter 10

  Kyle returned the kitchen, poured himself another glass of mescal, and pried the top off a bottle of Modelo beer. He’d known of Hank Benedict and his Atlas Global Security company from his time in Iraq and Afghanistan, where Benedict’s heavily armed, heavily muscled, and highly-paid army of ex-Special Forces prowled streets and skies over Baghdad and Kabul.

  Benedict’s contract security forces were everywhere, it seemed, and Kyle knew he shouldn’t have been surprised to encounter Benedict and his men in Libya. Kyle had arrived in September 2012, just days after the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, which had left the ambassador, a consulate colleague, and two guards dead.

  Kyle’s nose and throat had burned from the stench of the consulate’s burned-out interior, the shards of glass crackling under his feet as he took slow, deliberate steps, the sound echoing off the scorched walls. He gagged on the harsh, thick air. Outside, the sun’s white light was framed by broken windows, lighting the charred debris. Anything worth taking was gone. The rest destroyed. He felt like a voyeur in a chamber of horrors.

  “This is where they found him,” Jamal had said, breaking the silence and motioning to the blackened walls of what had been the safe room. Jamal was Kyle’s fixer, a slender man with a clean shaven face, dark wavy hair, and eyes like polished black agates. He was a freelance journalist and photographer with a small, on-line news agency, Libya Today, and he’d rushed to the Al-Hawari neighborhood that night when word spread that the US consulate was under attack.

  “They said there was a foreigner inside,” Jamal explained. “They said he was alive. Praise God, they shouted.” Jamal fell silent, lost in the memory as his eyes darted around the blackened room. “That’s when I and the others rushed in. We didn’t know who it was!” His voice trailed off. “Only later that we heard it was the ambassador.”

  Kyle had worked with Jamal a year earlier, flying into Tripoli from Istanbul to write about the death of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. At the time, Libya was in turmoil. Tripoli had fallen to Libyan rebels, backed by bomb-dropping US drones, and British and French fighter jets. Gaddafi had disappeared, then surfaced in Sirte, where he had loyal supporters, and had tried to flee deep into Libya’s southern desert. Gaddafi’s convoy, said to be nearly 75 vehicles, was decimated by air and ground strikes, forcing the dictator, his son, and his former army chief to flee on foot. They were found cowering in a culvert. Gaddafi was sodomized by either a bayonet or broom stick—the stories differed—then shot in the head.

  Kyle had made the six-hour drive from Tripoli to Sirte in Jamal’s car, the air conditioning unable to beat off the searing heat. He and Jamal found the blood-stained culvert and the men who’d killed Gaddafi. Kyle remembered their energetic shouting, how they’d talked proudly of killing Gaddafi, as if they were the vengeful fist of Allah, rending swift and brutal justice.

  Back in Tripoli, Kyle and Jamal talked with the interim government officials, men who claimed they were eager to transform Libya. Later he viewed Gaddafi’s refrigerated corpse, put on public display in the seaside city of Misrata
so all of Libya could see the man was truly dead. It had been easy to work in Libya back then. Kyle was an American and the Americans had helped bring Gaddafi down.

  But it was different when he’d returned for the Benghazi story. Libya’s transitional government struggled to contain the resurgent Islamic jihadists, led by Al-Qaeda splinter groups and their militias spawned by the civil war and bent on imposing Sharia law throughout the country. They’d been part of the attack on the Benghazi consulate that had killed Ambassador Gregory Arnold and two of Hank Benedict’s Atlas Global security contractors.

  The US State Department initially had said the consulate attack was in reaction to an anti-Islamic video. Even then the explanation for the attack didn’t make sense. After demolishing the US consulate, the attackers had moved to the CIA’s annex building just a mile away, which they’d pounded with mortars. Kyle knew most protesters didn’t carry that kind of weaponry. They simply showed up, shouted and chanted, then threw rocks. But not this time. Kyle remembered wandering the demolished US consulate and thinking that nothing made sense: neither the shooting, nor the fire, nor all the anti-American graffiti sprayed on the walls. In the consulate’s kitchen, he’d found a box of meals ready to eat, MREs. Military food. Had the consulate been a cover for a military operation? He had no way of knowing, not then anyway. “So, what happened when they found the ambassador?” Kyle had asked Jamal.

  “They found him in the room over there,” Jamal said. “They carried him out and put him on the patio.” Jamal pointed to the compound entrance. “Someone called for a medic.” He shook his head. “But there was no one around. So, I said, take him to my car.”

  “He was still alive?” Kyle had asked.

  “You saw the video taken by my friend,” Jamal replied. “The ambassador was near death. But he was moving his lips, trying to talk. And his eyes moved.”

  Kyle nodded. He’d seen the video. Ambassador Arnold had looked alive, but barely, his eyes unfocused, his face, jeans and white t-shirt smudged with smoke and soot.

  “He couldn’t move,” Jamal said. “They carried him to my car and put him in the back seat.”

  “And you took him to the hospital?”

  Jamal shrugged. “What else could I do?”

  “You did the right thing,” Kyle had said. “Can we find the doctor who treated the ambassador? I want to talk with him.”

  “No problem,” Jamal had said, as puzzled look clouded his face. “Why did the security guards leave the ambassador alone? He was the most important person.”

  “I don’t know,” Kyle said. It was another piece of the puzzle that didn’t fit. Kyle tried to imagine the chaos, the shooting the fire. It had been bad, real bad, he thought, then shook his head in disgust. Nothing had made sense. “C’mon, let’s go.”

  The Benghazi Medical Center consisted of three tall tan brick buildings. Kyle and Jamal easily found Dr. Ahmed Zia, the man who had treated the ambassador and who agreed to meet them in his office. The hospital was clean and well-equipped, as good as Kyle had seen anywhere in north Africa, certainly far better than most third-world countries he’d been. But then this was Libya and Libya had oil.

  Dr. Zia was a compact man, with closely cropped black hair speckled with gray and beard to match. He wore a white lab coat over a white t-shirt and spoke calmly and methodically, with Jamal translating and explaining that Ambassador Arnold had been unresponsive when he had arrived at the hospital.

  “He was already dead?” Kyle asked.

  Zia shrugged. “He had no vital signs.”

  “But you tried to revive him anyway?”

  “Of course,” Zia said. “I’ve seen this before. It is possible to bring people back to life when they seem dead. I gave him oxygen. I tried to stimulate the heart.”

  “But nothing worked?” Kyle asked.

  Zia shook his head and stared at the floor.

  “How long did this go on?”

  Zia squinted in thought. “About forty-five minutes.”

  “Then you gave up?”

  Zia nodded. “When the brain goes without oxygen that long, the damage is severe, even if the body is alive.”

  Kyle jotted notes. “So, he died in route to the hospital?”

  Zia nodded again. “His lungs were damaged badly from smoke inhalation. The body lacked oxygen. He died of asphyxiation. I did what I could.”

  Kyle scribbled the quote into his notebook, then looked the doctor. “What happened to the body?”

  Zia shrugged. “Someone took it away.”

  “Do you know who?”

  Zia shook his head. “The Americans have it now. That’s what I’ve been told.”

  Kyle had returned to his hotel room to write the story, yet another one that left him with more questions than answers. The US ambassador had been killed. The first in decades. Something had gone wrong, very wrong. But what? Why, he had wondered, were so many people at the CIA annex?

  The next day, Kyle and Jamal had flown to Tripoli, landing at the Mitiga International Airport. The airport interior looked like any other in the world, with its molded benches, long check-in counters, and rumbling baggage claim conveyor belts. But Kyle had no baggage to claim. He always traveled light, carrying only an oversized day pack that held his laptop, a tooth brush and razor, a couple of lightweight fishing shirts with plenty of pockets, an extra pair of pants, and fresh underwear. He was good to go.

  He and Jamal had climbed into their rented silver, four-door Peugeot with tinted windows and a serviceable air conditioner, with Jamal at the wheel. The airport was close to the Mediterranean Sea and Jamal swerved out of the airport and sped along the Al-Shat Road between the city and water.

  “Any luck with the interviews?” Kyle had asked, as he gazed at the azure sea, marveling at how clear and blue it was. He’d asked Jamal to find top officials with the interim government in Tripoli who might know something about what had actually happened that night in Benghazi.

  Jamal nodded and grunted, weaving through the chaotic traffic. Fifteen minutes later, they’d checked into the Al Waddan Hotel in the heart of the city. They had just enough time for a quick lunch, Jamal said, because he’d arranged an interview with a man named Abdel Hakim Malik.

  “Who is he?”

  “One of our leaders of the Libyan rebellion,” Jamal said proudly. “He’s in charge of our military council.”

  “Okay. Does he have a title?”

  Jamal shrugged. “Supreme commander or something,” he said, throwing his head back with a laugh.

  They found a shaded table on the restaurant’s deck overlooking the lower patios and pool, offering a commanding view of the Tripoli harbor and the sea. They ordered water, an espresso for Jamal, and a caffé macchiato for Kyle, and two pasta dishes, the menu reflecting the strong Italian influence on Libya dating from the days of the Roman Empire.

  “So, tell me about this man, Abdel Hakim Malik.”

  “The new military council is trying to impose order on the country,” Jamal had said. “Malik is the cousin of my father.”

  “That’s how you got the interview?” Kyle asked, smiling.

  Jamal nodded. “He knows a lot. Malik worked with CIA and the ambassador.”

  Kyle’s heart skipped a beat. He gave Jamal a puzzled look. “The CIA and the ambassador? You’re serious?”

  “Of course,” Jamal said.

  “Doing what?”

  Jamal shrugged. “He can tell you.”

  An hour later they were in Malik’s office. The man was of average height, with thin dark hair that he combed over a shiny head. He had a round, full face and thick lips topped by a bushy black mustache. He wore a desert camouflaged shirt, cargo pants, and desert boots, but had no insignia or obvious rank.

  He shook Kyle’s hand and looked sad, saying in low and mournful tones he was sorry for what had happened to Am
bassador Arnold. “It was a terrible thing,” Malik had said.

  Kyle had nodded, thanking the man for meeting with him, and settled into wooden chair facing Malik’s broad and polished desk. Malik leaned on his elbows and interlaced his fingers in front of his chin. The man seemed genuine, and for a moment, Kyle thought the man might be forthcoming.

  “The death of the ambassador raises a lot of questions,” Kyle said. “Why did it take nearly nine hours for the local Libyan forces to show up at the CIA annex?”

  Malik’s eyes clouded and his forehead furrowed, as if formulating a reasonable explanation. “It was not of Libya’s doing. These people are outsiders, not Libyans.”

  Kyle’s eyes had widened at Malik’s remark.

  “It caught everyone by surprise,” Malik continued. “We were not sure what was happening.”

  Malik’s brief explanation sounded reasonable, but unlikely, Kyle thought. “The US State Department in Washington knew what was going on not long after it started,” he said. “If people several thousand miles away knew about the attack, how is it that the police and army in Benghazi didn’t know? The burning compound lit up the night sky in Benghazi.”

  Malik shook his head slowly and had offered Kyle a sympathetic smile. “We didn’t get a call from them until the early morning. By then, it was almost over.”

  “No call?” Kyle asked, incredulous at the answer.

  Malik shook his head again. “The embassy and the CIA take care of their own business. They told us not to interfere with them. Ever! So, we did as they wished. We left them alone.”

  Kyle stared, processing the answer.

  “The truth is, we were busy cooperating with the Americans with something else,” Malik said.

  “Something else? What was it?”

  “The weapons,” Malik said.

  “The weapons? What weapons?”

  Malik cleared his throat and sighed. “Gaddafi was in power more than forty years. During that time, he had amassed stockpiles of small weapons, from pistols and machine guns to shoulder-fired rockets capable of downing aircraft. Some of these weapons had been captured by the rebels and were used against Gaddafi.”