Under Fire

by Fred Burton

  R. grabbed his M4 as he prepared to leave the TOC. He paused for a moment, almost as if made unable to move by anger or shock, before being assisted out by one of the GRS operators. There wouldn’t be time for any of the DS agents to retrieve their personal belongings. Their personal kits—their iPods, books, and photographs of their families—would have to remain behind.

  At the villa, the two GRS snipers scanned the horizon from their rooftop perch. Each wore an IR/overt strobe, night vision, binoculars, parachute cord, and “blood chit.” The chit has an American flag on the front of a laminated card, with four perforated corners that have a unique number assigned to each operator. Below the flag on the card is a request for help in the local language: the person rendering assistance is told that he will be rewarded for his benevolence. If the torn corners show up in friendly hands, the spies will know who needs help and is missing. The snipers listened carefully on their secure frequency for any sign of life from either Stevens or Smith. They gauged the sense of anguish on the faces of the DS agents. The faces told of men who would not stop looking for the ambassador and the IMO. The snipers asked for but did not demand a status update. They knew that the situation down below was tenuous and emotionally charged. The men had enough experience in the “Sandbox” to know that explosive eruptions of Islamic-fueled rage did not blaze a path of destruction only to fizzle out so meekly. The GRS snipers knew that more was coming. They hoped to be far away when the real shooting began. It was 2245 hours.

  * * *

  In downtown Benghazi, and throughout the city, it sounded as if the Libyan national soccer team had just won the World Cup. White-and-tan trucks belonging to the various militias moved slowly through the narrow streets of the downtown markets and the medina, honking their horns in celebration. The vehicles barely squeezed through the narrow alleys in residential areas—their residential areas—where the believers flew the black flags of the jihad where their laundry hung to dry. The vehicles played songs of the jihad, and young men, screaming into microphones and megaphones, called the residents of the city to war. “Today we have attacked the infidels,” one such call went. “We have avenged the honor of Islam and struck the heart of those who have insulted the Prophet. Let’s go and finish the job!”*

  On the eleventh anniversary of the September 11 attacks, the jihadist militiamen in Benghazi had hoped to replicate history and launch a repeat of the lethal battle that transpired in Mogadishu, Somalia, on October 3–4, 1993, when a U.S. military special operations abduction raid led to a two-day battle that resulted in the deaths of nineteen Army First SFOD-Delta operators, 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment–Airborne (Night Stalker) aviators, and elite infantrymen from the Seventy-Fifth Rangers Regiment–Airborne and the 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry). The operation was viewed as an epic failure of the reach of American power, and a hefty sum was paid for the release of one of the aviators, Mike Durant, captured in the raid. The raid in Mogadishu all but put an end to U.S. military intervention in the famine-struck and Islamic-combustible Horn of Africa nation.

  In Benghazi, the militiamen flying the black flag of the jihad had hoped that they, too, could mobilize an entire city into a cascading and costly debacle of American intervention, but Benghazi was not Mogadishu, and the militants had chosen the wrong night to get the men of Benghazi away from their television sets. Many of the city’s men were at home watching the after-match coverage of two soccer World Cup qualifiers with great impact to the Arab world: Jordan’s 2–1 victory over a superior Australian side, and Lebanon’s defeat of Iran 1–0, which caused much glee among the country’s Christians and Sunnis; the Lebanese star Roda Antar had scored the game winner in the seventy-first minute. Men, even those wearing the fatigues of those hoping to bring Islamic law to Libya and all of North Africa, put their guns down to watch the sports highlights. Benghazi’s wives and mothers, even those in the poorer neighborhoods where fundamentalist fervor was strongest, found the militia noise to be a true nuisance; the odd magazine-emptying bursts of AK-47 fire that the militants launched into the night’s sky were excruciatingly aggravating. Some threw garbage at the jihadists from their kitchen windows; it was night, after all, and calls for a holy war interfered with risqué soap operas that the MBC, the Moroccan Broadcasting Company, showed after dark. Syrian TV was once famous for the forbidden pleasures of late-night risqué, but programming had been impacted by the fratricide of civil war.

  Still, a few men grabbed their AK-47s and began their journey toward the Special Mission Compound. They hopped a ride with some of the armed pickup trucks, or they tried to see how many armed men could ride on a dirt bike at once. The pillaging of an American target was good entertainment for a Tuesday night.

  * * *

  Late evening winds intensified the fires at the Special Mission Compound. The blaze roared wildly, and the villa began to make noises indicating that it was becoming structurally unsound. The GRS operators became concerned that the building could soon collapse, but the agents were not leaving until they found Stevens and Smith and, realizing that they would be in a terrible state, could resuscitate them. The DS agents went in again and again; each time they emerged, Woods and the other GRS operators would splash bottled water in their eyes and on their faces to relieve the burn of the heat and the acrid smoke. The GRS operators on security watch scanned the grounds of the compound, wary of a possible next wave of attackers.

  The DS agents working inside the blinding oven of the safe haven came across a body lying on the ground in one of their many searches. They couldn’t see who it was, but they immediately hoisted him up in an over-the-shoulder “fireman’s carry” style and brought him to the egress window, where the other agents and the GRS operators were waiting; the individual was carefully removed from the safe haven and brought into the fresh air. It was Sean Smith. The medics checked Smith for a pulse and vital signs, but he was dead. The agents saw him and were overwhelmed by sorrow and adrenaline. The typhoon of emotions that raced through them even as they gasped for breath after having their lungs fill up with smoke was enough to knock any man down. The GRS operators, looking on, could see that the DS agents were devastated over the loss of the IMO. The agents ventured back into the cauldron to search for Ambassador Stevens, but it was becoming too dangerous. One of the agents suffered a deep laceration resulting in severe bleeding during a search of the safe haven. R., trying to gain entry to the villa through the front door that had been blown open by an RPG warhead, had to retreat when elements of the buckling ceiling caved in and collapsed, showering the agents with a plume of debris.

  An IED landed near the feet of the agents and the GRS team, hissed, and then exploded in a surreal scene. Debris and fragmentation landed on the group. The men looked around at each other, but nobody was hurt by shrapnel or killed. It may have been a hand grenade or a “gelateena” bomb. How nobody was killed at this moment simply defies logic and remains a mystery even to date. One agent opined that it was divine intervention. Even nonbelievers become believers after moments like this.

  The three February 17 Brigade militiamen rushed from near Charlie-1 gate and warned the DS agents and the GRS operators that they had to get out immediately. The February 17 militiamen appeared nervous and fearful of the threat that was building outside the perimeter walls. The GRS interpreter attempted to calm them down, but the militiamen were panicking; their speech pattern became rapid, and their hand gestures became more animated. The militiamen claimed that a large force of armed men was moving in on the compound. The snipers on the roof scanned the grounds one more time. The reticles of their sniper scopes revealed a target-rich environment; these men excelled on target-rich evenings.

  It was hard for the GRS operators to count the number of tangos, or terrorists, who were positioned inside and outside the compound. Who was a terrorist and who was a looter? Did it matter? The Annex shooters were laser focused on finding the agents, then locating Stevens and Smith. The GRS operators had learned, fro
m the TOC, that there were at least thirty-five armed intruders who had to be dealt with. Yet from the impassable mob of armed men who had seized control of the main Charlie-1 gate, the team leader assessed that there were many more terrorists who now controlled the northerly escape routes as well. None of the GRS crew knew how many more belligerents were on their way.

  There was an impetus to conserve ammunition. Many years earlier, inside the teeming slums of Mogadishu, JSOC learned that the finest fighters a nation could assemble could sometimes be critically wounded inside a city determined to engage a foreign enemy to its death. The GRS team was determined not to fight the terrorists’ battle. The terrorists’ combat skills were pure Taliban—relying on familiar ground and overwhelming numbers rather than precision and weapons proficiency. The GRS team wanted to be in and out of the compound in minutes. Hopefully without any of their own killed or wounded in action.

  18.

  Departures

  It would have cost approximately $30,000 to hire a private jet to make the unscheduled 404.49-mile flight between Tripoli and Benghazi; it was $30,000 that the CIA wouldn’t have thought twice about spending. Certain elements of the U.S. government handle fluid emergencies with enormous speed and decisiveness. Some don’t. The CIA excelled in this little bit of tradecraft; the RSO, of course, lent whatever support he could provide. The agency pulled out all the stops when it came to removing its own from harm’s way, and it did a respectable job making sure that others were extracted before a crisis could become a catastrophe. The CIA had learned, especially in the years following 9/11, that speed and secrecy—not to mention hefty piles of discretionary cash—enabled it to achieve the many immediate and sometimes unsavory missions it needed to accomplish while deployed so many miles from home. But, as would later be revealed, the Libyan government responded to the pleas of assistance. A Libyan Air Force C-130H Hercules was made available to the rescue team from the embassy to fly from Tripoli to Benghazi.

  The RSO’s office and the chief of station often worked hand in hand in posts around the world and here, specifically, in Tripoli. Supporting the CIA chief of station was not in the DS job description, but RSOs often lent whatever help they could to the needs of the agency. Conversely, the CIA complement in country—or in any country—was not officially responsible for safeguarding an embassy or the diplomatic staff, but they would—and did—if asked. The rush to Benghazi was not one agency helping out another. It was what the spies and the diplomatic security staffers did all the time. They made sure the other was safe and could function in countries where the word “function” was not part of the vernacular.

  The two JSOC operators and the five GRS staffers retreated to their quarters to fetch their tactical gear; the weapons were held under lock and key at the chancery. Each man had at least one or two kit bags lying in a locker or under his bed filled with his favorite personal items: a pair of desert boots, an Emerson knife, or an Under Armour shirt. CamelBak hydration packs were filled with fresh water, and the operators made sure that shiny Velcro-adhesive patches with their blood types were affixed to their Dragon Skin custom-fitted body armor. They made sure that their SureFire flashlights were close by. The volunteers had no time to e-mail home or make any personal notifications concerning their side trip to Benghazi; most of their loved ones and friends didn’t even know that they were in Libya. Anyway, good-byes were bad luck, and these men were a superstitious lot; it was against regulations for their wives and children to know where they were and, more specifically, what they were doing. The operators used the precious preparatory time to check their HK416s and M4s; they determined which high-tech items of gear were needed and made sure they absorbed all of the actionable intelligence available on the situation in Benghazi.*

  Each operator carried varied bags. As part of the SF world, you carried what you liked. More important, your load was made up of what worked. Some of the operators had GORUCK GR1s and the smaller Radio Rucks and Red Oxx bags, manufactured in Montana. Both brands were high-end, reliable bags, created by former operators, that housed everything from spare magazines to PowerBars. Most operators carried an Emerson folding knife, the preferred knife of the Special Forces community.

  The seven men mustered outside the main entrance of the chancery shortly after 2300 hours. It was a clear night in Tripoli, and the stars were starkly visible toward the south and east, away from the built-up city areas. Two armored SUVs transported the group to Tripoli International Airport. The RSO and the chief of station stood outside to make sure the send-off was quiet and efficient. The military attachés also came outside into the cool autumn night to see the men off. The helper worked his juggler’s kit of multiple mobile phones, making sure that the Hercules would be ready and fueled and that there would be no snags at the airport. An airport official, feeling slighted by the lack of a bribe, could, in a country as bureaucratically dependent and nepotistic as Libya, halt the plans of armies, let alone a seven-man force of special operators.

  Had the U.S. embassy in Tripoli been a normal post—one in a functioning nation and one whose day-to-day agenda was not run by the CIA—Marine Security Guards, or MSGs, would have been on duty safeguarding the integrity of the classified material behind the fortified walls of the chancery. There would have been a marine, usually a lance corporal, standing behind Post One, checking the credentials of any visitor attempting to gain entry to the embassy proper. If the U.S. embassy in Tripoli had had its own MSG contingent, then the force headed to Benghazi would have been much larger and more formidable. The fact that both Tripoli and Benghazi were operating under unique criteria without marines underscored how precarious security was for both locations—especially given the departure of the SST earlier that summer.

  Outside the embassy’s main entrance, a small crowd had gathered to assist in loading the “Tripoli Task Force” gear into the Suburban and Land Cruiser SUVs that would ferry the seven men to the airport. The embassy was rarely fired up for an all-nighter, but no one was heading to bed until Ambassador Stevens, Sean Smith, and the five DS agents were “wheels down” in Tripoli. Some of the administrative personnel joked about having enough cold beer on hand to celebrate their homecoming; others wondered if the embassy would throw a small banquet to honor the group for making it back from the hell of Benghazi. The common hope—prayer—was that the seven volunteers would not need to fire a single shot to secure everyone’s well-being. All hoped that the September 11 attack would soon be forgotten. The chief of station certainly hoped that the incident would remain quiet. It would be a pity for the operations in Benghazi to become breaking news on al-Arabiya TV. After all, hush-hush was always preferred to the inquisitive headache of publicity.

  Security concerning the rescue sortie to Benghazi demanded absolute secrecy. The ride from the U.S. embassy off al-Jarabah Street close to the city center to Tripoli International Airport some eighteen miles due south, in the town of Ben Gasher, was a straight run into the sparsely populated fringes of the desert. Other than passing near Tripoli University and some lower-income neighborhoods, the path was a simple push into emptiness. There was a fear that if the attack in Benghazi was somehow linked to a larger plot, the embassy itself could be targeted, or at least an embassy convoy could be put inside the crosshairs.

  The gear that was loaded into the two armored SUVs was checked and rechecked—one last time. The good-byes were solemn. Men with misgivings tended not to volunteer for the most dangerous of assignments, but these were not ordinary human beings by any stretch of the imagination. Confidence to them was a layer of their genetic body armor; swagger and style were their calling cards. Many had their bodies marked with the “I’ve been there, and I’ve done that” arrogance that only men who have actually been there and done that can wear painted forever on their forearms, necks, and chests. Many of those departing the U.S. embassy that night had already served seven or eight tours of duty in the worst places in hell. Some, men in their late thirties or early forties, were working on
marriages three and four; the number of years they had spent away from their wives and children were astounding.

  As the convoy, which had now swelled to a small armada with support personnel and helpers, departed the embassy, the glimmer of the metal letters that proudly proclaimed EMBASSY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA slowly disappeared behind them. A floodlight focused its beam on the large American flag that was hoisted atop the chancery. The flag snapped angrily in the strong September breeze.

  19.

  Contact

  The two-man sniper team atop the fast-melting roof at the villa could hear the voices in the distance, the loud cadence of the flames crackling, and then the clanking of weapons slung over shoulders banging against bodies. The sniper team had used the sandbags on the roof for cover, emerging to scan the horizon, but much of their focus was facing north and northeast, from where the first attackers had launched their initial strike against the compound. These voices were coming from the southeast, Charlie-3 gate. Then there was the flash of an RPG being launched and soon afterward the explosive whoosh of the antitank warhead falling far short of its mark.

  “Hostiles on the south gate,” the spotter reported in a calm, though immediate, voice, and the sniper quickly pivoted his body and the sights of his long gun to engage. SEALs, U.S. Army Special Forces, and especially U.S. Marine Corps scout snipers are considered among the finest in the world, and those whom the agency selects to cover its most secret operations are the overachievers of this elite group. Snipers are an eccentric group, each with his set of quirks and superstitions, but each also is most effective with a rifle that is the proper caliber and the proper weight and has the right feel. Snipers working for the black world of the OGAs, or other government agencies, are permitted great indulgences when selecting the weapons that they would use in lands that are most certainly in harm’s way; these weapons include the Mk 12 SPR 5.56 special operations rifle, the SR-25 7.62 mm rifle, the gas-operating rotating-bolt AR-10, and the bolt-action Marine Corps M40A2 7.62 mm rifle. Many of these designated marksmen, having had the chance to ply their trade in Iraq and Afghanistan, prefer the SCAR, FN’s 5.56 mm Special Operations Combat Assault Rifle with Nightforce optics; a 7.62 mm variant, known as the “SCAR Heavy,” is also available. Those seeking enough firepower to stop a tank in its tracks may also prefer the seven-shot-capacity CheyTac M200 Intervention .408 with bipod.1 A sniper’s rifle is like an athlete’s favorite sneakers—a matter of personal choice. Every sniper rifle, though, is personalized by the shooter. The sniper would position adjustable cheek welds and rail systems for mounting lasers and optics, high-end Advanced Armament Corp suppressors, and Nightforce optics.