by Damien Lewis
For a moment Robert seemed shocked into silence. Then: “But what about the Americans?”
“I don’t know,” I answered. “I can’t get near the place.”
“Listen, Morgan, under no circumstances are you to try to get into that Mission, you hear me? Under no circumstances.”
I hadn’t told Robert that I had been trying to, but he had guessed it anyway. He knew my character. He knew I wouldn’t take a step back or leave my friends to die. Or at least that was who Robert thought I was. I wasn’t so sure myself anymore.
“Yeah. Don’t worry,” I told him. “I won’t try and get in there.”
“If need be, get yourself out of Benghazi—go via the safest route on a road move. Give me a heads-up as you go via the satphone—not via your local cell. Let me know where you’re making for and I will get you back to the U.K.”
The Blue Mountain satellite phone would be a secure means of making comms, as opposed to my Libyan cell phone.
“Got it,” I confirmed. “If it proper kicks off I’ll head for the Egyptian border, but I’ll let you know.”
I killed the call.
In reality I had no intention of going anywhere. I had to know where my American brothers were and if they were still alive. I was determined to make at least one more attempt to get to them. If I didn’t do that I might survive tonight, but I would never be able to live with myself.
I’d barely finished speaking to Robert when my phone rang. It was Nasir, one of my guards. Nasir had been the guard force supervisor at the moment of the attack, so I’d presumed he was one of those that Omar had said were executed. I snatched up the phone. Nasir was very much alive and en route to the beachside villa, as that was where he presumed I had to be. He had three other guards with him, so Omar must have been wrong when he’d said three had been captured and killed.
I had a thousand questions for Nasir, but as they were almost at the villa we agreed to rendezvous there. It was as good a place as any to do a pit stop and regroup, and Massoud was already halfway there anyway.
“Morgan, I will drop you,” Massoud told me. “With all of this trouble I need to get back to check on my family. You will be in good hands with Nasir and the others.”
I knew what Massoud really meant here: There’s no way I’m letting you lead me on another kind of a suicide bid like the one we’ve just been on. It was fair enough, really. Massoud was a brave and honorable guy and without doubt his quick thinking with the Dushka gunner had saved both of our lives. But perhaps he knew that I wasn’t done, for he offered me the use of his Browning pistol—the personal weapon that he always carried, complete with two spare mags.
One Browning pistol. It was better than no weapon at all.
I thanked Massoud for all he had done. He was the Blue Mountain driver, not a one-man war-in-a-box, and over the past couple of hours he had gone way beyond the call of duty.
Massoud dropped me at the villa, urging me to be careful and not to do anything foolhardy, whatever that might mean. Nasir and the others were waiting. Nasir had with him Mohammed and Ahmed—so now I knew that at least four of my guard force had got out alive. The expressions on their faces told a thousand words. They looked utterly petrified. As Nasir explained what had happened I began to understand why.
“Morgan, they shot Majid in the head!” Nasir blurted out. “They executed him! And Mohamed, they shot him in the legs . . .”
“Calm down,” I told him. “Did you see this with your own eyes?”
Nasir shook his head. “No. Mutasim told me.”
“Right, okay, where did you see Mutasim?”
“Running down the street heading away from the Mission.”
“Running away from the Mission instead of putting down the rounds?”
Nasir nodded. “We were heading down a side street to escape, like you told us. There I stumbled into Mutasim also running away.”
“No surprises there,” I spat. “So, what if anything did the QRF do to repulse the attack?”
Nasir stared at me, like it was a stupid question. “Nothing. They ran away without firing a shot. Mutasim was running away from the Embassy when we ran into him.”
I was cursing under my breath. Just as I’d suspected.
“But you personally did not see any of the guards getting shot in the head?” I asked.
“No. I didn’t see it.”
“Right, we do not talk about anyone being killed until we see the body. Rumors and reports are flying. We believe nothing until we know for a fact that it’s true. You got it?”
Nasir and the others nodded.
I needed to put some steel in these guys, if they were going to be able to help me with whatever was coming—hence my downplaying the reports of the executions. In reality, I was very possibly a man down, but I was far more worried about my American brothers. With my guards it was a done deal: they’d either escaped, been captured and injured, or they’d been killed. What I needed now was a better sense of the attack and the fate of the Americans.
“So, tell me, from the very beginning—what the hell happened?”
“There was no buildup to the attack,” Nasir explained. “There were no signs of anyone being out there and no warnings. We—us, the QRF, and the Americans—were taken by total surprise. One guard was outside talking through the window to me, when he heard cries from behind. He turned and saw fifty armed men running for the gate. He rushed inside and we hit the duck-and-cover alarm, as you taught us.”
The fact there had been one guy outside the gate showed just how dedicated my guards had become. Just recently the RSOs had stopped them from standing duty on the barrier at night, because they felt it was too dangerous for them. The guy on the barrier tonight had gone above and beyond the call of duty, because I’d urged them to be extra vigilant in light of the special visitor to the Mission—the gray-haired American who spoke such perfect Arabic.
It was having that guy outside that had enabled my guard force to detect the attackers early and raise the alarm. Otherwise, we’d have had an RPG through the guardroom window, and the alarm would never have been raised.
“Having hit the alarm we ran and hid in the bushes,” Nasir continued. “I saw the attackers. They had lots of weaponry: RPG, AK, PKM. They had chest rigs and ammo pouches. Some were not Libyan—they were dressed in Afghan style with traditional robes. Two of the guards tried to run to the muster point at the canteen, but they were caught. They were told to kneel and were beaten . . .”
Nasir broke off. I could tell he was close to breaking down himself. The others looked terrified: they were reliving in their minds what had happened.
“They made the captured guards kneel and pray,” Nasir continued. “They had guns held to their heads. Then one of the attackers announced: ‘We are not here to kill fellow Muslims; we came here to kill Americans only.’ So they shot the first of the guards in the legs. At that moment we decided to make a run for it. As we left, more of the attackers were streaming in: maybe a hundred were there.”
“What about the Americans?” I asked.
“The Americans were fighting,” replied Nasir. “The Americans fired the first shots at the attackers.”
I felt a kick of adrenaline-fueled hope. From the very first the guys had been slamming out the rounds.
“Too right as well—that’s American soil in there! That’s Dave ’n’ Scotty for you! And the QRF? Just so we’re clear—what did they do?”
“They ran away as soon as the attack started. They ran down the street to save themselves.”
“With your own eyes you saw Mutasim running away with the rest of his guys?”
Nasir glanced at the others. “Yes. We did.”
“All four of the bastards were running away?”
“No, three. Hannibal wasn’t there. He’d just resigned, ’cause he said he couldn’t work with Mutasim anymore.”
Hannibal had been about the most capable of the QRF, and it was no wonder he’d had a bellyful of Mutasim.<
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What a nightmare the Americans had been left in. They’d had hordes of gunmen pouring into the compound and no one had stood by them. But what struck me most was this: the Shariah Brigade fighters had slipped into the compound and held their fire. They’d displayed the kind of fire discipline that only well-experienced and combat-hardened fighters possess. A mob would have unloaded on the first targets seen: the SUVs parked by the VIP Villa, or the villas themselves. Instead, the attackers went in there silently on the hunt, and they’d held their fire until they could ID their targets—the Americans they’d come there to kill.
It was chilling.
“To be clear, let’s confirm: no warning of the attack; over one hundred hit the compound; you don’t know the fate of the Americans?”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
I trusted both Nasir and the others. They were straight shooters, and at least now I knew the worst.
“Right, so if we haven’t seen any Americans killed they may well still be fighting. As you ran away the last you saw of the Americans was what?”
“I saw them putting down fire from the VIP Villa roof,” said Nasir. “But by then we were all running, so that was the last we knew.”
“Right: if the last you saw of the Americans was them on the roof, then they’re very likely still fighting, in which case we’ve got to get back in there to help. Or at least I have.”
The guards were staring at me. “But, Mr. Michael, you don’t understand,” said Nasir. “These are professional killers. Terrorists. No one will survive in there.”
“Dave and Scotty might. Sean and Alex might. That’s if someone gets in there to help.”
“No, no, Mr. Michael, you cannot go back there,” Nasir insisted. “Right now you have to get out of here. The compound is gone, taken; and soon the attackers will come looking for you. If they know one feringhi—foreigner—has escaped, they will come looking.”
I told him I wasn’t going anywhere—least not until I found my American brothers. Right now we had no evidence to suggest they were killed or captured, in which case we had to work on the presumption they were still alive and resisting. Amazingly, Nasir and the others said that if that was the case, then they would stick by me. Their loyalty and friendship were humbling. But still my mind kept drifting to thoughts of Dave and Scotty and of their young families.
At that moment Nasir’s phone ran. It was the brother of Mansour, one of the two guards who had been captured. He’d been shot in both legs, Nasir confirmed, and he was in what the Libyans call the “Twelve-Hundred-Bed Hospital.” The hospital was a massive, sprawling complex in downtown Benghazi. It got its name from the number of beds the place contained. Because the Shariah Brigade attackers sought only “to kill Americans,” they had apparently taken Mansour to the hospital, along with scores of their own wounded.
That last news was music to my ears. If the Shariah Brigade had serious numbers of injured, then the Americans had to be putting up real resistance. In which case it was time to get in there. Two more of the guard force joined us, as we prepared to move out. One was a guy called Hamid, the other Zahid. Zahid was one of the sharpest of my guards, and he had actually lived in England for several years. I knew him to be both streetwise and worldly-wise.
Zahid looked shocked at what he had just witnessed. He and Hamid had just completed a drive-by recce of the Embassy, passing by the rear of the compound, where Massoud and I had narrowly escaped death-by-Dushka. Even from there they’d been stunned by the level of fighting that they’d seen and the wanton destruction already wreaked upon the Mission.
“The entire compound is gone,” Zahid told me, half in a daze. “Everything is gone.”
“What d’you mean—gone?” I demanded.
Zahid threw me this haunted look. “Everything is on fire. Everything is burning. All the villas . . . Everything. Burning. Gone.”
“So, to be clear—the fuckers have torched the place?”
“Yes. Everything is burning.” Zahid paused. He was a good guy and I knew he had my best interests and those of the Americans at heart. “Mr. Michael, you need to get out of here, ’cause if they know of you they will come looking. We need to get you out of Benghazi.”
“No, Zahid. I’m not going anywhere until I find the Americans.”
Zahid stared at me for a moment, then glanced at the others. “Then in that case we will be staying with you.”
This wasn’t what I’d expected, this solidarity. My guards genuinely wanted to protect me. Their phones were going constantly as worried family kept calling. I asked them to use their networks and try to find out any intel they could on the Americans—but there was nothing. Zero.
For an instant my mind wandered to Sean, the unarmed IT guy I’d befriended over the last few days. I’d told him that he would be okay, that we’d never been attacked before; and now this. It was eating away at me.
I grabbed Zahid’s arm. “Right, you, me, and Hamid—let’s go.” I turned to Nasir and the others. After the trauma of what they’d been through I figured they were best kept out of whatever was coming. “The rest of you guys—go back to your families and let them know you’re safe. I’ll call you with a heads-up later.”
Nasir and the others didn’t object. They knew that with Zahid and Hamid I was in good company, and in truth they were finished.
“Right, guys, into Zahid’s car,” I announced. “Let’s get going.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
We set off driving. Zahid’s vehicle was another shitty white Toyota or Nissan. I had Massoud’s Browning with me, tucked into the rear of my waistband and with my shirt hanging over it. That way it was invisible to a casual observer, but I could still draw and bring it to bear swiftly. I had the two spare mags in my cargo pants pocket. Brownings use either a ten-, thirteen-, or fifteen-round magazine: I had a maximum of forty-five rounds and a minimum of thirty.
One pistol. Thirty to forty-five rounds. It was better than nothing.
I’d count as I fired, to try to work out exactly what ammo I had remaining.
We’d been on the road for about five minutes when Zahid’s phone rang. I saw the color drain from his face as he listened to the caller.
“What is it?” I demanded, as soon as he’d finished talking.
“Mr. Michael, that was my friend,” Zahid replied, exhaustedly. “From the Twelve-Hundred-Bed Hospital. Two Americans have just been brought in there.”
I fired a series of questions at him: who, when, how? He phoned his friend back and they spoke some more.
“There is one black American and one white,” Zahid related, as he spoke to his friend at the hospital in Arabic, “but he says that the white guy is already dead. The black man is injured, but the white is dead.”
I felt a jolt like an electric current surging through me. The black guy had to be one of the Ambassador’s close protection team, but who was the white guy?
“Ask him what the white guy looks like,” I told Zahid.
He spoke a few more words then ended the call. “He cannot say. He has to go. He works at the hospital and it is very, very busy. He says lots of Shariah Brigade wounded.”
My mind was reeling. How messed up was this? The victims of the attack and the killers were being taken to the same hospital. But how on earth had two Americans ended up there? Who had taken them? Or were they from the Annex? Shit, nothing was making any sense anymore.
“Zahid, are there any Americans at the hospital with the wounded men?” I asked.
Zahid shook his head. “No. My friend said only Libyan doctors.”
I was desperate to know who the dead guy was. I was sick with worry. But another thought struck me now. If we had dead and wounded Americans at the hospital, yet it was crawling with Shariah Brigade fighters, who was there to help or protect those Americans? What was to stop the Shariah killers from grabbing the wounded from their beds? I remembered Massoud’s words to me: Morgan, they came tonight for one thing only—to kill Americans. Shit, this
was all just so fucked-up.
“Zahid, can we get to the hospital?” I asked, voicing the thought that had crashed into my head. “Can we get there in any safety?”
“We drive by,” Zahid suggested. “With us, you should be okay. But if there are Shariah Brigade there we keep going and don’t stop.”
I didn’t know what to do. I was torn. Embassy or hospital—what the hell should I do?
I tried calling Robert. He’d promised to stick by the phone all night long if I needed him. He answered and I blurted out the news about the hospital.
“Is it confirmed there are dead Americans?” he asked.
“No, but it’s a bloody good source.”
“Right, then, the shit’s going to hit the fan big-time. Stay at the villa. Your flight is booked business class Benghazi–Doha–London tomorrow. That’s the earliest I could get you out.” He paused. “Morgan, I am ordering you to stay at the villa. Do not leave the villa, you hear me?”
I told him I understood.
Robert was making the right call, of course. He had a clear head. Mine felt like it was about to explode. In fact, my heart was ruling my head now—and I knew exactly where I was going to go. I was going to the hospital, for I just had to know who was injured or dead. Robert didn’t need to be informed, I reasoned. If I got killed, so be it. This way, it wouldn’t be his responsibility.
“Zahid, change of plan,” I told him. “Head for the hospital.”
As we drove across downtown Benghazi I tried to phone Scotty and Dave again. Still no answer. I sent them a text: “I’m hearing one American dead in 1200 Bed Hospital. Sorry. I’m still trying to get to you guys.” I didn’t get a reply. I wasn’t expecting one, to be honest, but I had to keep trying.
Shortly after I’d sent that text a call came through on my cell phone. It was a caller ID that I didn’t recognize. I punched the answer button, hoping maybe it was one of the Americans on a number I didn’t have. Instead, there was a distinctly Libyan-accented voice on the line. It turned out it was the local fixer from the British Embassy in Benghazi, a guy I knew and rated highly.