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

by Mitchell Zuckoff

  Finally Tanto loaded his weapons onto his shoulders, caught his breath, and climbed over the gate. Before he could catch up with his fellow operators, Tanto heard the voice of one of his two young 17 February militiamen companions.

  “Sir, sir! Gate!” he said.

  Tanto returned to the rear wall and opened the gate from the inside. He called out to the militia commander, assuming that he’d bring in his troops, as well: “As soon as you come through, close this gate and lock it.”

  “OK,” the commander said. “Yes sir!”

  Tanto and the militiamen ran toward Tig, Rone, and D.B. Along the way, Tanto noticed that the operators had stopped watching the unlit orchard, where he suspected that some of the attackers might be lying in wait. Tanto dropped down on the side of the dirt path that cut through the Compound and trained his weapon on the trees. From his prone position, Tanto got his first good look at the main villa, still afire, its exterior walls blackened near the windows where flames had shot out. Farther away, he saw flames and smoke above the burning 17 February barracks. As he held that position, sweating and bleeding, Tanto took the opportunity to catch his breath and regroup.

  Tig came on the radio and told Tanto that he needed to move to the other side of the pathway, to cover the opposite side of the orchard.

  “You sonofabitch!” Tanto told Tig. “You turn your ass around and protect that side. I just want to lay here. I’m tired, motherfucker!” Tanto’s complaints momentarily lightened the mood, raising smiles from Tig and D.B. Even as he grumbled, Tanto moved to watch the other stand of trees.

  Jack remained near the villa to continue the search, but none of the other operators was in one place for long. Frequently they roamed back and forth between the villa, the other buildings on the Compound, and the orchard and vineyard area. They didn’t know where the attackers had gone, but they expected them back at any minute.

  Rone moved from the orchard toward the Tactical Operations Center and the Cantina. Tanto joined Tig, D.B., and the militiamen on the dirt pathway, and from there they spread out through the orchard. They didn’t have time to clear it completely, but they satisfied themselves that it was safe enough for them to head back toward the front of the Compound, to the villa and the other buildings.

  A handful of 17 February militiamen had joined them on their march through the orchard, mirroring their actions and trying to be useful. One 17 February member whom Tanto didn’t see was the commander who’d promised to lock the back gate. He’d apparently remained safely in the rear.

  As Tig approached the dirt path at the end of one row of trees, he watched one of the militiamen whip around a corner and pop off roughly twenty rounds from his AK-47 into the darkness. Tig prepared to join in the shooting, but he never saw a target. He suspected that the young militiaman was either jumpy or simply wanted to say that he’d been in a firefight.

  Tanto, D.B., and Tig moved toward the Cantina and the TOC. Rone rejoined their crew, and they split into pairs. Rone and D.B. headed to clear the Cantina. They found no one inside the ransacked building, which was strewn with broken furniture and ruined food ripped from shelves and refrigerators.

  Meanwhile, Tig and Tanto went to clear the TOC. It wasn’t immediately clear whether DS agent Alec Henderson was still locked inside, so Tig and Tanto tried to reach him on their radios. That didn’t work, so they stood outside and called through the TOC door.

  “Is anybody inside?” Tanto asked. He stood near a video camera. “Can you see us? We’re friendlies, and we need to come in.”

  Tanto received no answer, so he and Tig flanked the building’s main window while several 17 February militiamen tried to kick in the reinforced wooden door. The door held fast, so Tig tried kicking it in himself. Still it wouldn’t budge. Tig got back on the radio: “If you guys are in there, open up. Or else I’m going to shoot your fucking door open.” He took a knee and aimed his weapon at the door.

  Henderson immediately came on the radio: “Yes, I’m in here! I’m in here!”

  The DS agent explained that he thought that the attackers who’d tried earlier to break into the TOC had returned. “Get in front of the camera so I can see you,” he said. Tig stood beneath the lens by the entrance door and waved. Henderson lowered his shotgun, unlocked the door, and removed the steel drop bar that had kept it secure. Tig and Tanto burst into the TOC in a hard entry, to make sure no attackers were inside.

  “No, no!” Henderson yelled as he lurched outside, disoriented. “Nobody got in here!”

  Tig stepped back out and walked to a carport about fifteen yards away, to provide perimeter security. He set up his belt-fed machine gun on the hood of a gray Land Cruiser and took a quick breather.

  Rone and D.B. joined Tanto at the TOC, and together they cleared the rest of the building. Then Henderson went back inside to gather and destroy classified documents and data, computer equipment, and other sensitive materials.

  No enemy attackers seemed to remain on or near the Compound. Members of the 17 February militia continued to filter onto the property, roaming freely from one end to the other. Some wore black T-shirts, some wore white T-shirts, some wore jeans, some wore desert camouflage, and some wore woodland army-green camouflage. Some wore beards, some were clean-shaven, and some wore balaclavas covering their faces. Some were armed, some were not. None of them wore insignia to declare their allegiance. In almost every way, they were physically indistinguishable from the attackers who’d swarmed the Compound. The only difference worth noting was that, unlike the attackers, none of them carried banners with Arabic writing.

  As the operators and DS agents ruefully joked: “What’s the difference between how Libyans look when they’re coming to help you versus when they’re coming to kill you? Not much.”

  To the operators, some of the militiamen seemed genuinely willing to fight, search for the ambassador, and hunt for attackers who might be hiding in the dark corners of the Compound. The operators continued to view the 17 February members with varying degrees of trust, but all adopted a Benghazi modification of the Golden Rule: If they don’t pose a threat, we won’t shoot them.

  After clearing the Cantina and the TOC, Rone returned to the villa. He helped Jack and the Team Leader with the frustrating effort to get deep enough inside to see if the ambassador might yet be located.

  Tanto and D.B. helped Alec Henderson collect and destroy classified material from the TOC, while Tig remained posted outside at the carport. Henry the translator, who’d come onto the Compound in the Mercedes SUV driven by the Team Leader, remained out of sight, hunched low inside the vehicle.

  The time was somewhere around 11:00 p.m. Sean Smith was confirmed dead, apparently from smoke inhalation. Ambassador Chris Stevens was missing. The main villa and the militia barracks still burned. But the attackers apparently had left, perhaps retreating to nearby streets and homes to regroup. The Americans had regained at least temporary control of the Special Mission Compound. The sound of gunfire had all but ceased.

  To the uninitiated, it might have been tempting to imagine that the lull in the action meant that the fighting was over. The operators harbored no such illusions. To a man, they believed that their night and their enemies were just getting started.

  EIGHT

  Counterattack

  AFTER CLEARING THE TOC AND THE CANTINA, THE operators, DS agents, and their 17 February reinforcements returned to the villa. It was difficult to say how many of the militiamen had found their way inside the Compound, but the operators estimated the number to be as high as forty to fifty.

  All the Americans were at the villa except Tig, who mistakenly believed that his colleagues were still destroying classified material at the TOC. They left without alerting him, so he spent about five minutes alone at the carport, providing solo security for an empty building.

  “Where are you?” the Team Leader called to Tig over the radio.

  “I’m over by the TOC,” Tig answered.

  “We’re not over there
anymore, man.”

  “Oh. Fuck.” Tig sprinted to the villa, where he found clusters of 17 February militiamen standing around while the operators and DS agents alternated searching for the ambassador. Based on radio reports from apparently friendly militiamen, a consensus began to form that the attackers were likely to return, and the Americans couldn’t remain at the Compound much longer.

  Tig overheard a discussion during which the DS agents told the GRS Team Leader that they lacked adequate weapons to defend themselves on the drive to the Annex. Tig gave Ubben his belt-fed machine gun and his remaining drum of ammunition. Tig kept his assault rifle for his own protection.

  After clearing out sensitive materials from the TOC, DS agent Alec Henderson joined the villa search. He pulled off his shirt, dipped it in the swimming pool, and wrapped it around his head in an attempt to withstand the heat and smoke. As Henderson passed through the front doors on one trip, part of the living room ceiling collapsed. He rushed out, unhurt.

  Dave Ubben wasn’t so lucky. On a separate search trip through the villa, Ubben suffered a jagged cut on his forearm while moving through the window into the darkened bedroom. Blood dripped down his arm and onto his clothes. Rone put his paramedic skills to use dressing the wound, and Ubben continued searching.

  Having entered the Compound after their fellow operators and via a different gate, Tanto and D.B. were still catching up with all that had happened. D.B. heard the bad news first.

  “Hey,” he told Tanto. “We lost one.”

  “We lost one? Who?” Tanto said.

  “I don’t know him, the computer guy. And we can’t find the ambassador.”

  Having worked together for a decade, in Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Libya, Tanto and D.B. could read each other’s moods and signals. Tanto knew that the former Marine sniper typically was cool and composed, even under the most difficult circumstances. But now Tanto saw anger in his friend’s eyes. Tanto felt the same way, not only toward the attackers who’d killed Smith but also about their delayed departure from the Annex. The time they’d spent idling in the Mercedes and BMW had come back to haunt them. They’d worried that the wait would have consequences. Now, Tanto feared, the cost was high: one dead, one missing.

  For D.B., the losses cut especially deep. The devotee of Joseph Campbell’s writings had arranged his life around a straightforward code that called upon him to fulfill his promises and obligations to the people who counted on him. His greatest fear was letting down someone who relied on him. Sean Smith had relied on all of them, and now he was dead. Chris Stevens had relied on them, too, and he was missing.

  Tanto tried to ease his friend’s angst.

  “Hey, relax dude,” Tanto said. “We got a long night ahead of us.”

  When D.B. didn’t immediately respond, Tanto pushed him harder. “Hey sergeant, relax!”

  “Yeah, I got it,” D.B. said, shooting him a look. “Dude, I’m good.”

  After giving Ubben his machine gun, Tig rejoined the search crew. Visibility had barely improved and breathing continued to be difficult. Tig tried to open a window around the corner from the bedroom window they’d been using for access, but the release was stuck or melted shut.

  His lungs felt like he’d inhaled broken glass, so Tig went back outside. He radioed the Annex: “We cannot locate the ambassador. He is already gone or we just can’t find him inside the house.” He returned inside the villa. Jack, Rone, D.B., and Tanto also searched repeatedly for Stevens, but their efforts proved futile.

  During one search, Tanto ran into Scott Wickland. The DS agent primarily responsible for the ambassador’s safety had found flip-flops for his bare feet, but he seemed exhausted and his face remained covered with soot.

  “Get out of here, dude,” Tanto told him. “You don’t need to be in here. Get yourself together and get ready to go.”

  Wickland shook his head and continued searching.

  As they searched, the Americans and the militiamen at the Compound received confirmation via radio and cell phone that the attackers appeared to be regrouping and adding reinforcements for a renewed assault. Outside the villa, operators heard the Team Leader talking with the DS agents about leaving the Compound immediately and driving to the Annex. They didn’t want to go without Stevens, but they understood that they were sitting ducks if they stayed too long.

  Jack watched as one of the DS agents from Tripoli drove the Land Cruiser to within twenty feet of the villa’s front doors and opened the rear hatch, in preparation to load up and leave.

  With Chris Stevens still missing despite the searches, the operators began to wonder whether the attackers had kidnapped the ambassador by entering the villa’s safe-haven area through the same window that Wickland had used to escape. If so, the abduction would have taken place after Scott Wickland had lost sight of Chris Stevens and Sean Smith. Only a short time elapsed between when Wickland climbed to the roof and Ubben and the two other DS agents resumed the search, which had continued since then without pause. But the operators couldn’t rule out abduction. The attackers had moved with apparent, if rough, military tactics into the Compound. Perhaps they’d planned all along to snatch Stevens, and the fires they’d set gave them cover and just enough time.

  Standing near the window leading to the safe haven, Rone and Jack noticed a square support column with a bloody handprint about five feet above the ground. It looked as though an injured person had tried to grab hold of the concrete column as he was being carried away.

  “I wonder if that’s the ambassador’s handprint,” Rone told Jack.

  The more the operators discussed it, the more a kidnapping seemed plausible. When Wickland last saw them, Chris Stevens and Sean Smith were together. Why had they been able to find Smith but not Stevens? Why had the attackers left almost as quickly as they’d come? Had they already achieved their objective?

  Another possibility some of the searchers considered was that Stevens had somehow escaped on his own through the window when Wickland was on the roof, and was hiding in the unlit orchard. But that seemed like wishful thinking.

  A short time later, outside the villa, Dave Ubben asked Jack to help him retrieve laptops and more classified material from the TOC before the DS agents left. Jack saw Tanto nearby and called him over to help. The three-man team moved tactically, crouched down, guns raised. They believed that the attackers were on their way back to the Compound, and they still harbored concerns that some friendly militiamen might yet turn unfriendly. Although Tanto had previously cleared the TOC with Rone and D.B., he and Jack knew that they needed to consider it under “negative control.”

  When they reached the TOC building, Tanto told Jack: “You guys go ahead. I’ll stand by outside and make sure nobody comes in.” Dripping with sweat, his arm throbbing, Tanto took a knee about ten feet from the TOC entrance, covering them. Again he found himself thinking how bright the stars looked in the black sky.

  Tanto focused his attention on the northeast corner of the Compound, a darkened area where an empty gardener’s shack was built against the wall. With no light in that area, and a large expanse of dirt around it, Tanto worried that an attack could come from that corner without anyone noticing. He kept watch in that direction.

  Jack led the way into the TOC building. He and Dave Ubben moved quickly to the room where Alec Henderson had established the command and communications center when the attack began. They made a two-man tactical entry, with Jack taking the lead and Ubben following immediately behind him. When they were sure it was empty, both men let their weapons hang.

  Wasting no time, they grabbed every laptop in the well-lit, ten-by-fifteen-foot room. Hard drives needed to be taken, too, but they were held in place by half-inch-thick black wires. Disconnecting them would take too long, so Ubben held the wires taut while Jack cut them with a serrated paramilitary knife. They added the hard drives to the laptop pile. As they worked, Jack steered clear of a large window opposite the entry door. The lights were on in the TOC, which meant
that they were illuminated, easy targets if someone wanted to take a potshot through the window.

  After one last look around, Ubben told Jack: “We’ve got everything we need.”

  Their guns still hanging by their sides, the two men scooped up the laptop computers and hard drives, and headed for the door. Before stepping outside, Jack caught Tanto’s eye. They exchanged nods.

  “We’re good,” Tanto called, still on his knee, gun up, scanning for trouble.

  As they returned to the villa, Tanto noticed that the back gate remained open. His mind flashed to the 17 February commander he’d told to lock it behind them. God dang it, Tanto thought. That cockbag motherfucker didn’t shut the back gate. The gate was perhaps a hundred yards away, so Tanto knew that he couldn’t do anything but stew about it.

  Tanto took the point, moving on high alert with his rifle at the low ready position. Jack and Ubben looked like they’d just robbed a Best Buy. They hustled back toward the villa, half crouching as they ran in the dark. Jack felt defenseless with his gun down and his arms filled with computer equipment, so he kept especially close behind Tanto.

  They went directly to the rear of the DS agents’ gray Land Cruiser. The open rear hatch was already half-filled with weapons, but Jack and Ubben dumped the computer equipment atop the long guns and ammo anyway. The armored Land Cruiser, which had bullet-resistant windows and run-flat tires, faced toward the Compound’s front gate. Someone had staged the operators’ Mercedes next to the Land Cruiser, about fifteen feet apart, pointed in the opposite direction.

  On the grass and the brick driveway outside the villa, everyone who wasn’t searching for the ambassador was buzzing with concern about their enemies massing for a renewed attack. A shared sentiment took hold that the Americans and their militia allies needed to abandon the Compound immediately. Jack overheard one of the DS agents say that he’d received a phone call warning that “large groups of bad guys are coming.” Jack didn’t know the source of the call, but he had no reason to doubt it.