Dan and I spoke over breakfast. He’d already had words with Ahmed. He’d told the villa owner that if we had another episode of gunfighting in the compound, then we were moving out. Ahmed had promised to get it sorted out. Even so, I knew we had to get ourselves properly armed.
“Dan, we need to get some weapons,” I told him.
“We can’t, mate. We’re not allowed.”
“I don’t give a damn. We need weapons.”
“We can’t. Libyan law doesn’t allow it and neither does the State Department contract.”
Dan went on to explain that while the militias who controlled the Benghazi streets seemed happy enough for every Libyan and his brother to carry a gun, it was a total no-no for foreigners. If they caught a foreigner with a weapon, it was a perfect excuse to throw you in jail and beat a serious cash bribe out of you in return for your release. And neither Dan nor I was particularly keen to see the inside of a Libyan prison cell.
Yet in spite of the risks Dan agreed with me that we needed weapons. The other issue was cost. While you could pick up an AK-47 across most of Africa for a couple of hundred dollars, for some bizarre reason it would cost you two thousand, minimum, here in Libya. As for a pistol, it was twice that kind of money—and all for a shitty Browning or Beretta that was twenty years old. Nevertheless, Dan and I were going to have to make it a priority to score some weaponry.
“Why aren’t we based at the Embassy compound, anyway?” I asked Dan. “It doesn’t make sense us being here. At least then we could support them if it all went noisy.”
Dan shrugged. “That’s how it’s specified in the contract.”
From all my experience of running security operations for the Americans you were collocated with them—either at their Mission, their headquarters base, or their FOB (Forward Operating Base). Billeting us outside the Benghazi Mission didn’t make any sense, but there was precious little I could do about it right now.
Tom turned up to drive us to work. He was late as usual. It bugged the hell out of Dan that the Libyans were always thirty minutes late for everything. Punctuality is a big thing for any ex-soldier, for the military hammers into you the importance of precise timekeeping. Soldiers synchronize watches before an operation for a reason: it’s so that all parts of the plan of attack can be executed to the exact same second—crucial when coordinating ground forces, supporting fire, airborne troops, air strikes, and various other assets.
On the drive to the Embassy I noticed a different bunch of militiamen on one of the street junctions. What drew my eye were the black flags they had flying from their Toyota gun trucks. In Afghanistan any forces flying the black flag—either plain black, or with white lettering emblazoned across it—were the really bad guys. They weren’t simply Taliban, who were often as not full-time farmers and part-time insurgents. The black-flag guys were die-hard Al Qaeda.
I nodded out the window. “Those black-flag guys . . .”
“They’re Shariah Brigade,” Tom cut in. “Not good. We have too many of them in Benghazi now.”
“And the black flags?” I queried. “They mean what I think they mean?”
Dan nodded. “Yeah. They’re pretty much Al Qaeda.”
I asked Dan how many of this Shariah mob there were in the city. He said that as far as he could tell they were as common as any of the other militias.
I sat back to digest this new piece of information. While the majority of the Libyan population might view us as their “liberation buddies,” these guys most certainly would not. Unless I was missing something, we had a lone American tasked with defending the entire U.S. Mission in Benghazi, and the streets were crawling with a heavily armed militia allied to Al Qaeda. I wondered how it could get any worse. The Benghazi Embassy was a disaster waiting to happen. It was an invitation to an Al Qaeda massacre and/or a kidnapping.
We arrived at the Embassy gates, and one of our local guards was actually standing duty at the barrier. Tom had been earmarked as our guard force commander, for we needed a perfect English speaker as the link between the Libyan guards and the Americans. I’d noticed him making a sneaky call on his cell phone a few minutes before we arrived. I reckoned he’d been phoning through a warning: “They’re coming; make sure someone’s outside on guard.”
In a way I could understand why he might have done so. He was trying to make the guard force—the force he would be commanding—look good. But it wasn’t working. The guard at the barrier didn’t even glance up as we walked past: he was too busy texting someone on his cell phone. All of this crap—all of it—had to stop.
We made our way through the pedestrian gate, and it was now that I got my first glimpse of what I presumed had to be one of the so-called QRF. There was a guy standing outside the QRF Villa dressed in a skintight bright yellow T-shirt, tight combat bottoms, and flip-flops, with an AK-47 slung over his shoulder. He had what looked like fake Oakley shades on, and a smoldering cigarette hanging on his bottom lip.
I called over a greeting: “Salam alaikum, mate.”
The traditional Arabic Muslim greeting is “salam alaikum”—peace be unto you. The expected reply is “alaikum salam”—and unto you, peace. This guy just blanked me completely. Not a word in response.
I didn’t know it yet, but this was Mutasim, the leader of the four-man 17th February QRF. The guard force had clearly warned him that there was a new guy in town—me—and that I was trouble, hence his well-rehearsed act of snubbing me. So be it. I was up for any kind of confrontation that these kind might have on offer.
As we turned left into the dirt track leading to the TOC I caught sight of a stocky, bald-headed white guy dressed in a khaki green T-shirt and red shorts. What he was wearing was the informal uniform of the U.S. Marine Corps when doing PT, or physical training. I’d seen U.S. Marines dressed like that countless times before, when collocated on missions with them. This guy had to be the RSO.
He darted into the TOC, and a minute or so later we followed inside. He introduced himself as Lee Saunders, the Benghazi Embassy RSO. I could tell right away that he was off with us. He didn’t seem to want to talk to Dan at all, and I could barely get a word out of him myself.
Dan excused himself. “I’m going next door. I’ve got some paperwork to do.”
“Ex–U.S. Marine?” I prompted, once Dan was gone.
Lee paused for an instant. “Yeah. How d’you know?”
“PT kit.”
“Oh, right, okay. Say, about that little nonsense outside the gate—not acceptable.”
I presumed he was referring to our guards’ demonstration over their late pay, plus the graffiti. I couldn’t agree with him more—it was totally unacceptable.
“We’re on it. We’re getting rid of the bad guys, just as soon as we can get some new guys in to replace them. We’ll get it sorted.”
“Right. You’ll have to excuse me—I gotta go on a mission.”
“Yeah, no problem. Laters.”
Our chat had lasted five minutes, if that. Of course, I knew Lee had to be horrendously busy, not to mention stressed beyond measure. The poor bugger was trying to do eight people’s jobs. But I’d got not the slightest chance to raise any of my security concerns with him. More to the point, I got the strong sense that he didn’t seem to like us or to rate us much.
A few minutes later I spotted Lee in a blazer and tie, escorting a smart-looking woman toward one of the Embassy’s armored SUVs. She was around five feet eight, with long auburn hair and pale Irish looks. She was snappily dressed and seemed to be wearing not a scrap of makeup. I didn’t know the woman’s name yet, but I figured she had to be the Deputy Chief of Mission. Lee helped her into the rear of the vehicle, before taking up his place as the driver.
A figure hurried over from the direction of the QRF Villa. It was the same guy I’d seen earlier, complete with his yellow T-shirt, only now he was wearing jungle boots and a cheap and nasty chest rig of the type you’d buy from Wal-Mart. It was the sort that a teenage kid would wear, complete with oodles of ammo pouches. He went to get into the passenger seat so he could ride shotgun for Lee, with the principal—the lady diplomat—in the rear.
As he jumped in, the curved magazine of his AK-47 caught on the door frame. An instant later it had sprung off, and 7.62mm rounds were pinging all over the drive and bouncing under the vehicle. I could not believe my eyes. A mag only ever falls off an AK if you’ve failed to seat it in the housing properly. Otherwise, it’s rigidly attached to the weapon, as it needs to be to fire. A guy who didn’t know how to attach a mag properly should not have been allowed to carry a loaded weapon, let alone do so in the company of diplomats.
I watched as the yellow T-shirt guy scrabbled about on his hands and knees, trying to gather up all the spilled rounds and reload them into the empty mag. I was shaking my head in utter bewilderment: and these guys were supposed to be the QRF.
I heard a snort of derision from behind me. “What a total tosser.” It was Dan.
I turned away from the window and cracked up laughing, Dan doing the same. We didn’t want Lee to see us, for that would be disrespectful and belittling. I didn’t think for one moment that Lee had selected the 17th February Militia—as opposed to a bunch of fellow U.S. Marines—as his QRF, but someone must have done so. Whoever had recruited these idiots as the Embassy’s only permanently armed protection force had to bear some heavy responsibility.
I’d been on Dan’s back for all the problems we were experiencing here, although I hadn’t meant to be. Having a good laugh at the QRF’s expense helped unite us. We had ten interviews to do that day—potential new guard force recruits. Dan had actually got to know two of the existing guards, Walid and Drizzi, pretty well. They were decent guys, and what distinguished them from the others was that they were willing to work and apply themselves. They were the first to admit that the rest of the guards were a waste of space.
The loan RSOs—Lee and his predecessor—had had zero time to get on top of the guard force, hence Blue Mountain being brought in. But without anyone pushing them, the guards had decided that it was easier to drink tea and play cards in the shade than to do what they had been hired to do—which was to patrol the compound perimeter on foot and man the guardroom and barricade.
Walid and Drizzi had put out word that we were seeking new recruits, and hence we’d got the guys in to interview. After long years working in Iraq I speak passable Arabic, and I was able to conduct the interviews in Arabic. The questions were pretty basic. Do you have any background in the military or security? How many brothers and sisters do you have, and what are their names? That question was designed so we could do an identity check against a database maintained by the Americans. What was your role in the revolution? Have you ever been abroad, and if so, where and when?
All ten of the guys seemed keen and motivated. We passed the interview forms on to the TOC so Lee could get them vetted. If all ten came back clear we’d hire the lot, and I’d be able to sack the worst of the present bunch. Truth be told, I was relishing the prospect. It would act as a warning to those who remained. There was nothing like getting rid of the worst—pour encourager les autres.
The interviews done, Dan and I did a walkabout of the perimeter. In addition to the main and rear gates, there was a third hidden away on the eastern side of the compound. That was strictly the tradesmen’s and garbage entrance. Our guard force was supposed to be split, with one on each of the three gates, one in the guardroom manning comms, one out front on the barrier, and one walking the perimeter. Amazingly, all of the guards were in position and doing their stuff. That was what just the threat of a mass sacking had achieved.
I asked Dan to draw up a list of the ten guys he most wanted gone. That way, if all ten new recruits were positively vetted we could get rid of the worst of the present bunch. Two of the ten on Dan’s list were on duty today, and I figured there was no time like the present. It made sense for me to get rid of the lot, for that way they wouldn’t blame Dan—and in three weeks I’d be gone, whereas he was contracted for the long term.
I made my way to the guardroom and sacked the first two guys. I got right in their faces and told them they were done. They were only to return once, and that was to hand in their ID badges and any Blue Mountain equipment. One of the two was a big, lazy slob of a guy called Alif—the type of bad apple that could turn an entire crop rotten. He reacted to his sacking just as I suspected he would.
“I come with my tribe!” he started yelling. “Me and my tribe—we come find you and kill you!”
“Fine,” I responded. “Bring it on. You know where I live. I’ll be expecting you.”
“Me and my tribe—we come kill you for this!”
“Listen, come on your own, man to man, and I’ll be ready and waiting.”
Big Tom, our driver and now guard force commander, was dancing about with worry. “He will come with his tribe and it’ll be a disaster . . .”
I told him to shut it. From my experience the guys who threatened to kill you never did anything much. Al Qaeda and their ilk weren’t into issuing death threats. If they came for you, they’d hit you with proper planning and with deadly, murderous intent.
Dan and I returned to our villa, ate chicken for a second night running, and again Dan was in bed by eight. I stayed up until midnight, bored out of my brain and watching the TV. Luckily, we could get CNN, the BBC, and a few other serious news networks, so at least I could kill time watching some decent current affairs programming.
Around midnight I heard Dan’s phone ring. A call coming at this time of night just had to spell trouble. I walked to his bedroom and I could hear his voice through the door.
“What! Where? Who was it? You’ve not caught them yet . . . Any idea why?”
I tapped on the door and walked in. Dan was perched on the bed shaking his head with worry. “Any injuries? Are all the Americans okay?”
He listened for a while longer, then ended the call.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Someone’s attacked the compound.”
“What d’you mean—attacked like how?”
“Someone’s thrown a grenade over the compound wall. Luckily, there’s no reports of injuries.”
“Right, give Lee a ring and see if he wants us. He’s on his own up there.”
We still had no weapons, but presumably Lee could arm us out of the Mission’s armory if need be. Dan made the call. Lee told us he was in the process of securing “the client.” Dan asked if he wanted us there.
“No,” Lee responded. “Me and the QRF have it under control.”
“We’re here if you need us,” Dan told him, and then the call was done.
Something hit home to me there and then: Lee actually thought more of the QRF than he did of us. I’d never come across such an attitude among serving or ex-Marines. I was a great believer in the American–British special relationship, and normally they and us were tight. Where was this coming from, I wondered. It was thirty minutes past midnight, the Embassy had just been hit, and who knew what the remainder of the night might bring—and all Lee had was the 17th February Militia to back him up. Yet he’d refused our help.
I returned to my room feeling seriously unsettled. The first night we’d had rounds unleashed right outside our villa walls. Now, on night two, we’d had a grenade thrown into the Embassy grounds. Something was going horribly wrong, if the first two nights were anything to go by, and yet the lone RSO holding fort at the Embassy didn’t seem to want any support or help from us.
Around 4:00 A.M. we had a call from Lee. Apparently, they’d captured the attackers. One was a serving Blue Mountain guard, the other, one of those that had got the sack. They were under arrest and getting questioned by the Benghazi police. It looked as if the attack was an inside job—rogue guard force members out for revenge.
Lee ended the call by telling us he needed us in his office at 8:00 A.M. sharp. Dan and I had a long talk about it. We hadn’t hired either of these clowns, so while we’d face the music in the morning this was a problem we had inherited. Still, neither of us was kidding ourselves that it was going to be an easy meeting. I was convinced by now that we’d lost the contract. I was two days in and I feared that I’d let Robert, my boss and my closest mentor, down.
I put a call through to him in the United Kingdom. I briefed him on what had happened. I could tell that he was fuming. He told me to get it sorted out or else the State Department would be rid of us fast. It was fair enough. Shaking up the guard force was what I’d been sent in to do. Somehow we were going to have to survive the coming showdown with Lee and make things right.
The drive to the Embassy the following morning was tense and largely silent. We talked the issue over briefly with Tom. There was no actual proof that the two guys had thrown the grenade, but there was no other reason for them to have been there. One had been fired already and the other was on the list of those to go. They’d been caught driving away from the scene of the attack, and in truth there was little chance that it wasn’t them.
We were at the TOC early, but Lee was ready and waiting. He got us into his office and closed the door heavily. There was no offer of coffee. I felt as if I were back in the headmaster’s study, on one of the numerous occasions when I’d been caught causing trouble at school. It was only going into the British Army that had straightened me out back then—and I didn’t have a clue what would save us right here and now.
“Last night a grenade came over the compound wall,” Lee started, in a voice like gravel. “The alarm wasn’t raised as the system’s not working yet, but I heard the blast, cleared the area, and secured the client, while the QRF went around the compound to check. They held two of your guard force, and they were taken away by the local police.” Lee fixed us with this hard-ass look. “Make no mistake, I am not fuckin’ happy with your fuckin’ guard force attacking the compound, especially when one of them still works for you guys . . .”
Lee went on for a good minute in this vein. Finally, I couldn’t resist saying a few words.
“I’m not being funny, mate, but they’re not our guards,” I cut in. “You hired them: we’re in the process of getting rid of them. So don’t fucking blame us. We didn’t sign these guys up—you or your predecessor did.”
Dan was staring at me mouth agape. But as far as I was concerned we had nothing to lose now, and anyway, this was the truth.
I plowed on. “If you’re looking for someone to blame you need to look closer to home, mate. Either you hired them or the guy before you did. Period.”
Lee stared at me for a long second, then he broke into the beginnings of a smile. “Fair point. You’re right. You’re fuckin’ right. We did hire them.”
I seized the initiative. “Listen, mate, we’re trying to get rid of all the worst as fast as we can. But we need to get the vetting forms back from you, at which point we can get shot of ten in one go.”
Lee nodded. “Gotcha. I’ll get onto it. But I got one thousand and one goddamn things to do . . .”
I had rarely if ever seen a guy under so much pressure. Lee was holding the fort alone, and now he’d been up half the night dealing with a grenade attack. It was piling up on him, and I didn’t for one moment blame him for wanting to unload on someone. But like a truly decent guy he’d come around pretty damn quickly.
“Okay, guys, thanks, really,” he said. “If you can fix the guard force, that’d be a real help.”
“You get them vetted, we’ll get them sorted,” I reassured him. “Plus you need to get your alarm working. There’s no point the guard hitting the duck-and-cover alarm if the system doesn’t work. Plus the CCTV needs to be up and running . . .”
“Don’t I know it,” Lee growled. “I got it on the list of things need doin’ around here.”
The standard attack response for our guard force was to sound the “duck-and-cover alarm,” one that would alert the entire Embassy to an attack via a series of loudspeakers—only right now that system wasn’t operational.
Dan and I got up to leave. “Mate, if you need us for anything—anything—just let us know,” I added. “We’re here to help.”
The offer seemed to have hardly registered with Lee. We shook hands and left, but I was determined to come back and see him on my own and get to the bottom of it all.
I let a good hour go by before I returned to his office. I knocked and entered. “Any chance of a word, mate, just me and you.”
“Yeah, yeah—no problem. Close the door.”
This time Lee did fetch coffees. That done, I got right down to it. “So, I’m wondering, is there a problem between you and Dan?”
Lee fixed me with a look, as if he was assessing what exactly he could afford to tell me. “No, not as such. But man, Dan just looks so worn-out. He looks old and past it. He’s limping about, for Christ’s sake. He doesn’t look up for it.”
“Fine. But trust me, if you need our help you only have to ask and Dan and I will come running.”
“Why? What’s your background?”
“I spent fourteen years in the British Army. After that, three years in Iraq as a private operator looking after U.S. ACE. Then Helmand for three years working with U.S. Marine Corps in Garmsir and Sangin.” Now I went for the killer punch. “Plus I was in charge of a team looking after a guy you may have heard of—Major General James T. Conway.”
Lee nearly fell off his chair. “No shit! How come you were looking after that guy?”
I returned the smile. “James T. Conway: six feet four, looks like an American football player and a really nice guy. I looked after him in Afghan and took him around the place. We were his close protection squad in Helmand Province. I even got his coin.”
“No shit!” Lee shook his head in amazement. “I met the general once . . . The Marines—we love that guy.”
“Yeah, I know. I know why, too. He’s a top bloke.”
Major General James T. Conway was the commander of the entire U.S. Marine Corps. He had 250,000 Marines under his command, so a force almost three times the size of the entire British military.
I told Lee a story about the general. He was the only commander I’d ever known to keep a helicopter pilot waiting. It was at the end of his Afghan tour, and he’d been going around his CP team—meaning, us—shaking each man’s hand. We were ten, and to each he was saying a personal thank-you plus giving us his coin—a commemorative metal disk about the size of a medal, with his personal crest and motto emblazoned on it, plus that of the Marine Corps—Semper fidelis: always faithful. He was halfway through when his personal assistant came hurrying over to warn the general that his helo was ready to get airborne. The general rounded on the man. “Well, you just tell the pilot he can fuckin’ wait.”
“That’s General Conway, you betcha!” Lee enthused. “Fuck, man, it’s great to have someone here who can help if the shit goes down. I got no one to watch my back.” He was starting to really open up now. “You know, this is my first ever overseas postin’ as an RSO, and what do they do to me—alone in Benghazi.”
“That’s why I made the offer of help. If you need me to sleep up here on one of the couches, I’ll be here watching your back. I’ll happily fight alongside you, mate.”
Lee didn’t seem able to thank me enough. The poor bastard had been here for days on end utterly alone and unsupported. He only had two weeks left before another RSO replaced him, but he was already burned-out. Whoever had sent him out here alone—they needed to come see for themselves the level of shit they’d landed him in.
“Thank Christ, buddy. You know . . . I’ve been kinda struggling. It’s been hard here, all alone, you know?”
“Like I said, I’m here. I’ll help you—whatever you need.” I felt genuinely sorry for the guy. “You should not be here on your own. It’s madness. There should be four of you, minimum, and ideally eight.”
Lee shrugged, exhaustedly. “Don’t I know it.”
He proceeded to talk me around all the weaponry and the ammo stored in the TOC. He unlocked the cases, and there were racks of folding-stock M4 assault rifles, plus pump-action combat shotguns and rakes of ammo. Now this was more like it. There were also enough top-of-the-range SIG pistols to arm five men. He showed me where the keys were kept and how to unlock the cases.
Game on.
Lee waved a hand over the racks of weaponry. “Buddy, you ever feel the need—here’s where it all is if the bullets start to fly . . .”
I told him I’d fight back-to-back with him if need be. “I don’t know if you know Dan’s background, but trust me, he’d fight to the death to protect you, too. Dan did twenty-two years in the Royal Green Jackets—a top infantry regiment—plus nine years as a private operator in Iraq.”
Lee looked shocked. “Man, I didn’t know. Why didn’t he tell me?”
“Dan’s not the kind of bloke to volunteer much. He doesn’t boast. But rest assured, he knows what he’s doing.”
Whenever I’d served alongside them I valued the U.S. Marines highly. They refused to go backward no matter what, and they were fun to be around. From now on Lee and I would greet each other with “Semper fi” whenever we ran into each other. I told him I would fight to safeguard his principal, the lady diplomat, so he didn’t need to worry about standing alone anymore.
I meant every word of it, too. I’m not the kind who leaves my friends hanging.