We were nearing the end of the road, whereupon we’d hang a left to get onto the main highway that ran the length of the rear of the compound. I planned to dismount near the tall building where I’d always feared the enemy would place a sniper. Right now that was the least of my worries: what did they need a sniper for when they’d surged the compound with two hundred Shariah Brigade fighters? From there I’d sneak back east on foot, turn north on the side road, and head for the point where I figured I could climb onto the roof of the gym.
As we neared the left-hand turn Massoud flicked his eyes across to me. “Morgan, you know if we get out of the car we will be killed.”
“I don’t expect you to get out. Just wait in the car somewhere safe. I’ll call you when I’m done.”
I knew Massoud well by now and I knew his nature. He was a straight shooter who did everything by the book. I’d once asked him to buy me a water filter. I’d given him the hundred dollars it would cost, plus thirty dollars on top for getting it for me. He’d handed the thirty back. “You pay me a monthly wage. This is my job. It is enough.” He was unbending on what was right and wrong and the rule of law. Whenever he saw something that was bad, he’d say: “This is wrong. We cannot move on if people keep doing such things.”
I liked and respected him and I did not want to get him killed. Anyway, I needed someone to stay with the getaway vehicle and he was absolutely to be trusted in that role. If I went in there and found all the Americans dead, or that they’d evacuated already, I needed a way to get myself out of here. Or if I found them alive I might even have some of them with me, so I’d need Massoud waiting with his car.
We took the turn leading into the road that ran the length of the rear of the Embassy compound. I breathed a momentary sigh of relief. It appeared to be totally deserted. Then I saw it. Halfway down the main drag there was a vehicle parked across the highway, acting as a roadblock. It was yet another gun truck, the stark silhouette of a Dushka menacing the way ahead.
“Pull in quick, and kill the lights,” I told Massoud.
He did as I’d said, the Nissan going dark. We sat there for a second in the comparative stillness, but still the pounding percussions of gunfire from the far end of the compound reached us clearly. The roar of battle punched through the vehicle, each staccato burst reminding me that my friends were in there and in mortal danger.
Massoud glanced at me, inquiringly: What next?
“Just give me a second,” I told him. “I’ve got to think about the next move.”
My mind was racing. Had the Dushka gunner spotted us? If so and I got out, would he open fire? There was the sidewalk and a patch of open grass for me to cross so as to get to the cover of the Embassy wall. The highway was deserted apart from our vehicle and the gun truck, which was maybe one hundred yards away. Surely they must have seen us? So how did I get from here to the wall?
Every way I looked at it I couldn’t see how I could cross that open space without being blown apart by a storm of 12.7mm armor-piercing rounds. But then my words to Dave from the phone call back at the villa flashed through my mind: Keep fighting. Just keep fighting. I’m on my way. I had made a promise. I had to try to get to them. I could feel Massoud staring at me. Fair enough: this was decision time.
“Morgan, what are you going to do, my friend? We cannot stay here.”
“Give me a second.”
I dialed Dave’s number. I was going to give him a heads-up. Having seen the strength of the forces positioned around the compound, I was going to have to try to make it over the wall pretty much where I was. There was no way I could make it from here to the gym on foot. It was at the opposite end of the compound, and the streets were crawling with bad guys. After my daily beach runs and gym sessions I’d never been fitter or stronger, and I was going to try to scale the wall using whatever handholds I could find.
Dave’s number rang and rang. No answer. Were they even alive still? Even worse was the idea that the poor bastards might have been captured.
“Morgan, what are we going to do?” Massoud’s voice was laced with urgency now.
“Like I said, I’m not expecting you to do anything. Just wait in the car somewhere safe but nearby.”
I reached for the door handle and got out of the vehicle. I squatted in the cover of the Nissan and glanced up the road: still no sign of lights or movement from the gun truck. I got into a crouch and made a move for the wall. But I’d barely taken a first step when there was the bark of a weapon firing and fiery tracer rounds punched through the air above my head. At the same moment I heard the roar of an engine and the screech of tires spinning, and the gun truck surged forward and came tearing toward us.
The truck’s lights flashed on, full beam, and instantly I was pinned in the blinding light of their glare. The Dushka gunner had the gaping barrel of the weapon aimed right at us. He’d clearly been waiting for someone to do exactly as I had done—to dismount from the vehicle. The truck skidded to a halt barely ten yards away, the dry dirt swirling in the headlights like gold dust.
It had come to a stop with its side facing us, so the Dushka gunner could bring his weapon to bear, for there wasn’t the clearance to do so over the vehicle’s cab. One round unleashed from that weapon would likely smash the both of us. This is it, I thought. I’ve just got us both killed.
An instant after the gun truck halted I saw Massoud step down from the driver’s side, hands very much above his head. The gunner began to scream at us in Arabic. I could tell how pumped up and on edge he was, and while I couldn’t understand most of what he was saying I knew he was on the verge of opening fire. To either side of him, perched in the rear of the pickup, were more Shariah fighters, and I could feel their guns and their dark eyes upon us.
Massoud yelled something back at him. I understood only the one word: Inglesi—English. The vicious shouting went back and forth some more, as the gunner swiveled the massive barrel from Massoud to me and back again, its flared muzzle gaping at me like the mouth of some alien predator.
Finally Massoud turned his head my way: “Morgan, get your passport out; nice and slow.”
I reached down to my cargo pants pocket and pulled out my passport.
“Show it to them,” Massoud grunted. “But everything very slow.”
I took two steps forward so I was away from the car and fully into the light. I held the passport up, so it was illuminated in the gun truck’s headlamps. The emblem on the front of a British passport is a gold-embossed coat of arms, depicting a lion and a unicorn fighting over a crown. Below the crown is the French motto: “Honi soit qui mal y pense”—Shame on him who thinks evil.
The emblem and the words glistened in the headlamps of the Shariah Brigade gun truck as the Dushka gunner stared at it for a moment. The seconds ticked by, each one feeling like a lifetime. Then I saw him twitch the gun barrel toward the east—back the way we had come—and he snarled out a few words in Arabic.
Massoud didn’t so much as look at me. “Morgan, get back in the vehicle. But everything very slow.”
I inched back toward the Nissan, Massoud doing likewise, and we slid inside. Massoud fired up the engine, did a very careful U-turn, and we started to drive out of there, Massoud making no sudden moves with the vehicle. The Dushka gunner followed our every move until we were able to turn the corner back the way we had come . . . and finally we were out of his line of fire.
I heard Massoud breathe a strangled sigh of relief. His eyes were glued to the front as he drove, his voice tight with adrenaline and fear. “He said if they see us again tonight . . . they will kill us.”
“I thought we were dead . . . Why the fuck did they let us go?”
Massoud fixed me with this look. “Morgan, these people are Al Qaeda. Mostly, they are not Libyans. They are Somalis, Afghans, Pakistanis, and Saudis . . . They came here for one reason only tonight: to kill the Americans.”
Fuck me, it was as direct as that. Tonight’s attack was about one thing and one thing only: spilling American blood. So much so that the very fact I carried a British passport meant that the Shariah mob had let me live, and even though I’d been trying to go to my American brothers’ aid. They have come here for one thing only: to kill Americans. It was that simple, that dark, and that chilling.
As we headed north parallel to the compound I could see savage bursts of tracer fire arcing into the night sky. I was certain the boys were still fighting in there, and against those who I now knew had come here with the specific aim of spilling their blood. Yet here were Massoud and me sneaking away, like cowards. I had promised to get to them. I had promised Dave, Scotty, and the others help. Instead, I had lost my nerve, or at least that’s how it felt to me.
“Honi soit qui mal y pense”—Shame on him who thinks evil. That was the motto on the crest on the passport that had just saved my life. But right now the shame felt like it was all upon me.
Only a few days back I’d been having beers with the guys and I’d vowed to Scotty and Dave that I would fight alongside them no matter what. In return they’d promised me they had my back. And now this. I’d done nothing. I’d failed them. I had never felt anything remotely like this before. I had never left a man behind, and I had never been so alone or so out there. I felt like a complete coward.
Massoud kept driving and a few moments later we were heading away from the Mission. Almost as if in a daze—I was close to tears, or maybe I was crying even; I don’t know—I dialed the only number I could think of, that of Robert, my boss. It was late in Britain but I needed to speak to someone, and right now he was all that I had. He answered and I blurted out all that had happened.
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.
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.”