13 Hours The Inside Account of What Really Happened In Benghazi (24 page)

Word spread that Stevens remained lost and the villa hadn’t yet been declared clear. Tig and Rone turned on the flashlights on their assault rifles and went through the front doors side by side.

Tig had been in the villa months earlier, so he had a mental picture of the floor plan that he thought would be helpful to the search. They went in low, crouching to stay beneath the smoke, but on their first trip the heat was so overpowering they lasted only about thirty seconds and reached no more than fifteen feet inside. Even with their lights, they could barely see beyond the end of their rifle barrels. It reminded Tig of turning on a car’s headlights in a thick fog.

“Holy shit,” Tig said outside, sweat dripping from every pore. “This is gonna be rough.”

They took deep breaths and went back in, lasting about
a minute on their second trip. On the third attempt, Tig went farther than he had earlier, reaching a pile of furniture outside the steel gate to the safe haven. The gate looked as though it remained locked, and Tig couldn’t get through the furniture to reach it.

“Chris! Chris!” Tig called for the ambassador at the top of his lungs.

From behind him, outside the villa, came an answer, “Yeah, I’m here.”

Tig recognized the voice as belonging to the Team Leader, who’d joined them by driving the Mercedes SUV with Henry the translator from the Gunfighter Road intersection into the Compound.

Coughing from the smoke, Tig called back: “No, not you! Chris Stevens!” Tig got no reply from inside the safe haven.

Calling out the ambassador’s name filled Tig’s lungs with smoke. He and Rone went back out to the front steps. After a few deep breaths, they gave it a fourth try. Again they went to the deepest part of the open living space, but again they found no sign of Stevens. Tig circled back around toward the front doors. He couldn’t see more than a foot in either direction, but he thought that Rone was next to him the whole time.

“I’m lost!” Rone called from somewhere across the smoke-filled room. “I can’t find my way out!”

Tig turned toward his friend. “Come to my voice!”

“I’m lost!” Rone called.

“Follow my voice!”

Each breath filling their lungs with smoke, they continued the call-and-response exchange several times. From
the direction of Rone’s calls, Tig realized that Rone was disoriented and moving toward the kitchen. From his previous searches, Tig knew that that part of the villa remained engulfed in flames. He yelled to Rone to keep talking, then rushed toward Rone’s voice. When he caught sight of Rone through the smoke, Tig reached out and grabbed him.

Both were coughing madly, their lungs desperate for fresh air, as Tig led Rone to the front doors and safely outside.

As the two operators caught their breath, bent over with hands on knees, their rifles dangling, Tig and Rone heard a radio call from Tanto and D.B. saying that they were ready to move into the Compound through the back gate. DS agents and militiamen continued to search the villa, so Tig and Rone moved to cover the incoming operators.

Rone and Tig went to a dirt pathway that bisected the Compound, stretching from the north wall to the south wall. Along much of the path, toward the rear half of the Compound, an orchard and a vineyard provided abundant potential hiding places for their enemies. Tig and Rone took positions on either side of the path.

Rone was still thinking about the deadly serious game of Marco Polo they’d played inside the villa. “Hey dude, thanks,” Rone said. “You just saved my life. I thought I was gonna die in there.”

Tig knew that Rone would have done the same for him. “Hopefully we’ll all get out of this alive,” Tig said.

Standing a dozen feet apart across the dirt pathway, Tig and Rone watched the darkened areas of trees and vines to make sure Tanto and D.B. weren’t walking into an ambush. A man walked slowly out of the orchard, and the operators trained their sights on him. But Tig recognized the man as
a Blue Mountain guard who’d apparently hidden among the trees, waiting for the Americans to arrive.

Before moving to the Compound’s back gate, Tanto and D.B. took cover behind concrete Jersey barriers on the Fourth Ring Road, anticipating that some of the attackers might flee that way when Rone and Tig moved toward the rear of the property. But after several minutes no one came through, so Tanto radioed Tig.

“We’re starting to come in,” Tanto said. “Don’t shoot at us.”

“Roger that.”

Tanto and D.B. tested the back gate but found it locked. D.B. moved down the property wall to the southwest corner, to see if he could locate another way in. Finding no other entrance and no easy way over the wall topped with razor wire, D.B. decided to climb over the gate. Tanto thought he had a better idea, so he ran back to the 17 February commander outside the grocery store to ask for help.

“Hey, get one of your trucks in here to push this gate open,” Tanto said. “We’re thinking we’re going to need to jump it, but if you got one of those trucks we can ram it open.”

“No sir. No,” the militia commander said, politely but firmly.

“Get a fucking truck over here and ram it open,” Tanto demanded.

“No, I don’t think we can do that,” the commander said. “We don’t have a truck.”

Tanto noticed that the militia had failed to block traffic on the Fourth Ring Road, so cars kept driving past, with
drivers honking horns as rubbernecking passengers tried to see the burning buildings inside the Compound.

“Well, then let’s commandeer one of these fucking vehicles,” Tanto said, pointing to the cars and trucks cruising by.

“No sir, we don’t want to do that.”

So much for a helpful, friendly militia. Tanto fought to keep his cool. D.B. had heard enough. He climbed over the gate and checked a small guard shack inside the Compound to be sure it was empty. Tanto stood by the gate, expecting D.B. to open it from the inside. But after clearing the guard shack, D.B. ran to meet up with Tig and Rone.

Loaded down with weapons and gear, already sore and bleeding from the collapsed wall, Tanto continued waiting outside the property with the two young militiamen he’d grown to trust. Also nearby were a couple dozen militiamen with a commander he’d begun to hate.

He yelled to his partner: “D.B., open the fucking gate for me!” He laughed at the absurdity of the situation, throwing back his head and looking to the dark sky for help.
I’m out here by myself with all these militia guys
, Tanto thought.
Nobody is shooting at me—not yet. D.B., come back and OPEN THE FUCKING GATE!
Tanto tried several times to raise D.B. on the radio, but he couldn’t get through.

D.B. had, in fact, heard Tanto. He’d yelled “No!” in response, though Tanto didn’t hear him. With an unsecured guard shack and a darkened vineyard before him, D.B. wasn’t about to turn his back to potential threats and unlock the gate.

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.