13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened in Benghazi (12 page)

When the attackers rushed in, the three armed 17 February militiamen and the five unarmed Blue Mountain Libya guards fled to points south and east inside the Compound. Relying on the Libyan guards to sound the alarm, alert the DS agents, and serve as a first line of defense had been a mistake, as they did none of those things before abandoning their posts. They scurried through the darkness in the direction of the Cantina and the TOC, where they knew they’d find the better trained and better armed DS agents. Some of the Libyans employed at the Compound apparently kept going, all the way to the back gate that led out to the Fourth Ring Road.

With the main gate open and the guards gone, the attackers met no resistance. They surged unchecked onto the manicured grounds. Almost immediately upon storming the Compound, the attackers had the property under their complete control without a single shot being fired in their direction.

From that point forward, their actions suggested a blend of tactical planning, perhaps based on reconnaissance, and opportunistic rampage. The attackers grabbed five-gallon fuel cans that were stored alongside new, uninstalled generators next to the 17 February barracks, just inside the main gate. They sloshed diesel fuel around the barracks building and on two vehicles parked nearby, then set them
ablaze. As orange flames and acrid black smoke shot into the night sky, the invaders rushed toward the heart of the Compound: Villa C.

Inside his room in the villa, Sean Smith heard the uproar as it began. “FUCK,” he typed to one of his gaming friends. “GUNFIRE.”

Alec Henderson, the DS agent doing paperwork in the TOC, heard shots, too, along with an explosion. The DS agents were used to hearing gunfire and fireworks when the sun went down, but these sounded much closer than usual. Henderson stood from his desk and walked to the TOC window but saw only the sandbags stacked outside. As he returned to his desk, Henderson glanced at a large video monitor that simultaneously displayed a checkerboard of black-and-white images from roughly a dozen surveillance cameras scattered around the Compound. His focus narrowed to a square on the monitor that showed the feed from a camera pointed at the main driveway.

In a matter of seconds, the screen showed sixteen to twenty armed attackers rushing into the Compound through the front gate. At least two carried banners the size of twin bedsheets, one black and one white, both with Arabic writing.

Tearing himself away from the monitor, Henderson flipped the switch on the alarm system, which blared its warning siren from speakers throughout the Compound. A recorded voice repeatedly warned: “Duck and cover! Get away from the windows!” Henderson pressed the talk button on the public address mic and shouted: “Attention on
Compound, attention on Compound! This is not a drill!” He released the button and the recorded voice and alarm resumed, sounding like a British police siren with its endlessly alternating “hi-lo” cadence.

Henderson grabbed his iPhone and called the nearby CIA Annex and the US Embassy in Tripoli. “Boss,” he told John Martinec, the chief DS agent in Tripoli, “we’re getting hit!”

As Henderson worked to alert the Compound and secure help, gunshots rang out from multiple locations as the terrorists gained control of the property. Following protocol, he returned to work and established himself as the emergency communications officer, using his cell phone and radios to remain in contact with the Annex, Tripoli, and his fellow DS agents on the Compound.

The sudden explosion of gunfire and chanting from the men rushing into the Compound roused the four DS agents at Villa C. The Tripoli DS agent who was watching a movie ran outside to join Scott Wickland, David Ubben, and the other Tripoli agent on the patio. Ubben ran about fifty yards to the other side of the Compound with the Tripoli agents, toward the Cantina and the TOC, to collect their M4 assault rifles, armor, and other gear from their rooms.

As Stevens’s “body man,” Wickland had primary responsibility for the ambassador’s safety. He ran inside Château Christophe and retrieved his kit, which included a combat shotgun along with his assault rifle, body armor, and radio.

Wickland quickly rounded up Stevens and Sean Smith in the semi-darkened villa. Shouts and chants and pops of gunfire echoed outside. Wickland instructed the
ambassador and the communications expert to don their body armor as he locked all three of them behind the gate in the villa’s safe-haven area. The DS agent gave Stevens his cell phone and radioed Alec Henderson in the TOC, to let him know their location and that they were secure for the moment.

With his rifle, shotgun, and pistol ready, Wickland found a protected place inside the safe haven from which he could watch the gate without being seen by anyone on the other side. The defensive position gave him a clear line of fire to anyone attempting to breach the safe haven.

Using Wickland’s cell phone and his own, Stevens feverishly called the embassy in Tripoli and his local contacts for help. Stevens twice dialed the number for his top deputy in Tripoli, Gregory Hicks, but Hicks didn’t answer.

Around 9:45 p.m. at the US Embassy in Tripoli, chief DS agent John Martinec burst into the villa where Hicks was watching one of his favorite television shows.

“Greg! Greg!” Martinec yelled. “The consulate’s under attack!” By calling the Compound a consulate, Martinec was using common diplomatic shorthand; the Benghazi Special Mission was never officially a consulate. After delivering the message, Martinec rushed back to the embassy’s Tactical Operations Center.

Hicks reached for his phone and found two missed calls, one from Stevens’s cell phone number and one from a number he didn’t recognize. He hit reply on the second number and Stevens answered: “Greg, we’re under attack!”

As he spoke with Stevens, Hicks moved toward the embassy’s TOC. Cell phone service was spotty in Tripoli,
and Stevens’s call cut out as Hicks began to reply: “OK…” He repeatedly tried both numbers from the missed calls on his phone but couldn’t get through.

When he reached the embassy TOC, Hicks found John Martinec on the phone with Alec Henderson, his counterpart in Benghazi, who remained holed up in the TOC at the Benghazi Compound.

Henderson reported that all seven Americans on the Compound were accounted for, and that the ambassador and Sean Smith were inside the safe haven with Scott Wickland. Martinec spread the word.

Hicks showed another DS agent the unfamiliar number on his phone, the one he’d used to reach Stevens. The agent told Hicks that the number came from a cell phone belonging to the ambassador’s body man, Scott Wickland.

Martinec ended his call with Henderson and briefed Hicks, telling him that at least twenty armed attackers had breached the Benghazi Compound. Hicks phoned Bob, the CIA chief in Benghazi, who told him that the Annex was aware and preparing to send help. The Annex’s small team of operators was jocking up, each one ready, willing, and confident they could repel the attack and save the trapped Americans.

When he left Villa C, Ubben ran to his bedroom in the TOC to grab his kit. One of the Tripoli DS agents also rushed to the TOC, mistakenly believing that the ambassador was inside. When the agent learned that Stevens was in the villa, he sprinted several yards across a brick patio and into the Cantina, to reach his bedroom so he could arm and armor himself. There he ran into his fellow Tripoli-based
DS agent, and together they decided to return to Villa C to help Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, and Scott Wickland.

A brick driveway, roughly five yards wide, separated the Cantina from Villa C. When the two Tripoli DS agents cautiously stepped outside the Cantina, they bumped into one of the local Blue Mountain guards who’d fled when the attack began. Staying together, the three men approached the driveway that they knew they’d have to cross to reach Villa C.

Armed intruders crowded the darkened driveway not far from where they intended to cross. Trying to reach Villa C would have exposed their whereabouts and made them easy targets in a firefight. The Tripoli DS agents and the Blue Mountain guard retreated inside the Cantina and barricaded themselves in a back room.

After gathering his guns and gear, David Ubben remained with his fellow DS agent Alec Henderson inside the securely locked TOC, working the phones and radios while watching the video monitors to see the ongoing attack around them. In addition to the US Embassy in Tripoli and the nearby CIA Annex, they called the headquarters of the 17 February militia and the Diplomatic Security Command Center in Washington, where the local time was approaching 4:00 p.m.