13 Hours The Inside Account of What Really Happened In Benghazi (43 page)

As the Americans filed onto the plane, Bob the Annex chief again objected to leaving. He was in Benghazi as an intelligence officer, yet he was being told to evacuate with an endless list of unanswered questions about what had just happened. Bob began a new shouting match, this time with the country GRS Team Leader from Tripoli. The Tripoli T.L. exercised his authority as the ranking American security official in Libya. “You are relieved of duty!” he yelled. “You will get on that plane or I will put you on that plane.” Finally Bob complied.

The plane overflowed with Americans eager to take off. But before the pilot started to taxi, the men and women on board began to suspect that they were snakebitten with bad luck: A second accidental discharge cracked loudly, this time somewhere aboard the jet. A further delay
followed, as the crew and the operators tried to determine whether the bullet had pierced the hull of the pressurized aircraft, making it unsafe to fly.

Holy shit
, Oz thought,
are we ever going to get out of here?
The shock had worn off and so had the morphine he’d been given. He lay on the couch writhing in the worst pain he’d ever experienced. Oz tried to make jokes, to distract himself and ease the mood. But then his arm would cause him a jolt of agony and he’d unleash a torrent of curses before fighting to regain his sense of humor.

As the delay stretched on, Oz’s main concern became Ubben.
I’m going to get up with my pistol and frigging tell the captain he’s flying one way or the other
, Oz thought.
We got to get Dave to a hospital or he’s gonna die.

Finally someone discovered that the bullet had burrowed harmlessly into the metal frame of a seat. At about 7:30 a.m., the first planeload of survivors from the attacks at the Special Mission Compound and the CIA Annex took flight.

Left behind were Jack, Tanto, D.B., Tig, DS agent Alec Henderson, the two D-boys, two of the Tripoli operators, the Tripoli-based linguist, and the country GRS Team Leader, along with the bodies of Rone, Glen, and Sean Smith.

Members of the militia escort understood that the Americans would be abandoning their vehicles, so several asked for the keys. One man with pleading eyes approached Tanto for keys to a four-door BMW, a twin of the sedan with Tig’s go-bag that they’d left at the corner of Gunfighter Road.

“Vehicle, sir?” he asked. “Vehicle?”

When the operators felt certain that another plane would be coming, they emptied the vehicles of ammunition, maps, medical kits, and other tools. Tig realized that when the State Department team left in the first plane, they failed to move Sean Smith’s body from the Mercedes SUV. He got the keys and, with help, moved Smith’s body to the flatbed alongside Rone and Glen. Tanto handed the keys from the Americans’ other vehicles to the militia leader. The operators watched as the commander distributed them among his men, who flushed like teenagers with their first cars. The screech of tires as the militiamen peeled out of the airport ended the operators’ murky friend-and-foe relationship with the Benghazi militias.

Several Benghazans who’d served as local liaisons for the Annex had somehow heard what had happened and came to see the Americans off. One Libyan whom several of the operators liked burst into tears as he apologized.

“This never should have happened,” he said. “I’m really sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” Tanto told him. “You didn’t do anything. Just take care of this.”

“We will,” the man told him. “We’ll make sure people pay for this.”

“You’ve got to, or else this’ll keep happening,” Tanto said. “You got to fix this or else you won’t see us here anymore. And if you do, it won’t be as friendlies.”

Another Libyan in tears was the man who had gone to the hospital to identify Chris Stevens. He understood that there would be no American Corner at his school. The
dream of a “friendly, accessible space” where average Benghazans could learn about the United States had died along with the ambassador.

An hour after the first plane left, the operators got word that members of the force that escorted them to the airport had gone to Benghazi Medical Center to retrieve Stevens’s body. When the recovery team returned, Henderson peeled back the sheet to officially identify the remains. Stevens was barefoot but fully clothed, with no signs of injury or abuse, his eyes shut in peaceful repose. The operators placed the ambassador’s body on the flatbed with the three others.

The Libyan Air Force agreed to send a hulking C-130 cargo plane to take the remaining men and the bodies to Tripoli. While they waited for it to arrive, the exhausted operators stretched out on the tarmac to get some rest, keeping their loaded guns close at hand. They shared their cell phones to call loved ones back home to say they were safe.

Jack didn’t know what, if anything, his wife had heard on the news, so he wanted to reassure her. She was not yet three months pregnant, and Jack worried that she might miscarry if she feared that he’d been killed. Jack made sure she was calm, then told her: “Whatever you see on the news, just know that it’s over. I’m OK. I’ll see you soon.”

Jack had told his wife that Rone was with him in Benghazi, so she asked if he was OK, too. Emotions welling for the past few hours overwhelmed Jack. He began to cry. He’d survived, so there was the yang. The loss of his friends was the yin.

“He didn’t make it.”

“What do you mean, ‘He didn’t make it’?” she asked, her voice rising.

Jack could barely choke out an answer. “I’ll tell you when I get back,” he said finally. “But don’t talk about it with anybody, because next of kin hasn’t been notified. I’ll call you soon. I love you.”

Hours of waiting for the plane gave Tanto time to reflect on his fellow operators.
If it had been any other six guys, I don’t think any of us would have made it. We lost Rone, we lost Bub, and Oz got hurt, but it could have been worse. We all could have been gone. It was like we were meant to be there together. None of these guys had a panic bone in their body.

It bothered Tanto that they’d be flying out on a Libyan C-130 instead of a US military plane. The more he thought about it, the more convinced Tanto became:
If we were given what we asked for in the beginning, air support, you name it, we wouldn’t have lost Rone and Bub. And if they’d let us leave the Annex at the beginning, the ambassador and Sean would be alive.

More than two hours after the Americans arrived at the airport, the Libyan Air Force plane landed and dropped its cargo ramp. The operators drove the flatbed to the C-130’s tail. They carried aboard the bodies, two on medical litters and two on canvas stretchers. One of Glen’s arms stuck out perpendicular to his body, fixed there by rigor mortis. Tanto forced down the arm and made sure Glen was covered.

When all were aboard, the Libyan crew raised the tail
ramp and taxied for takeoff. It was about 10:30 a.m., some thirteen hours after the attack began at the Compound. They flew in silence to Tripoli, some dozing, some reflecting, all spent.

When the C-130 landed, embassy staffers met the last Benghazi evacuees at the airport, greeting them with hugs and tears. One of the D-boys brought body bags up the cargo ramp, so Jack did the last thing he could for his fallen friends. He and the D-boy unfolded the white plastic bags and spread them on the floor of the plane. They lifted Rone, then Glen, and placed each inside a bag.

Jack zippered them up and said a final goodbye.

Epilogue

W
HEN THE
L
IBYAN
C-
130 TOOK FLIGHT BEARING THE
last operators and the four bodies, the Battle of Benghazi ended as a combat engagement between Americans and their enemies. But that was only the beginning. Even before the survivors returned home, controversies exploded over how officials in Washington behaved prior to, during, and after the attack. The acrimony can be divided generally along three fronts:

• Prior to the attack: Who, if anyone, deserves blame and potential punishment for security flaws at the Compound, and did those flaws contribute to the deaths of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and Sean Smith? Four State Department employees were placed on paid administrative leave, but all were reinstated and given new jobs at State. Two later retired voluntarily.