Read Online 13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened in Benghazi by Mitchell Zuckoff - Free Book Online

suggested thatWickland was competing in the cheesy mustache competition, too. Jack and Rone were ready to declare Ubben the winner.
    The four men talked about their families and their prior military careers, Jack and Rone as SEALs, Ubben in the Army, and Wickland as a Navy rescue swimmer. Wickland and Ubben confided in the operators that they’d repeatedly requested more Diplomatic Security personnel at the Compound because they were short-staffed. Those requests had fallen on deaf ears, they told Jack and Rone, and they couldn’t understand why.
    In an effort to help, the operators arranged a drill to teach the DS agents ways to respond to a terrorist attack. The scenario called for an enemy force to attempt to overrun the Annex, but the operators explained that the same principles would apply if the target were the diplomatic Compound. They rehearsed how to respond to “active shooters” inside the walls, and how to keep track of all personnel who needed protection, above all the ambassador, a practice the operators called “accountability.” The operators demonstrated the protocols they used for such events, to simultaneously repel an attack and ensure the safety of the staffers they called “non-shooters.” By the time the drill ended, Jack concluded that their small numbers and their lack of special-operator military training would put the five DS agents who’d be guarding the ambassador at an extreme disadvantage if the Compound came under attack.
    Sitting around together over morning coffee, Jack and Rone frequently discussed flaws in security at both the Compound and the Annex. As contract operators, they were powerless to change the security system. But that didn’t stop them from identifying holes in the defensiveshield, anticipating ways terrorists might exploit them, and brainstorming potential responses. Some of the weak points they discussed were structural, involving the Annex and Compound properties’ designs. Some perceived problems focused on staff levels and training. The macabre scenarios ranged from a truck bomb parked outside the Annex wall to a large force of attackers overrunning the Compound.
    As the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks approached, coinciding with the ambassador’s planned visit, Rone taped an eight-by-ten sheet of paper to a whiteboard in the GRS Team Room. On it was a printed warning that the GRS operators felt certain had come from somewhere higher up the chain of clandestine services in Washington. As several operators recalled, the intelligence cable warned:
Be advised, we have reports from locals that a Western facility or US Embassy/Consulate/Government target will be attacked in the next week.
If those weren’t the exact words, that was the unambiguous message the operators took from the cable.
    As a precaution, the operators moved their body armor, long guns, ammunition, night-vision goggles, and other tactical gear into their bedrooms, so they could more quickly “jock up,” as they called preparing for battle. Discussions had been under way for some time about “co-locating” the Compound and the Annex on the same property, so Bob the Annex chief suggested a trial run. He urged the Diplomatic Security team at the Special Mission Compound to move to the Annex during the ambassador’s visit, for added layers of protection. The offer was declined.
    In the days after Rone posted the intel cable, GRS team members signed their initials on the paper to show that they’d read it. It remained on all of their minds, but nonewere unnerved by it. When Oz read it, he concluded that it lacked a specific date or location, so he took no special action: “Other than just being extra vigilant, as always, it’s nothing to worry about.”
    When Tanto saw that everyone on the team had initialed the cable, he peeled it off the whiteboard and shredded it. The date was September 11, 2012.

THREE
The Ambassador

    U NDER A BLAZING L IBYAN SUN , C HRIS S TEVENS flashed his toothy