Long Shot | 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi

Chapter 7

Shoving my useless belongings, like a few stray bullets and a few empty mags, out of the way, I rampantly dug through my cubby and started to pull on my protective gear. Beside me, Boon was pulling his vest over his head and Tanto was loading his gun. If there was one thing about me that made me sure I was cut out for this sort of job, it was the way I held my nerves together when shit started to hit the fan. Despite the yelling and gunshots ringing out through the night air in the distance, I was still as calm as I had been five minutes ago.

Once I was all suited up, I grabbed my pistol, loaded it, and shoved it into the straps of my vest before reaching for my primary weapon, a good ol' AK. "You good to go?" Tig turned to me as he grabbed something off of the table and headed for the door.

"Yup, right behind you." I assured him as I tightened the waist strap around my vest one last time for good measure.

Once outside, where the chaos levels around the compound reached a higher level, I met up with Rone who was standing right beside Bob. "What do we got, Chief?" I asked as I walked over. "How many?"

"Twenty to forty attackers." Bob responded. "State personnel separated in several positions."

Bob's breathing was heavy and he was talking fast, which meant he was scared. Having a chief who was scared wasn't good business for the other CIA operatives around the Annex, so my only hope was that he would be able to pull it together fast and assure the people that everything was going to be okay.

"Can we-" I began, but my sentence was cut off by a loud explosion in the distance, followed by multiple gunshots.

"What's that?" Bob's head spun fast in the direction of the noise.

Rone listened for a second. "I hear AKs. RPGs."

As soon as the other guys (excluding Oz, since he was still away on his mission) had joined us outside, Rone gathered us all together. "Listen up." he started. "None of you have to go. But we are the only help they have."

When no one showed any signs of backing down or walking away, Rone gave a proud nod. "Two vehicles, staged and ready. Let's go! Move! Move!" he ordered.

Splitting off into two groups, we got to work on what Rone wanted and started prepping two separate vehicles. I could tell Bob was uneasy as he watched us though, because his wide eyes kept switching from Rone to us, over and over again, as if he were trying to understand what we were doing.

"Tripoli? Tripoli, Benghazi is under attack." I heard a voice call out over Rone's radio; fear and panic obvious in the tone. "The Ambo is in the safe haven. We are overrun. We need immediate assistance. We need some fucking help!"

"Twenty to forty Tangos, that's a substantial force." Rone turned to look at Bob. "We got to go right now, Chief."

Bob shook his head adamantly, just like I predicted he would do. "We have no authority at the consulate. We have no jurisdiction in this country. We're not supposed to be here."

"But we are here." Rone defended his side of the disagreement.

Bob sighed heavily. "We're coordinating with 17 Feb. They're gonna take the point."

"Absolutely not." Rone barked. "You have a U.S. Ambassador at risk. Send us, Chief. You've got to send us."

"The Ambassador is in his safe haven with his body man. You're not the first responders. You're the last resort. You will wait."

Just then, Tanto drove up in the second vehicle, which gave us two ready modes of transportation and no orders to go anywhere yet. "Amahl!" Tanto called as he exited the driver's seat. "If we link up with 17 Feb, none of us knows the language. We need you, man. Come on."

Amahl unfolded his arms from his chest as he stared, wide eyed, at Tanto. "Hey, hey, what? Tanto, I'm not a combat interpreter! I'm not weapons qualified." Sighing, Tanto pulled out his pistol, cocked it, and handed it over to Amahl. "What is this?" Amahl asked as he took the weapon.

"Now you're qualified." Tanto explained. "Get your helmet and armor. Let's go."

Boon watched in slight surprise as Amahl walked off without another word to get his gear. "That dude ain't coming back." he commented.

"Annex, we have attackers on compound. We need immediate help. We are under attack."

Seconds later Amahl walked out with nothing more than a vest, an oversized helmet, and the pistol that Tanto had given him. "Boon might be right." I huffed as Jack stopped beside me. "He's not ready for what we're gonna see out there."

"Let's go!" Tanto yelled as he paced back and forth near the vehicles. "We got to fucking move! Could be the start of the Holy War."

"You gonna fight the Holy War in your shorts?" Boon retorted as he walked over to the passenger's side, his eyes trailing down to the cargo shorts Tanto was wearing. "Strong move."

Ignoring the comment made by Boon, Tanto turned to look at the rest of us, his face contorted into a quizzical look. "What the fuck are we waiting for?"

"We're holding." Jack answered. "He's going with Feb 17 again."

Tig shrugged. "He doesn't want to expose the annex."

Adjusting my AK in my arms, I walked over to the jeep that Tanto and Boon were in and opened the back door so I could put my gun down inside. "I'm riding back here." I informed them as I stood with one foot inside the vehicle and the other still on the ground, ready to get in or take off running at a moment's notice.

"Fucking mess." Boon grumbled to himself as the explosions and gunshots continued to ring out one after the other. "It's like a damn fireworks show over there."

Huffing loudly in clear frustration, Tanto grabbed the radio attached to his vest and pressed the button on the side. "Seriously, guys, if the consulate ordered a fucking pizza it would've been there by now."

Climbing up onto one of the roofs, Jack's face flushed as he caught sight of the compound in the distance. "How bad is it?" I called up to him.

"It's on fire." he told me as he started to climb back down. "The whole fucking thing is on fire."

"GRS, where are you guys? Please help."

"Guys, come on, they're gonna die over there!" I too started to grow angry at the fact that we were just sitting around while there were innocent people a mile away from us being attacked.

"They're digging in now, Rone." Tanto called. "We need some air support. A Spectre gunship, an ISR drone...American firepower, man."

Rone's face grew red as he looked around at all of us, knowing full well that by then we should have already been over there helping out. "I know what we need." Rone growled. "Chief! Twenty minutes now. It's going from a rescue mission to a suicide mission. Let us loose. Lives are at stake."

"You are not direct-action elements." Bob continued to put his foot down against letting us leave.

"Chief, think." Jack spoke up. "You let them take that consulate, where do you think the next target's gonna be?"

"Annex, we need your help. If you do not get here soon, we are all gonna fucking die."

Those last words from the men over at the compound were what drove Rone over the edge. He gave Bob one last look in the eye, his glare saying all that it needed, before he turned on the spot and began stalking towards the vehicles. "Amahl, get in the fucking car now." he ordered. "Let's go! Now! Let's go!"

With that, I jumped the rest of the way into the back of the jeep with Tanto and Boon and closed the door. The window was down though, so I could still hear Bob yelling at us to cease action. "Amahl, stop!" Bob called after him. "Do not leave this compound, Amahl."

"Get in, Amahl." Tanto ordered, and with that, Amahl crawled into the back of the jeep with me. Clearly, his morals were in the right place, unlike Bob's.

"Amahl! You're not cleared to go!" Bob tried one last time to stop him, but before he could even finish his sentence we were gunning it out of the annex walls.

"Tripoli, we need immediate assistance. We need fucking help now!"