“Communication,” he said in a British accent as he kneaded his hands. “The lack of it, primarily. That’s what we’re dealing with here. We’ve spoken about this problem week after week for months. Now we’re faced with a tragedy. A terrible tragedy. Is this what had to happen before we learn this basic lesson?”
His tone and words didn’t seem to fit the situation. Way too scholarly and intellectual, Crocker thought.
One of the men at the table said, with tears in his eyes, “We had no warning, general. None at all.”
Then several of them starting speaking at once. They were all excited, emotional, and stressed. A stocky Italian officer with close-cropped gray hair stood and tried to shout down the others.
“It’s an insult to all of us! A kick in the nuts!”
Someone else shouted, “We can’t operate like this…like stupid sitting ducks! What’s our role here, general? Define the mission.”
The British general clapped his hands and said, “First, we need to cooperate. Communication works for those who work at it. This isn’t communication. It’s shouting.”
“And accusations!” the Italian added.
“What happened to the Italians who were supposed to establish an outer perimeter around the hotel?” the only woman in the room asked.
The Italian waved a sheet of paper and threw it on the table. “Read the order! We were scheduled to relieve the Dutch at 2200 hours. The outer perimeter was the responsibility of the French.”
A French officer stood up. “That’s false! The order says, and I quote, ‘Platoon Henri IV will be deployed at the discretion of the watch commander.’ We never received a call from the commander.”
“Untrue.”
“Gentlemen, please!” the general said, trying to establish order.
Crocker had a hard time keeping the faces straight.
“Clearly, we have considerable work to do,” the general added.
“That’s an understatement.”
Someone disagreed. “The problem’s not communication, it’s cooperation. And how can we cooperate if members of the alliance have different goals?”
It was a good question, but Crocker didn’t know enough about the situation there to know what the speaker meant.
The British general cleared his throat. “Let’s talk for a minute about the specifics of what happened last night. My executive officer, Colonel Anthony Hollins, has drafted a damage and assessment report. Listen carefully.”
He nodded to a thin, sandy-haired man with a pinched face, who pushed his hair off his forehead and spoke in a high, officious voice. “Last night we experienced a massive breakdown in security.”
No shit.
“Instead of six squadrons of soldiers patrolling the streets around the hotel, we had two on duty. The Dutch who were there fought like heroes.”
The men at the table turned to a tall Dutch lieutenant colonel and nodded.
The British general said, “Thank you, colonel, and my condolences to your fallen and their families.”
Hollins continued, “The Dutch suffered the greatest number of casualties. Ten dead, four others severely wounded.”
The general cut in. “I want to say that the men who were there fought valiantly. We should all be extremely proud of them.”
Men slapped the table and exclaimed, “Hear! Hear!”
The British general lowered his head in silent prayer. When he was finished, the people around the table started murmuring again all at once.
Hollins raised his voice. “Ladies and gentlemen, if it weren’t for the swift action of our soldiers on the scene, the results could have been much worse. Let’s keep that in mind as we look at how this tragedy unfolded.”
A diagram of the streets in front of the Sheraton appeared on the wall behind Hollins. With the aid of a laser pointer, he explained how at approximately 2015 hours the previous night a truck carrying explosives had tried to back up to the front entrance of the hotel.
Crocker knew that once a suicide bomber got into proximity to a target there wasn’t much you could do but pray.
Hollins described how a NATO jeep with two Dutch soldiers inside had quickly moved behind the truck to block its access. That’s when the driver of the truck ignited the thousand pounds of ANFO, ammonium nitrate/fuel oil, he was carrying.
Crocker found it painful to sit and listen. He’d attended hundreds of such meetings following terrorist bombings, raids, and other operations-in SPECWAR (Naval Special Warfare) they called them hot washes. But this one was particularly difficult as he kept flashing back to the carnage from the night before.
He had no appetite for the grilled chicken and hummus sandwiches that were served. Nor was he interested in the bottles of wine the Italian passed around.
After lunch Jaime Remington spoke. According to the CIA’s analysis, terrorists had attacked in four directions. Forty to fifty men took part, armed with AK-47s, RPGs, explosives, and grenades. They had escaped in two directions, east and west, and left behind seven dead. None of the dead men were carrying personal items or wallets. No group had so far issued a statement taking credit.
Several of the dead attackers had the features of Tuareg tribesmen.
“Can you describe those features specifically?” the British general asked.
“They’re generally taller, solidly built, copper complexions, large black eyes, finely shaped noses.”
No mention of Anaruz Mohammed, the Chinese, Iranians, or al-Qaeda.
“You know what Tuareg means?” the Italian asked.
“People of the blue veil?”
“Abandoned by God.”
“You’d feel abandoned by God, too, if you lived in that bloody desert.”
Crocker sat with his hands folded on the table in front of him, wondering when this meeting was going to end. The most important thing he learned was that the terrorists had fled approximately fifteen kilometers east of the city, near the site of a major refugee camp.
As the hours dragged by he realized that although he was the only one in the room who had actually been at the hotel, no one was going to bother to ask him anything. He left confused and pissed off.
The sky to their right was turning bright red by the time they arrived at the U.S. embassy compound, which looked more like a house than an office building. Remington explained that these were temporary quarters. The original embassy had been ransacked by pro-Gaddafi mobs on May 2, 2011 (the same day Bin Laden was taken out in Pakistan), after the strongman’s son Saif al-Arab and three of his grandchildren were killed in a NATO air strike. Remington described how the embassy had been completely totaled-balustrades ripped off, photocopiers and air-conditioning units smashed to smithereens, cabinets wrenched open and overturned. Whole floors were doused in gasoline and burned.
The temporary compound was crammed with armed men wearing body armor. As he stepped out of the SUV, Crocker glimpsed a sign that listed all the items visitors were prohibited from carrying onto the property, including lighters, matches, radios, mobile phones, laptop computers, MP3 players, and flash drives.
They sat in a small first-floor conference room-Crocker, Remington, and a dozen other men. The air was thick with humidity. Crocker reached for the bottle of water in front of him, then saw a short man with red hair lean toward Remington and whisper into his ear. Remington turned to Crocker and nodded.
“What’s up?”
Remington said, “I need to talk to you outside.”
“Sure.”
Remington pointed to the man who had followed them into the corridor and said, “This is John Lasher. He works for us and has compiled a list of former Gaddafi bases and chemical plants that Cowens wanted you to survey.”
Lasher had piercing blue eyes.
“I thought maybe our priorities had shifted,” Crocker said.
Remington nodded. “You mean in terms of what happened last night?”
“My men and I would be more than happy to go after the attackers and nail their asses.”