Libyan Lurker - Hanging With the Hostage Mercenaries

TUESDAY, MARCH 29TH

Slim guys in tight jeans, berets and keffiyehs stagger around the hotel lobby. Many of these men have beards. They are the dishevelled journalists who don't have time to shower or wash their hair even though they're in a hotel with hot water. Behind the hotel restaurant, we connect to the internet in a room that reeks of Marlboro.

Overall, despite the perpetual lingering threat that the rebel frontline will be overrun by Gaddafi's forces, Benghazi seems safe enough. The rebels have prisoners and they're parading them for the journalists today. Human Rights Watch almost canceled the show because the Geneva Convention prohibits prisoners from being put on display, but the show goes on anyway, and the journalists – myself included – get their story.

It's a sketchy scene. A small guy who says he's from Chad claims he's been given Libyan citizenship and paid $10,000 USD per month to 'fight' in Gaddafi's army. He also says they've given him drugs and Viagra, and that he's been told to kill the men and rape the women. All this from a tiny guy.

Everything else is depressing too. The prisoners are forlorn but they're happy to talk to us; they've deserted. Physically, they appear to be in pretty good shape, but it's impossible to verify, as are their stories. Other journalists I speak to say some of these prisoners have given them completely different accounts of their time in Libya in the very recent past.

Despite the endless guns and the competing lenses of the press corps, nothing manages to diminish the threat of what may happen here. Sert – Gaddafi's hometown stronghold – could fall soon. If that happens, the rebels will control about 80% of the oil, which will greatly limit Gaddafi's options. What happens when you're a despot with access to only a fraction of your wealth and the world patrolling your skies? Nothing good.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 30TH

I'm discovering that war journalism is a lot like surfing: 99% of it's paddling out to sea, 1% is riding a wave that could crush you at any time. Journalists are running from the hotel in a herd because they've heard that Sert, Gaddafi's hometown, has just fallen. The older journalist I'm traveling with offers my flak jacket and helmet to our SUV driver, because it's almost always the person guiding reporters around who gets shot.

My friend who's also been accompanying me on this trip doesn't join us today. His stuff is packed ready, but he returns from a meditative shit shaking his head and saying the word "no" a lot. The fear got him and it got him good.

We fill up on gas in Ajdabiya (petrol here is free if you can find a pump). It's sunny. There are endless guys dressed in camo and plenty of smiling teenagers throwing 'V' signs. We run into a 23-year-old man named Mohammed in the lobby of the dilapidated El Fadeel hotel in Ras Lanuf. Mohammed is from San Francisco and sold his car and jumped on a plane as soon as he heard what was going down out in his mother's homeland.

He tells us the French reporters he's been working with (who, according to Mohammed, are a pain in the ass) came under fire from rockets, bullets and mortars earlier today in a ambush in Sert, just passed our planned destination in Ben Jawad. They ran off and escaped with their lives but their vehicle was destroyed. We decide to push on ahead anyway.

Presently we arrived at what seemed like a checkpoint by the Ben Jawad hospital. It turned out to be a rebel tailgate party. As always, gun fire is random and constant. Some boys begin arguing, and they bark at each other by letting AK-47 rounds off into the sky. Rebels with clean faces shout "Allahu Akbar" for the camera and I stare at a burning bus. I have no idea how it was set on fire, or by who, and I don't care. The heat feels good and the flames erupt in a nice orange.

Back at the hotel it's dark, and the rebels are acting like hooligans. A guy walks out of the hotel holding a TV. Older reporters advise us to leave. And then we realise we don't have enough gas to make it back to Ajdabiya – rookie error.

We're forced to return to our rooms. A rebel standing by the door holds a chicken by the legs. It squawks the ugly sounds of chicken death before he cuts its throat. The blood drips on the foyer and flows out onto the sidewalk. I don't know why he couldn't have taken a few steps and committed the deed elsewhere, out of my sight.

A photographer talks to me about the frontline and the yokels with rifles. Some of them wanted to smoke hash with the older journalists, and the photographer thought they wanted to make babies with her. Then somebody outside shoots tracers across the sky, which look like shooting stars as they arc upward. More macho bravado. Inside I hear the sound of smashing glass, and call my brother on the satellite phone. He prays for me, and as I feel the fear shoot through my legs I tell myself that Jesus walks with me.

Luckily, the older journalist I'm with manages to score us some gas and we get the hell out of there. We are hours from civilisation, but for some reason the fear has vanished and I find myself daydreaming about a hamburger I ate in Benghazi. We drive past a big fire on the side of the road that appears to be coming straight out of the ground. The flames glow orange and beautiful and the rebels, wrapped in blankets, are for once not shooting wildly.

Whatever happens we won't be searching the front line tomorrow, but we will try again soon.

WORDS AND PHOTOS: JEREMY RELPH