Just 2 Seconds (20 page)

This Security Staff Agent has the key role at a book signing. As each person in interacting with the protectee, S2 can actually have hands on the person, and then usher the person along as the encounter ends. In the event of any inappropriate action by the attendee, S2 already has hands on the person, and can intervene. The justification for already having hands on the person is that S2 is politely ushering the person along, guiding the person toward the exit-but it's the real benefit we're after: Already being in physical contact with each person so as to minimize the time it would take to intervene effectively. S2 then passes each attendee to S3.

This Security Staff Agent becomes responsible for each attendee when each is handed off from S2. S3 then guides the person toward the exit and ensures that each person departs the area.

This Security Staff Agent is responsible to observe the entire encounter with each attendee and intervene when appropriate. S4 is responsible to evacuate the protectee if needed.

This Security Staff Agent is responsible to remain with the cars, maintaining certainty of an uninterrupted exit route throughout the event. S5 is usually the driver of the protectee's car, and often posted right in the driver's seat, ready to depart at any time.

"I didn't want to attract too much attention standing near the barricade for so long waiting for Nixon... I wanted to shock the shit out of the SS men with my calmness."

Arthur Bremer, An Assassin's Diary

Essential Lesson of this Chapter:

In every environment, identify and assess the best suspects. They are always there.

During the early 90's, tennis star Monica Seles was deeply enmeshed in the continent's greatest conflict, the Serbs versus the Croats, and her public appearances often brought political demonstrations. Everybody knew that it made sense for her to have security at her public appearances in Europe, so when she played at the Citizen Tournament in Germany, two men were assigned to protect her.

Nevertheless, soon after arriving on the court, one of history's most brilliant athletes lay on her back, bleeding from a serious injury. She had fallen victim to a knife attack, the most preventable of all assassination methods. Why did the protectors fail and assailant Gunter Parche succeed?

One of the two bodyguards, Manfred, answers my question in the first sentence of his statement to the police: "I
am a telecommunications worker.
I have a side job for the private guard firm at the tennis grounds."

The second bodyguard's name is Henry, and his police statement, too, begins with the wrong words:
"My main job is as a loader at Hamburg harbor.
I have a side job where I am in charge of security at the tennis grounds. At this tournament, my job was specifically to accompany and look after Monica Seles."

Sadly, look "after" is precisely what they did.

Seles had the expectation that the bodyguards assigned to her would be, in fact, bodyguards, professionals with some relevant training and experience. She could expect that they would have at least discussed the possibility of a safety hazard, maybe even discussed what they would do should one present itself.

But none of that happened, and the promoters didn't tell her that the people they had assigned to guard her life were unqualified part-timers. She had to learn that when Gunter Parche plunged the knife into her back and then raised his arm to do it again.

This is not a book about the lack of professionalism one can find among people claiming to be protectors -- that book would be much longer. For our purposes here, the Seles attack is an example of the most significant type of protector failure: Those cases in which protectors saw, identified, and were suspicious of
the very person who launched the attack
-- and yet did nothing effective to prevent the attack.

Even without any relevant training, both Manfred and Henry had taken special notice of assailant Gunter Parche prior to the stabbing. Henry pegged the attacker quite accurately:

"Call it a sixth sense or whatever, I cannot explain it, but I noticed the man. Something told me that something was not quite right with this man. He was swaying instead of walking. I cannot explain it in more detail. I just had an uneasy feeling when I saw the man. As I said, I cannot explain it in more detail."

Though he clearly had a valid intuition about the assailant, his main message appears to be that he "cannot explain it."

Rather than tell anyone about his concerns, Henry decided instead to put down the coffee cup he was holding (!) even though on a protective detail for the world's most controversial athlete, and stroll toward the suspicious man to do he didn't know what. Of course, he had taken only a few steps by the time the attack had started and finished.

It is perhaps not fair to criticize Henry and Manfred, for they know not what they do. Rather, we'll let their inaction remind us that recognizing the best suspect in your environment is useful only if you eliminate the distance between you and that suspect -- right now.

But who is a suspect? Someone whom you feel merits your attention, period. He or she needn't have shifty eyes, or reveal a gun, or look like an assassin (whatever look that might be). A suspect need only be a person who merits your attention. And the best suspect among the people present is the one who most merits your attention.

You might choose that person on the basis of his behavior, actions, appearance, location, or on the basis of your intuition (which is usually the product of many valid perceptions). There may be no definable basis whatsoever -- but there is someone in every environment who, among the people present, is the best current candidate for your suspicion and attention.

For some reason, suspicion has gotten a bad name; people even feel guilty about feeling it. But when we feel suspicious, it's not something unkind we're doing to someone, and it's not something we choose --
suspicion is something that chooses us.
People don't feel guilty when curiosity arises, and suspicion is merely curiosity with an added intuitive instruction: "Keep watching." In fact, the Latin root of the word suspicion --
suspicere
-- means simply "to watch."

As protectors, though watching is a fine first step, it's the actual step you take in someone's direction that's important. President Kennedy once offered his opinion that assassination couldn't be prevented because "all anyone has to do is be willing to trade his life for the President's." While this comment has been much quoted, it is entirely wrong. First, few assassins have had to trade their lives for their target's life, and more importantly,
assassination is prevented far more often than it succeeds.
Many of the prevented attacks were stopped by the attacker being persuaded that he would not succeed if he attacked right Now. That persuasion is deterrence.

If you've taken the best possible position relative to a suspect, and he then chooses to act violently toward your protectee, it's like the doorbell ringing at the precise time you're expecting a guest to arrive: You're not surprised, you're ready for it. Conversely, when the friend you haven't seen since college shows up unexpected, your Moment of Recognition is delayed.

Why, after all, do TAD protectors prevail so often? Because they have a pre-established suspect and can do away with the time otherwise required to reach the Moment of Recognition. One might say the TAD exercise is unrealistic because the protector is able to focus on a specific suspect. In fact, however, protectors are often fortunate enough to identify people who concern them, specific suspects -- and then observe those people. Even if you create your suspects with little basis, they will help you stay connected to your mission. The truth that Suspects Exist Everywhere is easily remembered by its oh-so-relevant acronym: SEE.

There is value in giving every person present the knowing eye because the currency of your attention communicates a discouraging message: "I
know what you're up to."
When you attentively observe a suspect who has sinister intent, your attention burns like fire in his mind: He doesn't know what you know or how you know it, but he imagines he's been found out, imagines that something has revealed him, that he has lost the element of surprise, that he has failed before he's even begun.

Even a would-be attacker who has no intention of attacking today, whose only current intention is surveillance and fact-finding -- even he carries away a discouraging conclusion: "The security team is sharp." And the overly excited person who is there only to shake hands with his admired hero? He too receives the message of your knowing look, and behaves with more compliance than he might have otherwise.

Deterrence is valuable because it influences the mindset of a would-be attacker, and SEE is valuable because it influences the mental readiness of the protector: Knowing there are good suspects right here right now can transform a merely competent protector into someone who always displays currency.