Just 2 Seconds (22 page)

Though any of the behaviors described above can qualify someone as your suspect, remember that no reason is needed. Intuition without anything further is more than enough, because intuition can see things reason cannot see. Intuition can sometimes see the story behind the person.

Assassins Are Like Daredevils

Media-age assassins are not unlike another uniquely American icon: The daredevil. As with a daredevil, all of an assassin's worth and accomplishment derives from one act, one moment. This is also true for most heroes, but unlike heroes, assassins and daredevils are not people who rise courageously to meet an emergency. Rather, the assassin and the daredevil create their own emergencies.

The daredevil who jumps a canyon on a motorcycle, for example, fantasizes about the glory of accomplishing his stunt, the fame that waits for him on the other side of the canyon. The man standing in front of you may feel he's forever a nobody unless he makes the jump, unless the wheels leave the ground, unless he commits to this attack. Everything that goes with fame is waiting for him on the other side of the canyon, but only if he jumps.

Intuition might tell you if the man standing in front of you right now is going through the inner dialogue it takes to reach his Moment of Commitment. He might have hesitated in the past, and hated himself for it, like
Arthur Bremer (Compendium #13)
:

"I want a big shot and not a little fat noise. I am tired of writing about it, about what I was going to do, about what I failed to do, about what I failed to do again and again. It bothers me that there are about 30 guys in prison now who threatened the Pres and we never heard a thing about them."

Attackers, you see, do not fear they are going to jail --
they fear they are going to fail.
If the man standing in front of you is an attacker, he probably feels in many ways like Bremer did.

Look into his eyes with your intuition, not just your mechanical vision. Does it seem to you he is standing on the edge of the canyon? Has he studied other assassins, researched his target, gotten the gun, written the letters to be found after the attack, and planned for this precise moment? Is he debating whether or not to act? While stalking Richard Nixon, Bremer wrote that he needed just "the little opening, and a second of time." Intuition can help you know if right now is that "second of time" for the man standing in front of you. If you don't see (or intuit) any of these things when you look at someone, then look at someone else; find another suspect.

Murderer Jack Henry Abbott describes the "involuntary pride and exhilaration all convicts feel when they are chained up hand and foot like dangerous animals. The world has focused on us for a moment. We are somebody capable of threatening the world."

Does intuition tell you that the man standing in front of you is somebody capable of threatening the world? If you don't feel it's so, then look at someone else; find another suspect.

The Trap of Familiarity

When you find the best suspect, how long ought you remain focused on him? Answer: As long as he is the bridge that carries your attention from one moment to the next. Even when a suspect's behavior merits continued attention, however, there's a trap that can cause you to lose interest in him.

Imagine you're a protector responsible for a specific response zone. As you become familiar with the people in your zone, those you've identified as suspects also become familiar with you. Favorably, your focus on
anyone
present is an expression of readiness to
everyone
present. As time passes, however, a protector might come to trust the people in his response zone, merely because they have not yet acted. But non-action is an illusion protectors cannot depend upon, because
every single attacker in world history, up to some point, displayed non-action.

You know the expression "familiarity breeds contempt" -- think here of "familiarity breeds exempt," a syndrome in which protectors become so familiar with those in their response zones that they exempt them from suspicion.

There's a useful analogy to be seen with flight attendants on passenger jets in our post-911 era: The doors have just been closed, and flight attendants are attentively on guard for any behaviors that might indicate a problem (people approaching the cockpit door, people seeming to watch the crew too closely, etc.). They remain suspicious of the passengers after takeoff, and might even have chosen a few pet suspects to watch. But observe these same flight attendants two hours later: All suspicion seems to have been lifted -- merely because they got familiar with the passengers. Nobody has tried to break into the cockpit, so everyone is accepted without suspicion -- and with every passing mile, attentiveness lessens. Both in the air and at a public appearance, risk might actually elevate as time goes on -- because the window of opportunity for attack is closing, and because guard is continually lowered.

Just as the passage of time can lead flight attendants to see every person as merely a passenger (forgetting that hijackers are also passengers), so can the passage of time lead protectors to see every person as merely a bystander (forgetting that assassins are also bystanders).

Unlike many protectors we've observed who become more lax as a public appearance nears its end, in our firm, we actually ramp up as uneventful minutes and hours pass, knowing that the likelihood of attack is probably increasing.

Also, there is a key aspect of protective security that most laypeople don't understand: Effective security precautions (and effective protectors) have value well beyond the day of an event. We know that would-be assassins attend public appearances well before their attack day specifically to assess accessibility and vulnerability -- essentially assessing protector performance. When we do our best work, we might be deterring and preventing an attempt by convincing the attacker that he will not succeed. When something about a particular suspect acts as the bridge that carries and retains a protector's attention from one moment to the next, and the next -- the person is worthy of continued attention, and neither familiarity nor the passage of time are reason to let effectiveness deteriorate.

We've explored several criteria for selecting suspects, as well as behaviors that would cause a suspect to self-select (e.g., insists on gaining and retaining a front position, watches security people, attends the public appearance alone, wears bulky clothing, keeps hands in pockets, has been seen at several other events, averts his eyes when looked at, or holds a stare too long). A particularly suspicious candidate might display many such behaviors; a candidate who earns less suspicion might have only one. Remember, however, that you need not build a case -- it's enough merely to have a feeling.

A suspect for a protector is not the same as a suspect for a police officer, and in fact, that is one of many reasons police officers don't always make great protectors: They tend to want to gain more information, to build a case before acting. Protectors don't necessarily benefit from more information, and they almost never benefit from waiting for something more to emerge.

Assassination isn't the only form of terrorism for which waiting is a poor countermeasure. Imagine this: Three men who've just rented an apartment are frequently seen looking through binoculars at the nearby federal building. It could be nothing, but a neighbor feels suspicious. This is the point at which many observers are reluctant to call the police until they see more evidence in support of their suspicion. But sometimes all you get is a line of dialogue, not the whole play. With assassination, like other acts of terrorism, the elements of planning and logistics happen out of view of each other. You might see just one element -- and that has to be enough.

The Ending Is Embedded in the Beginning

Though it's the Moment of Commitment we want to be ready for, the concept of Suspects Exist Everywhere challenges us to identify an attacker earlier than the Moment of Commitment -- to perceive in advance what might be about to happen. This requires protectors to do some short-term prediction.

If one were predicting whether a governor might be the object of an assassination attempt at a speech, pre-incident indicators (PINs) could include the assassin's jumping on stage with a gun -- but that's too recent a PIN to be very useful (as it provides little time for intervention). The birth of the assassin is also a PIN, but it's too far back in time to be valuable. Even though both of these events are critical intersections on the map of this particular prediction, one hopes to be somewhere between the two, between the earliest possible detectable factor and those that occur an instant before the act.

The most advanced concept of prediction has to do with just when it is that a thing starts to happen. The prediction of earthquakes provides an extreme example: There are, contrary to popular belief, reliable PINs for earthquakes. The problem is that they might be ten thousand years long, and for this reason, earthquakes remain largely unpredictable, at least in human terms. In geological terms, however, it's fair to say that the next earthquake in California has already started. The earth's actual movement is not the issue, because the ground you are on right now is moving. The suddenness is the issue.

In predicting violence, seeing any pre-incident indicator begs the question of whether we need to wait until something becomes obvious. Does an assassination attempt begin when the gun is fired at the victim, or when it is drawn, or when it is carried into the arena, or when it is loaded, or when it is purchased, or when assassination is first contemplated? Prediction moves from a science to an art when you realize that pre-incident indicators are actually part of the incident. Every attack that is going to be launched has already begun. The ending is embedded in the beginning. The ending of this book is also embedded in the beginning, and that carries us back to where we started, to the attack that brings together all the essential lessons we've shared.

When Hinckley began shooting, Presidential Aide Michael Deaver was the first person to show any detectable reaction: He ducked. Soon after, several police officers ducked, some all the way to the ground. So did the Military Warrants Officer who carries the nuclear launch codes for the President. Even though they were on a protective assignment, the fact that some police officers went all the way to the ground at the sound of gunfire is not surprising. After all, they're trained to take cover when under fire, and that's what they did. It is, however, impressive that none of the Secret Service agents visible during the attack lowered to the ground or took cover in traditional ways -- and Jerry Parr remained consistently upright until he had to bend to get into the car.

At the sound of gunfire, Secret Service Agents Ray Shaddick and Tim McCarthy both reduced their height. Shaddick, who is taller than Reagan, ended up slightly lower than the President during the attack. Still, remaining upright in the line of fire is impressive because our muscles nearly automatically pull us downward in response to gunfire (or any loud, unexpected noise). Due to the training and frame of mind of Secret Service agents, however, that natural impulse was arrested within just a fraction of a second -- a few agents moved downward a bit, but almost immediately, they stopped moving downward. In many non-agents present during the attack, the impulse was not arrested, and all the way down they went -- right to the ground. No Secret Service agents did anything like that.

Similarly, during the attack on Presidential candidate George Wallace, a Secret Service agent slightly recoiled at the sound and feel of gunfire, understandable since it occurred directly next to him. But this agent, resisting every natural impulse of the body, instantly redirected his energies toward the danger, reaching and swatting toward the gun as it was still firing. Secret Service agents have done this again and again, in ways that are physiologically remarkable given the strong instinct of any organism to recoil from danger.

The various reactions of police officers, staffers, and others present at the attack scenes is understandable given their various mindsets, but what is surprising is that even during gunfire, photographers commonly stay on their feet and, more impressively, stay on mission. That's why we have so many images of the Reagan shooting and of other dangerous incidents. During the Hinckley attack, before the door to the limousine was even closed, White House photographer Michael Evans was already snapping photos, and he continued to do so while standing in the line of fire, literally -- Shot #6 sailed right over him.