Just 2 Seconds (4 page)

Nature has developed remarkable defense systems, from the shell that protects the turtle, to the well-armed hive that reacts to intruders with single-minded coordination, each citizen willing to give everything to protect the queen. And yet, no matter how sophisticated or long-evolved a defense system might be, predators still catch prey off-guard frequently.

Mankind deploys its most impressive defense strategies and resources to protect a relatively few people. People are protected because of love or confidence, fear or admiration -- the reason hardly matters; even a criminal sentenced to death has someone committed to keeping him safe, lest the prison be robbed of its prey prematurely.

Predatory animals usually devour prey in order to convert flesh into fuel. Most human predators, however, seek power, not food. To destroy or damage something is to take its power. This applies equally to a political movement, a government, a campaign, a career, a performance, a fortune, or a religion. To push a pie into the face of the world's richest man is to take his power, if only for a moment.

When viewed as a contest between predator and prey, assassination looks much like predation in nature: The surprise, the sudden movement, the burst of hostile energy, the jerky resistance, the wish to escape. Most often, there's no real chase; the predator seems to come from nowhere and from everywhere at the same time. Even the most impressive defense systems, even those that could be lethal to the attacker if deployed, usually don't get deployed because there just isn't enough time.

If an animal taken by a predator could speak after the fact, he'd likely tell us the same thing we hear after an assassination:
"It all happened so fast; there wasn't time to do anything."
But with man, there usually is.

Time is the central theme of this book, and we are committed to respecting yours. Accordingly, this is a book of just five chapters -- five chapters that explore five seconds or less. Though our research netted plenty of interesting stories, insights, and ideas (some of which are presented in the Compendium and Appendices), here for easy reference is a brief look at the essential lessons covered in the next four chapters:

Essential Lesson of
Chapter Two ("Time")
:

Attackers are profoundly handicapped by time, and ready protectors who are in position to respond can prevail, almost always.

See attacks as races. You'll win if you start at roughly the same place as your opponent, and at the same time as your opponent (or as close in time as possible). When attackers and protectors are on an even playing field, protectors will almost always prevail.

Time is the thread that weaves together every chapter and every story in this book. For example, in the chapter entitled "Space," about location and distance, the true relevance of being close to an attacker or close to your protectee is that your proximity reduces the
time
it takes to reach him. You'll learn the welcome news that the physics of attack favors protectors. Just knowing this fact can help protectors prevail.

Essential Lessons of
Chapter Three ("Mind")
:

All attacks happen at the same time: Now. If you intend to meet the attack, you must be there mentally, not just physically.

The information and concepts in this book are intended to prepare your mind to be present during the one and only time in which anyone can possibly pose a threat: the present, Now. That's also the only time in which a protector can possibly do anything relevant to safety. Everything that happens, happens now. And yet most of our mental energy is spent (or misspent) on things that happened long ago, things that haven't happened yet, and things that never will. Memory is a fine servant, but a terrible master. For protectors, thinking about nearly anything that occurred a moment before now becomes as destructive to effectiveness as worrying about something that happened a decade ago.

Essential Lessons of
Chapter Four ("Space")
:

Every location contains inherent advantages and disadvantages; whatever hand you are dealt can be improved by advance work, set-up, and positioning.

For most types of attack, 25-feet of space between attacker and target just about assures the protectee's survival.

Essential Lesson of
Chapter Five ("See")
:

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

During protective assignments, you are not always presented with someone behaving in a way that is an obvious call for your attention. Too many bodyguards feel that their job is to wait until an alarming behavior presents itself. But as history makes clear, waiting is not an effective strategy in protective work. Stay present to your task by choosing the best suspects from the people in the protectee's environment -- and then assume the position and readiness to respond in the event of alarming action.

If you create suspects, even those with little obvious basis will help you stay connected to your mission and to the Now. You will be observing people through the lens most likely to focus on danger if it is there. Most people you select as suspects will not, of course, turn out to be attackers, but in the event of an actual attack, it's better to be focused on someone three people away from the attacker than to be three months away, in mental time-travel. This truth, and every concept in the book, can bring benefit to all warriors, whether in protection or police work, security, personal self-defense, or the military.

The training academy at Gavin de Becker Associates teaches the acronym LADDER to describe the elements required for effective protection:

LADDER
Logistics
Advance
Distance
Deterrence
Evacuation
Response

Logistics
-Ensure the ability to move without interference or delay. A protectee who is able to keep moving makes a more difficult target for attackers, and a less inviting target for those considering attack.

Advance
-Have detailed knowledge of sites, routes, resources, emergency locations, schedules, known adversaries, likely occurrences; make this knowledge available to all who need it, and use this knowledge to enhance every environment the protectee will pass through.

Distance
-Establish and maintain the maximum practical distance from protectee to public; establish and maintain the minimum practical distance from protector to protectee; establish and maintain the minimum practical distance from protector to the closest members of the public.

Deterrence
-Display protectors' highest readiness and effectiveness at all times.

Evacuation
-Establish and maintain exit routes unblocked at all times.

Response
-Maintain readiness and the highest ability to respond to attack or hazard at all times.

LADDER serves as a checklist for protectors, a reminder to constantly confirm that each element of effective protection is in place. Though this book is about just the last rung in the ladder -- Response to Attack -- you'll see that studying it brings insights that are relevant to all other aspects of protection. By devoting a whole book to the few seconds during which attacks occur, we don't mean to imply that being able to respond to attacks is the most important aspect of protection. That would be like teaching pilots how to deploy the landing gear, and not teaching anything else. Protectors, like pilots, must learn it all, and it's clear that advance work, logistics, weapons screening, threat assessment, protective intelligence, and counter-surveillance are all more likely to favorably influence safety than the ability to respond effectively at the moment of an attack. If anything, the study of attacks makes clear that nobody wants survival to rely entirely upon what occurs during just a few seconds.

[?] Two excellent resources for further study on mental preparation are Lt. Col. Dave Grossman's book,
On Combat,
and Bruce Siddle's
Sharpening the Warrior's Edge.

"I'm as important as the start of WWI. I just need the little opening, and a second of time."

Arthur Bremer, shooter of presidential candidate George Wallace

Essential Lesson of this Chapter:

Attackers are profoundly handicapped by time, and ready protectors who are in position to respond can prevail, almost always.

Imagine you are a bodyguard about to be profoundly tested. In your peripheral vision to the right, you can see the outline of your protectee. But your attention is drawn 15 feet to your left, to an athletic-looking man in a sports coat. There are a few people milling about behind him, but they are minor details because as surely as you've ever known anything, you know this man is about to draw a weapon. And you know your protectee is his target.

Though he's trying to appear casual, you catch him looking directly at you for an instant. In that instant, a thousand details fly back and forth between the two of you like messengers with urgent news. This simultaneous mutual assessment of adversaries has been refined over millions of years, with outcome determined not just by strength or size, but also by a precise recipe of guile, timing, speed, intellect, intuition, and commitment.

You find yourself thinking about what you'll do when the weapon is drawn, which you absolutely know is about to happen.
If only you were closer to him than 15 feet,
you think.
It would make sense to move closer to him right now,
you think. You think, you think -- realizing you are thinking rather than acting, thinking about being closer rather than
being
closer -- but something keeps you rooted where you are.

You know your protectee won't be able to move out of harm's way -- and the very next thing you know is that a gun is firing, a gun that has appeared from beneath that man's coat.

In just one second, your heart rate has jumped to 150 beats per minute, pumping blood to the muscles that move you across the 15 feet you must travel. You collide with the shooter's arm and shoulder, pushing the weapon downward. The gun continues to fire as you both tumble to the floor. Everyone present watches with perfect attention, and they'll all later agree that you moved as fast as anyone could have. They'll point out that had you reacted any slower, the shooter would have done more damage. That observation hardly matters now, however, as everyone can see a clean hole in your protectee's head.

In this instance, you're about to get something few protectors get after successful attacks: another chance. You help the shooter to his feet, hand him back his gun, and you both resume your positions standing on the marked floor. Only this time you're just 7 feet apart instead of 15 -- and for that reason, when the exercise is repeated, you have a viable chance of reaching the shooter before his bullets can reach the target.

The exercise is called TAD, short for Time And Distance. It's undertaken hundreds of times each year in our firm's training academy. The majority of attacks on public figures in America are launched from less than 25 feet, with handguns, but no matter what the weapon or the attack strategy, most of TAD's lessons about protector response will apply. Because insights drawn from TAD will appear throughout the book, here's a detailed description of the exercise:

The student in the role of attacker is given a real handgun loaded with six plastic Simunition
^(r)
rounds. He is placed 20 feet in front of the "protectee," a man-sized cardboard cutout. He is told to try to surprise the protector by drawing and firing as quickly as possible, and as many times as possible. "Your mission is to get as many shots as you can into the target before the protector reaches you and disrupts your aim."