Close Quarters

THREE

I’m a close protection specialist. I run security, evaluate risks in hostile situations and, where needed, provide hard cover. To do my job I have to look ahead of where a principal is going to be at any time, checking details, terrain, routes in and out — most especially out — and providing the best possible solution for a happy outcome. If it works the principal won’t even know I’m there and will go home happy. If it doesn’t, I get involved.

Which is where the hard cover comes in; it means I fight back. Like in Tehran.

Traditional security pros — the kind who wear suits and ties and have those little squiggly wires tucked behind their ears, work up close and personal in teams several operators strong. They cluster tightly around the VIP in a physical screen, their function to display a visible deterrent to a would-be assailant. If attacked, they provide a rapid evacuation exercise and get their VIP out of harm’s way. Mostly it works fine.

The main problem is if the threat comes from outside the obvious security cordon. And the larger the perimeter, the longer it takes to shut down. By the time the team reacts and mounts a search, especially if the target area is surrounded by tall buildings or raised elevations from where a sniper can calmly take his shot, the VIP is down and the shooter is long gone.

Staying back, I get to see more of what’s going on in the surrounding area. If the principal suddenly becomes a target and I’ve done my job right, I can take preventative action. That might mean snatching him or her up by force if necessary and moving them on. Mostly it comes down to neutralising the threat before they can attack. No fuss, no mess. Well, maybe a little mess.

Overall, I like to be ahead of the game to see what’s coming. Like in Tehran.

I pick up most jobs by recommendation. Others I hear about through a loose network of former military personnel, spooks and private security contractors trading information on intelligence or security assignments around the world. I vet as many as I can before making a judgement, but you can’t always be too selective. And I like to work alone.

The Tehran job had come through a contact in the US intelligence world, a man who’d steered jobs my way on previous occasions. He followed it up pretty quickly with another call a few days after I got back.

‘You’re in demand,’ he’d said, when I responded to a message on my voicemail. ‘A certain government agency not a million miles from Washington wants you to ride shotgun on an operation. Level urgent and critical. You interested?’

He could have been talking about any one of a dozen agencies, all gathered around the seat of government like vultures on road-kill. But I was guessing CIA, since that was the one Arash Bagheri had worked for. Urgent and critical was how they usually operated, and they use private contractors like me. ‘Where to?’

‘That hasn’t been specified but if I’m reading the news right, it’s probably somewhere in Europe.’

Russia. It had to be — or over that way. Where else in the world right now was the focus but on Ukraine and the surrounding states? Where else might the CIA be running an operation requiring an unassigned operative like me?

By unassigned, read deniable. It’s what they call it when they want to keep their hands clean and their teeth pearly white. If the operator gets caught or blown, he’s on his own. It’s part of the risk in this business.

I’d worked in central and Eastern Europe before and knew my way around. And I had contacts from previous operations, although how much use they’d be depended on the precise location. Going in cold looking to buy resources is hard work — and risky.

But, as I was going to find out, using known resources also has its problems.

Twenty-four hours later I met up with a Clandestine Service Officer named Brian Callahan in a CIA front-office in New York. Urgent and critical was about right. This was fast work and I wondered what had got them in such a spin.

Callahan was tall and lean and had Langley written all over him. He had cropped grey hair and the eyes of one who’d spent a lot of his time peering around corners and not liking what he saw, but was capable of dealing with it. He seemed relaxed, but I could tell he was wound up tight. A man under pressure.

‘That was good work you did in Tehran,’ he’d started out, after we’d been served coffee from a Starbucks down the street and got over assessing each other. ‘Getting Bagheri out of there in one piece was a hell of a feat.’

‘You were in on it?’

‘I was an observer. It was an important mission. Pity it didn’t get us the information we needed, but at least we — you — saved an important man and got him out alive.’ He looked squarely at me as if trying to get in my head. People in his position do that a lot, I find. ‘You’re a hard man to pin down.’

I didn’t respond to that. I don’t advertise my services, and few people know where to find me. But those that do are connected and word soon gets down the line. It’s not exactly the Better Business Bureau method but it works well enough for me.

‘Have you been watching the news?’ he asked.

‘Some. I take it you don’t mean the showbiz segment.’

The smile didn’t quite work, but he tried. ‘I wish. We’d all make more money and sleep better at night.’ He tapped the desk. ‘I think this is your kind of job. I hope so, anyway. You can pull out of this anytime during the initial briefing — but only up to the point of names, places and times.’

‘Which is when?’

‘I think you’ll know soon enough. Can we proceed?’

‘Go ahead.’

His brief was simple. A foreign policy statement by Secretary of State John Kerry had made it clear that the US would stand by Ukraine during its problems involving pro-Russian separatists and a growing show of non-cooperation from Moscow in spite of talks in Geneva in April 2014 to rectify the situation between them. To that end, the White House had decided that there was a need to talk to the increasingly beleaguered Ukrainians as a show of support. But there were problems with that. In the same way as in Syria, Iran and Egypt during and after the Arab Spring, there were different factions involved, each with their own agenda. It was a nightmare of tactics, diplomacy and judgement, and someone, somewhere was going to end up unhappy.

In this instance the talks had to be low-level, which meant without any media presence, flexible in nature and ready to ship out at a moment’s notice and run for home if things got hot. Moscow was keeping a close eye on US and European Union involvement so it wasn’t going to be easy.

‘It was supposed to be a one-man operation,’ Callahan explained, ‘in and out with the minimum of noise. What the State Department calls “exploratory in nature and designed to move talks forward with various parties to find out who controls who”. What that means is finding a way of leveraging a safe outcome without getting us all involved in a messy civil war — or worse. Once Moscow goes in with all guns blazing, nobody will be able to predict the outcome.’

‘What’s the likelihood of that?’ I could guess, I suppose, but it’s always useful hearing an insider spook’s take on world events.

Callahan played it cute. He prevaricated. ‘Who knows? Our best analysts are still working on it. Putin played hardball with Georgia over South Ossetia, but scaled things back quickly. He might do the same again long enough to gain control elsewhere, but the scenario is not the same. Ukraine is a mix, some pro-Moscow, some against. The country is already divided, and the best outcome is seen by some as a split. It wouldn’t be easy but if it avoids open warfare it would be better than tanks rolling down Main Street, Kiev anytime soon.’

Good luck with that, I thought. But their intentions were good — on the surface. If the State Department wanted to help cool things down, and they had a man ready and willing to go do this, it was difficult to fault their commitment. How it would turn out was anybody’s guess. Which prompted a question.

‘You said this was supposed to be a one-man operation. What did you mean?’

He hesitated and I got a sudden sense of where the stress was coming from. This wasn’t a plan in the making, something they were sketching out on a mission board; it was a done deal. The train had already left the station. Callahan confirmed it.

‘Our man’s already in place, but under house arrest and imminent threat. I need you to go in and pull him out.’