I was trained in one of those secret army units where close personal protection is part of the curriculum. I plied that trade among many others for a long time, all over the world. I am a medium-sized man, lean, fast, full of stamina. Not quite a marathon runner, but nothing like a weightlifter. I left the army after fifteen years of service and took jobs through an agency run by a friend. Most of the work was in South America. Most of the engagements were short.
I got into it right when the business was going crazy.
Kidnapping for ransom was becoming a national sport in most of South America. If you were rich or politically connected, you were automatically a target. I worked for American corporate clients. They had managers and executives in places like Panama and Brazil and Colombia. Those people were considered infinitely rich and infinitely connected. Rich, because their employers were likely to bail them out, and those corporations were capitalized in the hundreds of billions. Connected, because ultimately the government would get involved. There was no greater sense of connection than a bad guy knowing he could talk in a jungle clearing somewhere and be heard in the White House.
But I never lost a client. I was a good technician, and I had good clients. All of them knew the stakes. They worked with me. They were biddable and obedient. They wanted to do their two years in the heat and get back alive to their head offices and their promotions. They kept their heads down, didn’t go out at night, didn’t really go anywhere except their offices and their job sites. All transport was at high speed in protected vehicles, by varied routes, and at unpredictable times. My clients never complained. Because they were working, they tended to accept a rough equivalent of military discipline. It was all relatively easy, for a while.
Then I left my friend’s agency and went into business for myself.
The money was better. The work was worse. The first year, I traveled the world, learning. I learned to stay away from people who wanted a bodyguard purely as a status symbol. There were plenty of those. They made me miserable, because ultimately there wasn’t much for me to do. Too many times I ended up running errands while my skills eroded. I learned to stay away from people who weren’t in genuine need, too. London is a dangerous town and New York is worse, but nobody truly needs a bodyguard in either place. Again, not much to do. Boring, and corrosive. I freely admit that my own risk addiction drove my decisions.
Including my decision to work for Anna.
I’m still not allowed to mention her second name. It was in my contract, and my contract binds me until I die. I heard about the opening through a friend of a friend. I was flown to Paris for the interview. Anna turned out to be twenty-two years old, unbelievably pretty, dark, slender, mysterious. First surprise, she conducted the interview herself. Mostly in a situation like that the father handles things. Like hiring a bodyguard is the same kind of undertaking as buying a Mercedes convertible for a birthday present. Or arranging riding lessons.
But Anna was different.
She was rich in her own right. She had an inheritance from a separate branch of the family. I think she was actually richer than her old man, who was plenty rich to start with. The mother was rich, too. Separate money again. They were Brazilian. The father was a businessman and a politician. The mother was a TV star. It was a triple whammy. Oceans of cash, connections, Brazil.
I should have walked away.
But I didn’t. I suppose I wanted the challenge. And Anna was captivating. Not that a personal relationship would have been appropriate. She was a client and I was close to twice her age. But from the first moment I knew she would be fun to be around. The interview went well. She took my formal qualifications for granted. I have scars and medals and commendations. I had never lost a client. Anything else, she wouldn’t have been talking to me, of course. She asked about my worldview, my opinions, my tastes, my preferences. She was interested in compatibility issues. Clearly she had employed bodyguards before.
She asked how much freedom I would give her.
She said she did charity work in Brazil. Human rights, poverty relief, the usual kind of thing. Hours and days of travel in the slums and the outlying jungle. I told her about my previous South American clients. The corporate guys, the oil men, the minerals people. I told her that the less they did, the safer they got. I described their normal day. Home, car, office, car, home.
She said no to that.
She said, “We need to find a balance.”
