The Mammoth Book of Hard Bastards (Mammoth Books) (41 page)

Up until now, I had been able to handle whatever had happened to me. Having blackouts was another thing altogether. Where had that time gone? I realized that I needed help, and I needed it now.

In 1990, when she was thirteen years old, my daughter Emma joined a youth group at Epping Forest Community Church. She had been invited by a school friend. As the months went by, Emma became a Christian and later that year was baptized. She
encouraged
my wife and my son James that it would be the best thing for them, too! Neither Jacqui nor I had ever had the inclination to go to church. It had never dawned on us that we should go to church, or even send our children. Christian living was not something that we had thought about much, although if anyone had asked whether we were Christians or not, the answer would have been “yes”. (That was before I went off the rails!) We, along with many others, thought that being born in England automatically gave us the right to label ourselves “Christian”: after all, this is a Christian country. I didn’t know much about this Christian business. In fact I didn’t want to know. Christianity was for wimps, I thought. What good was it for a 270-pound heavyweight world champion power-lifter?

Vincent Wiffin was an elder of the church that my daughter Emma attended. Jacqui had recommended him to me. It was Jacqui who told me what I already knew – that I was in desperate need of professional help. I felt I had no option but to contact this Vincent guy.

When I first met Vin in 1993 I was a bit taken aback. Here, clearly, was no wimp. I was expecting him to be a bearded,
longhaired
, pebbly-spectacled, sandal-wearing freak. Vin was none of those. Meeting up with Vincent changed my life. It sounds a bit of a cliché, but for me it is absolutely true. Vin was no fool. He was a big guy and could clearly handle himself. I had strapped my knife to my leg: I didn’t figure he would be too much trouble for me, but I wasn’t taking any chances. He knew more about me than I did about him. That was a disadvantage in my book, but I kept cool and listened to what he had to say to me.

Quickly, we built up a rapport. He didn’t preach to me, or bash me over the head with his Bible, or shout out “Sinner, sinner get thee hence,” which I was half expecting. It would have given me a good excuse to get up and walk out.

I was a first for Vin. He confessed that he had never met anyone quite like me before and had been somewhat apprehensive about meeting me. His background was very different from mine. Living in a sleepy, middle-class village in Essex he had not been exposed to the likes of me and my lifestyle. Relating my life up until that point to Vin helped me to put my thoughts into perspective. I think it opened up a whole new world for him, too! Standing on his doorstep saying our goodbyes, Vin said a few words to me that have remained with me all my life. He said, “Arthur, you have to choose.” As I walked away, his words gutted me more than anything else he had said to me at that meeting. I had to choose between Jacqui and Donna? I had to choose between my two beautiful children, or starting another family? Ultimately, I had to choose between good and evil. I had gone from a good life, with my family and job and peace of mind, to a life full of evil, drugs, violence and an immoral relationship. At this point in my life there was no peace of mind or heart. As for love: the capacity to love others, to receive their love and to love myself had gone from me. I was full of contempt for myself. Looking at others, I could see my own problems reflected in their faces: many people were selfish and so consumed with themselves that they didn’t even realize that love was missing from their lives. That is a sad, sad place to be. I had thought I had reached rock bottom before but this time it was
different
: I felt that I was on the road of no return.

It was a cold March morning when, in Spitalfields market car park, I stood, looking up at the sky with my arms outstretched and called out, “Help me God.” I didn’t know if that was how one prayed but it was the best I could do in my desperation. Arrogantly, I asked God to come into my life and sort it out.

“God,” I continued, “if you’re so clever, you come and sort it out.”

There were no angels’ wings flapping, no trumpets blowing, the sky didn’t open up and belch forth any weird and wonderful
manifestations
. Absolutely nothing. And yet a strange feeling enveloped me, soothing me, and I felt at peace with myself.

I wasted no time in making a new start. I unstrapped my precious diver’s knife and threw it into a skip nearby. Back home at my mum’s I took a drastic step in emptying my cache of drugs on to the kitchen table. My mum gasped in horror at the sight, taking in the fact that her darling youngest son was a drug addict.

I felt the need to share with people the new path that I had now chosen for my life. Vin was over the moon and congratulated me. He took me under his wing and showed me that following Jesus Christ was the only answer for my life, and that I would never again sink to those depths of depravity as long as I stuck close by Jesus.

I met with Vin over the weeks that followed, for marriage guidance counselling, then for Bible study and prayer. As I
continued
to meet with him my feelings of self-worth increased. Vin was instrumental in getting Jacqui and I back together again. Although Jacqui wasn’t a Christian yet, she was well-known in the church and some of the members were apprehensive about us getting back together too quickly. They were worried that I could be using God as an excuse to get back with Jacqui. She wasn’t convinced that I could change so quickly anyway.

The going was very slow and I missed my family desperately. I had a picture of them on my bedside, which I would sometimes hold tightly, sobbing my heart out, wanting so much to be back with them. The pain was awful. Jesus had now given me a new ability to love and, because I wasn’t able to fully put it to use, it was causing an aching and emptiness. Out of the depth of my heartache for Jacqui and the children, I cried out: “Lord, if it’s not your will for us to be together, I’ll accept it. But, I will never go back to the life I once lived, and turn away from you.”

I knew I had to pray that prayer: I wanted Jesus to know that I was truly His, and His alone, but I still desperately wanted my family back.

A few days later, Jacqui called me. It was 9.30 in the evening.

“Arthur, would you like to come over for a chat?”

As soon as I had put the phone down, I was up the stairs, two at a time. I showered and shaved and splashed on aftershave in what must have been record time.

We sat and talked until about three o’clock in the morning. Jacqui wanted to take things slowly, to see whether there was any truth in what I was telling her. Time would tell!

As I stood at the front door, I asked her if she still loved me.

“I have always loved you Arthur. It’s just that I can’t trust you. I need to be sure.”

My hopes shot up a couple of notches. I believed then that God was doing something in my wife. I was hoping that soon we would be together again. However, before my hopes of Jacqui and I being together again came to fruition, I had to square things with my children. This was a painful time for me. Again, it made me realize that my selfish lifestyle had caused a great deal of hurt to many people. My fear was that my children would reject me. What would I do then?

I sat them down one afternoon and told them about my life for the past seven years. It didn’t sound good even to my ears.

“Kids, I have got to tell you both that your dad was a drug addict.” A lump formed in my throat making it hard for me to speak. As I recounted my sorry excuse for a life, tears flowed like a river, cascading down my face and falling into my lap. My two lovely children, unspoiled by the world, cried along with me. I had lost our beautiful house and one in Spain, not to mention the fact that I let about £150,000 slip through my fingers or, more precisely, had snorted it up my nose. I had even stooped so low as to sell my wedding ring. At that time of debauched living nothing had been precious to me. Everything was expendable.

My children were wonderful.

“Dad,” my children said to me, “we’re more proud of you now, than of anything that you have ever done in the past.” I couldn’t believe that they were so forgiving. The fact that my children had not turned their backs on me encouraged me to think that perhaps Jesus Christ wouldn’t either.

Looking back on life, I have come across thousands of people from all walks of life. Many will argue against the existence of Jesus Christ, but no one can argue against the truth of my life. In the past seven years, since 1993 on that March morning when I surrendered my life to Jesus, my life has changed completely. I’m free from my eight-year cocaine addiction, my marriage has been restored, I have the love and respect of my children again, I have a decent job, I have a lovely home, my health is fully restored. And to top all that, I competed in and won another British and European power-lifting title against the same competitors – and I was drug free. On the arm of my T-shirt was printed: “The joy of the LORD is my strength” (Nehemiah 8, verse 10).

I often say and believe that I’m more of a man now than I ever was before. It takes a “real man” to be a follower of Jesus Christ in this dark, dark world. To claim that, in becoming a Christian, all your troubles vanish, you get piles of money and everything turns out great would be a lie. The truth is that no matter what your circumstances the joy of the Lord will be your strength, and Jesus will help you through them.

M
OST OF US
would unhesitatingly lay down our lives for our children or for someone dear to us whom we love. It is normal and natural. But to be willing to take a bullet and ultimately
sacrifice
your own life for another person – a person whom you may not really know or indeed care about – must make you one of the world’s toughest. There are very few people in the world willing to do exactly this, but one group of people who do this one a regular basis are professional protection specialists or bodyguards. And undoubtedly one of the toughest bodyguards working in the USA today is Thomas A. Taylor.

For thirty years Taylor was a member of the Missouri State Highway Patrol and has been a protection specialist for most of his working life. His involvement in protective operations began in 1974 when he was first assigned to the US Governor’s Security Division. He has since been part of the protective details of four different governors, eventually serving as commander of the Governor’s Security Division for eight years. He has acted as a survival tactics instructor, training hundreds of officers in dignitary protection and street survival tactics and, following the September 11 attacks, Taylor was named the Anti-Terrorism Coordinator for all Patrol operations. Upon retirement from Government Service, he headed a team of anti-terrorism specialists that evaluated the
vulnerabilities
of some of the USA’s most critical assets.

Taylor was twice elected president of the National Governor’s Security Association (NGSA) by the detail leaders for every governor in the USA. In that capacity, he served as the security consultant for the National Governor’s Association (NGA) in Washington, DC, and helped formulate security plans for NGA events all over the nation. He has also handled many protective assignments in other countries, including Russia, Greece, Turkey, Japan, Korea, China, Ireland, India, Italy and Puerto Rico. His assignments have included protective operations for many dignitaries including the Pope, Mikhail Gorbachev, Margaret Thatcher, Henry Kissinger and every US President since Gerald Ford. He also served as detail leader for the security team that protected Arnold Schwarzenegger during his campaign to become the governor of California in 2003.

Taylor currently works as a civilian protection specialist and special projects advisor for Gavin de Becker & Associates, a California-based security consulting firm that advises and protects high-risk public figures. He is a regular instructor for the Advanced Threat Assessment and Management Academy at the UCLA Conference Centre and the Academy for Protectors. Taylor was among several top threat assessment experts in the USA chosen to serve on an advisory board to develop the MOSAIC for Assessment of Public-figure Pursuit (MAPP).

Taken from Tom’s book
Dodging Bullets, A Strategic Guide to World-Class Protection
using examples of real ambushes,
assassination
attempts and actual assassinations, in this powerful and thought-provoking chapter Taylor describes in detail the anatomy of an ambush; what being in an ambush really means and how the professional bodyguard is trained to counter this possible deadly threat.

How is an ambush site selected? Where and when do ambushes occur? What factors can a bodyguard rely on to avoid an ambush?

“You must never neglect ambushes.” So states the thirteenth-century Persian author of
The Rules of War and Bravery
. A fourteenth-century Persian work,
Principles of War
, adds that “one of the most important ruses in fighting consists in ambush, and it is impossible to count how many soldiers have lost their lives or nicked their sabres in ambushes.” British historian Thomas Packenham accurately stated that “nothing concentrates the military mind so much as the discovery that you have walked into an ambush.” Usually the realization of the ambush comes too late.

In 1991, the former Prime Minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi, got out of his car and was walking through a friendly crowd at a
political
rally. Two attractive, smiling ladies, one carrying a sandalwood garland, stood near the dais to which they knew Gandhi would come. They had been stopped at a security checkpoint but had talked their way past the guards. As Gandhi reached them, the garland lady held out the wreath to him, but an alert female constable stopped her. Gandhi intervened. “Don’t worry. Relax!” he told her, and allowed the lady to place the garland around his neck. Then she knelt, as though to show respect. Gandhi reached down to help her up. The lady turned and smiled at the constable, then flipped a switch on the denim girdle around her waist. The action detonated a sash of plastic explosives around her waist, cutting her in half and killing Gandhi. In the ten-foot radius around them, seventeen others were killed and scores lay wounded. In a flash, the insidious ambush was over. Nothing left to do but hose off the street and recruit another candidate. Rajiv’s refusal to learn from his mother’s assassination – and go on trusting in providence rather than protection – resulted in him joining the fraternity of leaders killed before their time.

“A successful ambush screams failure at a security detail,” state Gary Stubblefield and Mark Monday in their book
Killing Zone
. “The ideal ambush site restricts the target on all sides, confining him to an area, a killing zone, where he can be quickly and completely destroyed!” H.H.A. Cooper accurately states that “an impeccable, professional career, attested by the years, can be destroyed in a heartbeat by a moment’s inattention, or the cruel, inexorable swiftness of the assassin’s bullet, bomb, or slashing blade.” The successful ambusher seldom attacks unless he is assured of winning. He follows the dictum of Sun Tzu’s advice [in
The Art of War
, sixth century BC]: “Battles should always be won before the actual engagement begins.” Martial arts legends refer to this concept as the “invisible fist” – landing a solid blow so that the opponent falls without ever seeing your hands. As the eighteenth-century Marshal General of France, Maurice de Saxe, points out, “If the enemy is skilful, you will see nothing!”

An ancient Chinese story is told of the general who sent a scout ahead of his army to check out a wooded area, fearing an enemy ambush. He instructed the scout to throw a stone into the woods. “If birds fly out of the woods, that means there are no soldiers there and it is safe to approach,” said the general. The soldier walked up to the woods and tossed a rock into the trees. Several birds flew out, so he knew it was safe and motioned the army to approach. As they arrived, they were ambushed and killed. It seems the enemy general had instructed his soldiers to capture some birds and hide among the trees, then release the birds when the enemy scout threw a rock at the trees. De Saxe propounded that “war is a science covered with shadows in whose obscurity one cannot move with an assured step. Routine and prejudice, the natural result of ignorance, are its foundation and support.”

Larry Salmon and Chris Reilly know about ambushes. They were awarded the 1996 Police Officer of the Year honours by
Parade Magazine
for their heroic actions in saving the lives of their
protectees.
Both men are special agents in the Diplomatic Security Service. They were on protective assignment in Burundi when an ambush hit the ambassador’s motorcade on a remote mountain road. A grenade blew up and gunmen opened fire with AK-47s. Salmon, who was wounded, returned fire, allowing Reilly to escape with the
ambassador.
As the ambush hit, Reilly reached over the driver and put the car in reverse. He manoeuvred backward away from the attack, barely avoiding a 2,000-foot drop-off, to a place where they could get turned around. Then he shifted into drive and ordered the driver to go forward so that Salmon could trail close behind in the second car with a Burundi official. Neither protectee was injured.

Forty seconds. An inconsequential amount of time when you’re reading a book, but when you’re dodging bullets in a kill zone, it’s an eternity.

The Egyptian leaders seated in the grandstand watched as the military parade passed in front of them. It was a clear day in 1981 – perfect conditions for reviewing the latest in military hardware. Everyone looked up as jets flashed by overhead. Their attention returned to the column of vehicles as a truck suddenly pulled out of line and stopped in front of the stands – probably a mechanical breakdown. A soldier stepped out of the cab and started toward the VIP area – probably to pay tribute to the president. Then they noticed a grenade arch through the air into the stands and the deadly stopwatch began. In forty seconds it would be over and President Anwar Sadat would be dead.

The terrorists – actually militant members of the Egyptian military – thought about killing Sadat at a rest house he used, but decided that it was too heavily guarded. They considered shooting down his helicopter, but Sadat utilized a shell-game defence of three
helicopters
and they had no way to predict which one he would use. They finally decided to carry out a bold daylight assault of the
grandstand
, where they knew Sadat would be sitting. As usual, success – not survivability – was the highest priority. Ironically, as part of a dress rehearsal for the parade, they were able to practise their attack, passing in front of the empty grandstand several days prior to the attack. After this reconnaissance, they were convinced that they could succeed and Sadat’s fate was sealed. The only thing standing between him and death was his team of bodyguards and the plans they would formulate for his protection at the event.

As soon as the truck had rolled to a stop and the lead terrorist had jumped down to throw the grenade, another terrorist rose up in the truck bed and opened fire with an AK-47. His first shot struck Sadat in the neck, causing a fatal wound. Sadat was not wearing his bulletproof vest under his tunic that day because it caused a bulge and made him look fat. But the armour would not have saved him anyway. Another terrorist threw a second grenade, which exploded in front of the stands. An unexploded grenade would later be found under the chair next to Sadat’s. The terrorist leader and another gunman made it to the railing in front of Sadat, while the other two terrorists gave them covering fire. The leader pumped round after round into Sadat’s body, just in case he was wearing body armour. When the firing stopped, Sadat and seven others lay dead and another twenty-eight were wounded. Sadat was airlifted to a medical facility, but the damage was too great: two entry wounds under his left nipple; one below the left knee, exiting at the top of the thigh; and several wounds in the right arm, chest, neck and left eye. Three terrorists were wounded and taken into custody. The fourth escaped, but was captured two days later.

Politics led Sadat to discourage his protectors from standing in front of the grandstand, where they could be seen by television cameras. As the truck of terrorists lumbered out of the procession and angled toward the VIPs, his bodyguards were stationed
behind
the grandstand, approximately 60 yards from their protectee, and unable to see what was coming. The attack was thirty seconds old and Sadat lay dead or dying before they were able to return fire at the terrorists. They should have considered poet Samuel Johnson’s question, “Who can run the race with Death?” Lying next to Sadat in the pile of bodies was Vice President Hosni Mubarak. He had somehow escaped injury in the attack and was named to replace the dead leader. He himself would have several brushes with death, but nothing like what he experienced on an official visit to Ethiopia in 1995.

Knowing that President Mubarak would attend the 1995 Organization of African Unity Summit, Gamat terrorists in Egypt sent a two-man advance team to Ethiopia to plan an ambush. They established residences, rented safe houses, procured additional weapons from other terrorist groups, chose the remainder of the ambush team and spent six weeks checking out possible motorcade routes. The motorcade route from Bole Airport to downtown Addis Ababa would use Bole Road, which would be lined with police and commandos. An alternate route was not even considered. An informant in Cairo called the Gamat team when Mubarak’s plane departed. An observation post near Bole Airport sighted his plane when it arrived. The ambush team at the staging house was alerted by radio when the motorcade departed the airport. They readied their three vehicles and prepared for the ambush.

Mubarak’s motorcade consisted of a lead motorcycle, a lead police car, Mubarak’s limo (an armoured Mercedes 560), a
follow-up
car, three staff cars and a tail car. An Ethiopian protocol officer insisted on a seat in Mubarak’s limo, which bumped the president’s detail leader to the follow-up car. This left Mubarak with no security officers in his limo, and the limo could not communicate with the follow-up. Due to confusion at the airport, the motorcade departed without the tail car, which contained additional security officers. It was a series of seemingly minor mistakes that would nearly have fatal consequences.

The terrorists positioned a blue Land Cruiser and a white Volvo along the motorcade route. Three other terrorists could not start their Toyota and decided to walk to the kill zone. As the sirens approached, the Land Cruiser inched on to Bole Road. An unarmed policeman and a commando with an AK-47 approached the vehicle and ordered it to leave. Both were shot and the vehicle pulled into the road, launching the ambush prematurely.

Two terrorists, armed with AK-47s and armour-piercing rounds, began running toward the motorcade, firing on full automatic. Police and commandos returned fire. The lead motorcycle fell over. The lead car drove into the kill zone and was disabled. Mubarak’s limo stopped about 90 yards from the Land Cruiser. The follow-up driver stopped 50 yards behind the limo. The Egyptian security officers in the follow-up ordered the Ethiopian driver to pull closer, but he ignored the order, forcing the officers to get out and return fire. A counter-sniper team on a nearby rooftop opened fire on the terrorists. Mubarak ordered his Ethiopian driver to make a U-turn. He backed up, crossed the median and fled to the airport. He was pursued by the follow-up car, leaving Mubarak’s security force behind and forcing them to commandeer a vehicle.

Three terrorists were killed in the fire-fight, but four survived and escaped. Mubarak arrived at the airport unscathed. His limo took six hits: two in the right front door, one on the hood and three in the roof, apparently from the counter-snipers, giving new meaning to the phrase “with friends like these, who needs enemies?” Mistakes were made on both sides and Mubarak was lucky to escape alive. The Ethiopian government’s intelligence operation had looked at potential problems from local threats but incredibly did not consider the possibility of a group coming in from outside their country. Soon after this incident, several changes were made in the security
procedures
used to protect Mubarak, and he remains alive to this day.

Fate lashed out again at President Mubarak in September 1999 while he was riding through Port Said in his armoured vehicle. As Mubarak extended his arm out his window to wave at the passing crowds, a man rushed up and cut the president’s hand with a sharp instrument. Mubarak’s guards quickly shot and killed the man, who was said to have been mentally disturbed. Mubarak’s wound was treated with a disinfectant and he went on to deliver a speech in which no mention of the attack was made. News accounts stated that one of his guards was hit by a stray bullet and wounded, but government sources said the wound – a cut finger – occurred when the guard tried to stop the assailant from reaching the car. However, videotape footage taken after the attack showed someone pointing to a bullet hole in Mubarak’s limo. It seems that Mubarak’s security people had as much luck hitting the protectee’s car as they did the assailants themselves. This kind of incident illustrates the risk to the protectee when friendly fire turns not so friendly.

World-class protective specialists understand the dynamics of ambush situations. Leo VI, the Byzantine emperor also referred to as “Leo the Wise”, composed
The Taktika
(Tactics) around AD 900, in which he instructed, “When the enemy sees you making a habit of [manoeuvres], he will inevitably take the opportunity of setting a trap, into which you will fall. A single pattern of behaviour soon becomes known; he who varies his practice will embarrass his opponent and keep him in a permanent state of uncertainty.”

In 1995, Macedonian President Kiro Gligorov was killed when a remote-controlled car bomb exploded as his armoured Mercedes drove by, ripping it apart. Besides Gligorov, his driver, his
bodyguard
and three pedestrians perished in the blast. His route to the office was well known and his car often slowed at the location of the bomb. In a way, the terrorists did not pick Gligorov’s kill zone, he did!

Gary Stubblefield and Mark Monday advise: “the most
dangerous
area for the executive is the 200 yards around his home or office.” In 1987, following the assassination of George Besse,
president
of the Renault car company, French police conducted an
intensive
investigation to capture the Direct Action terrorists who were responsible. They raided a farmhouse and discovered over sixty video tapes of Besse and other prominent French businesspeople. All the tapes showed the executives going about their daily routines around two locations: their home and their office. The terrorists were clearly looking at a group of potential targets and narrowed down the list to Besse as being the most appropriate to their cause, the most accessible and the most predictable.