Bouncers and Bodyguards Read online

  Before we left, my team sat down with the drivers and explained how we were going to set up the convoy back to the airport, with the votes tightly protected by our vehicles and weapons. This meant that when we hit the motorway, I was in the rear car. My main task was to make sure that no one overtook us or got in between the vehicles in the convoy. I constantly swept the area from side to side all the way to the airport, making sure that no one got too close. A few times, vehicles did get too close, not really knowing who or what we were, or perhaps they were just trying their luck, and I leaned precariously out of the window, aiming my AK at them, showing them that we were armed and dangerous and that they’d better back off. I waved my hand in an up-and-down motion to show them to slow down. If they were stupid enough to ignore me, I fired a couple of rounds into the ground in front of them to indicate that we meant business. Thankfully, everyone in Baghdad is now used to a high-profile military and private security presence, and when someone points a weapon at them or their vehicles, they know precisely what to do . . . they back off!

  At the end of that particular job, most of the guys were sent home, but a few, including me, were kept back to help out on another job – to guard the new court house, which was under construction for the trial of Saddam Hussein. Our job was to control the entrance, patrol the perimeter, and check vehicles and personnel coming in and going out, making sure that no one took any photos or ‘souvenirs’ or blew themselves up! But that is a story for another day.

  AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALEX POWELL

  I was born in North Wales in 1974. Due to a change in my old man’s job, I moved to Birmingham when I was four years old. I grew up there and went to a Church of England school in Highgate – I was the only white kid in my whole year, which wasn’t easy. My parents got divorced when I was about 11 – I suppose my life changed at that point. It was no fault of my mother’s, but discipline lessened, and I realised I was able to push her boundaries a lot more than when my old man had been around. Boys will be boys.

  I started to get into trouble with the police around the time I left school – petty little things, such as smashing windows, joyriding, drunk and disorderly behaviour and plenty of fighting. I ended up on a supervision order for three years, which is like a junior version of a probation order. One day, I woke up and decided enough was enough – I had to straighten myself out. I knew that if I carried on in the same vein, I was going to end up going down – and that scared the shit out of me.

  I was just an 18-year-old kid when I took my sorry ass down to the army careers office. To my amazement, as soon as they found out about the supervision order, they told me to fuck off and come back in three years’ time. There was me trying to straighten myself out and the army shoved me back into the life I was trying to get away from. So I gathered some money together and went off to France to join the Legion. It was much easier than I expected. I arrived in France on 13 July. I secured a bed in a youth hostel in Lille for the night and got pissed with a couple of young Aussie birds who were also staying there – luckily for me, they were both gagging for it, which was nice!

  In the morning, I went into the town centre looking for a McDonald’s, as I was starving. To my amazement, there was a huge military parade through the town centre. I hadn’t realised that it was 14 July – Bastille Day! There were soldiers and tanks everywhere, and at the end of the parade I approached a soldier who seemed to be in charge of a unit and asked him if he knew anything about joining the Legion. Surprisingly, he spoke very good English, and after initially looking at me as if I wasn’t right in the head (I wasn’t), he gave me a sympathetic smile and told me to go down the road to La Citadelle, a large military base with a Legion recruitment office.

  After answering a few questions and passing a basic medical, I said goodbye to all my personal belongings and was put in a minibus with a few other recruits and sent to Marseilles. It was as simple as that, and for the following five years I was a Legionnaire.

  11

  AN EXTRAORDINARY TALE ABOUT A COVERT SECURITY OPERATION AND A SNOOPING RUSSIAN BABUSHKA

  BY INNA ZABRODSKAYA

  You might be intrigued to learn about a strange and somewhat bizarre connection between the security industry and a Russian babushka – for those of you who don’t know, babushka is Russian for ‘grandmother’ – and you may or may not be surprised if I told you that as long as we have inquisitive, interfering babushkas on guard night and day, no spy, secret agent or terrorist will ever be able to infiltrate and penetrate Russian soil unnoticed! You might also ask yourself what on earth have these sweet little old ladies to do with the security industry in the turbulent and dangerous Russian Federation? You wouldn’t believe it, but one of these sweet, innocent old ladies actually ruined my first-ever covert security operation . . .

  All day long, these elderly ladies sit on the benches that can be found near almost every high-rise apartment block in Moscow, gossiping to each other about this and that. If you are new to an area, you don’t ever have to go to the local information bureau – just ask a babushkawhat’s what. They are the best neighbourhood watch you could ever imagine, and they know everything: who went to the market in the morning and exactly what shopping they came back with; who had a quarrel with their partner or lover or friend; who left the water running and flooded the apartment below; who got engaged to whom; and who is pregnant – frequently before they know it themselves! That is our lovely Russian babushkas for you.

  After graduating from Moscow State Linguistic University in the summer of 1998, I had a part-time job as a translator and became acquainted with a former KGB officer by the name of Lev – a very experienced, educated and intelligent man. I must say that to serve and protect the interests of the Soviet Union, the KGB never failed to employ the ‘best of the best’. And these high-ranking KGB officials enjoyed good rewards for their undying and faithful service to the Soviet state – they were often deployed abroad during the Cold War when most of the Soviet citizens never went any further than the Black Sea in the south of the country. These KGB agents were probably some of the very first Russians since 1917, and the beginning of the Soviet Union, allowed to shop at the likes of Marks & Spencer. Lev would later joke that the KGB officials who operated in the UK often referred to Marks & Spencer as ‘Marx & Lenin’. And obviously these KGB officials earned good money compared with the rest of society!

  After the Soviet Union collapsed, most ex-KGB employees used their experience, intelligence, connections and knowledge of one or more foreign languages to reinvent themselves as private security consultants. And it wasn’t difficult to see that they quite quickly found a niche in a new Russia entering the capitalist era, which, ironically, they had previously fought against all their lives. Like many ex-KGB officers, Lev also started a private security company, which operated from the office next to where I worked.

  Although Lev spoke good English, he would occasionally pop into the offices of the company I worked for and ask me to help out with some administration and translation work. This was normally while he was away from the office, and occasionally the country, on business trips. He would set me certain tasks and translations for when he returned, which I always managed to complete. After carrying out a few tasks for him, he invited me into his office one day, and in a typically abrupt KGB fashion asked me what I intended to do with my life. I must admit that his question took me aback – how can a naive, inexperienced 22 year old, more or less fresh from university, know what she intends to do with her life? I had only just graduated and didn’t know what I was going to do the next day, let alone for the rest of my life. So, I stupidly gave him the only answer I could – I didn’t know.

  At the back of my mind, I realised that I had probably blown my chances of a job, as I had deduced that his question had something to do with an offer of employment. He was an old-school army officer and would have probably liked me to have been more ideologically prepared, but he gave me a satisfactory smile and confirmed that he did indeed w
ant to offer me a job. His business was expanding, and it was no longer possible for him to manage it on his own. He needed someone with good language skills to assist him full time with his increasing workload, as he was dealing with Western clients on a more frequent basis.

  Despite being fresh from university and totally inexperienced in the security industry, I did have a fairly good command of the English language, as well as a smattering of French, which I also studied at degree level, and sufficient administration skills to run a small office, so I found myself saying ‘yes’ almost immediately. I had read all of Ian Fleming’s James Bond stories and, like most teenagers, had imagined myself as one of the gorgeous Bond girls. ‘Now,’ I thought, ‘I will actually have a chance to be one!’ On my way home that day, I was on cloud nine, and my imagination went wild . . .

  And so my career in the security and investigation industry had begun. During my years with the company, we did a lot of private and corporate investigations, as well as many security operations. The first few years of Russia entering the market economy were very difficult, but as the years passed foreign investors started flooding into the country, and they needed everything from preliminary intelligence reports and data collection to interpreting and translation services and personal protection. At that time, Russia was not really safe for most foreigners but many risked their lives and welfare, as they could build enormous wealth in a relatively short period of time if they were brave and clever enough to come and set up business in the country. My boss, using his ex-KGB friends and his vast network of foreign connections, built a sound database of blue-chip foreign clientele who wanted his security and investigation services.

  I always craved action, being out in the field, undercover, spying on somebody, like those gorgeous Bond girls, making men weak at the knees with just a flutter of their eyelashes, but sadly I didn’t have very long eyelashes, and I spent the first couple of years mostly doing office work and basic administration, as well as occasionally collecting and analysing data, translating documents for Western clients and typing up report after report. It was not the glamorous, exciting industry that I had anticipated and dreamed of.

  The company continued to expand, and after two years we were employing two more ex-KGB staff, a part-time accountant and a part-time IT man. Finally, after two years of patience and frustration, my big day of field operations finally came.

  One of our clients, the deputy director of a large multinational oil company with an office in the centre of Moscow, contacted us with a suspicion that he was being followed. He was quite frightened. Back in those early days of democracy, it was not unusual for businessmen, entrepreneurs and managers of big companies – both Russian and foreign – to be targeted by the Mafia or other business rivals, with the intention of frightening and extorting money from them or forcing them out of business. There were many cases of kidnapping, torturing and even the assassination of businessmen and members of their family.

  One of the more famous cases was that of American hotelier Paul Tatum, who was shot in cold blood with an automatic Kalashnikov in front of several passers-by at around 5 p.m. as he and two of his bodyguards left the Slavyanskaya Hotel and headed towards Kievskaya metro station, where he had arranged to meet somebody. Kievskaya metro is integrated within the mainline railway station and is situated right next to the hotel. In the underground passageway leading through to the mainline station, Tatum’s killer walked up to him and shot him 11 times at point-blank range in full view of everyone passing by. The killer then calmly laid down his gun on the passageway steps and walked away while Tatum’s bodyguards stood silently by. Had they also been paid by the person responsible for the hotelier’s death? The assassination ended Tatum’s long dispute with the Moscow City Government as well as with his so-called business partner, a Chechen who jointly owned the hotel with him. An American–Chechen business partnership was probably doomed to failure from the very start – with the odds considerably stacked against the American.

  Apparently, it later transpired that the dispute involved Tatum’s refusal to pay a bribe of $1 million to cover up an original earlier bribe he had made of $500,000. He was being extorted in typical Russian Mafia style: pay a second bigger bribe to cover up the first bribe.

  The Mafia’s torture methods were sometimes even more barbaric and horrific than those of the KGB. There was a famous case of the telephone receivers in the office of a wealthy Russian businessman being poisoned – half an hour after he spoke to a colleague on the phone, he died of chemical poisoning, as did his secretary some time later. The girlfriend of another wealthy Russian businessman was tortured when the kidnappers placed an iron on her stomach and slowly cooked her to death by increasing the temperature. Also, the hand of a bank manager who had been kidnapped and held to ransom was sent in an envelope to his wife – the kidnappers promised to send more body parts if she did not raise enough money to pay up.

  In most cases, kidnappers initially carry out comprehensive surveillance of their victims, following them everywhere and recording their comings and goings, changes in routines, and how often they use bodyguards and how many, with the fundamental objective of finding a few weak points . . . and then bang! They close in when the victim least expects it.

  After the initial briefing from the client, we sat down to work out a plan of action to identify whether or not our client was being followed, and if so, by whom. Because of the sensitivity of the operation, we decided not to involve any outside people and just use those who worked within our company, including me! This was my ‘Moment of Truth’, my ‘Ultimate Test’; if I did well, I knew that this would be the first covert James Bond-like spy mission of many – and I just knew I was going to do a great job!

  We worked out a route for our client to take the following day. It was going to be a similar route to that which he would normally take, but with a few slight diversions and alterations. My colleagues and I would be strategically placed along the route. Obviously, we knew the model, colour and number plate of our client’s car, so the only thing we needed to do was to take note of the number plates of all the vehicles that followed our client’s within a few minutes of it passing by. Afterwards, using a method of cross reference, we would quickly establish whether or not our client had been followed. If he had been followed, we would use our connections with the police and security services to identify who it was and have him quickly arrested. It was such a simple plan – what could go wrong?

  We could not afford to arouse the suspicion of pedestrians, passers-by or, more importantly, the potential kidnappers, so we had to hide ourselves in such a way that we could clearly see the road and all the cars passing by but nobody could see us. In my new role of covert surveillance operative, I found what I thought was the perfect spot – an enclosed patch of bushy greenery.

  I got there nice and early, crawled into the bushes and made myself comfortable. I had my sandwich on my knee (after all, a spy can’t go hungry, can she?) and my notebook and pen in hand, and I prepared to wait. Before I got into the bush, I had a good look around to make sure nobody could see me. Apart from ruining the whole operation, it would have been quite embarrassing to hear somebody laugh (or scream) at what they thought was me attempting to have a wee! Muscovites often use these lovely hiding places to do their business, because although there are quite a few public toilets in the city, the state of them is so horrific that going there once is enough to put you off for life. (Public toilets cost five roubles, which you pay to some horrible-looking hag, chain-smoking stale, cheap cigarettes and smelling worse than the loo she supposedly cleans but hasn’t used herself for years.)

  Excited about my first big assignment, I made myself snug in the bushes and was all set for the task in hand. If only I had known that in an apartment block not far from my ‘secret’ spot, an elderly woman, whose name I’ll never know, had looked out of her window at precisely the same time as I had slipped between the bushes. From above, she must have seen me crawl into
the undergrowth and, as all Russian grandmothers would, thought to herself, ‘What on earth is that pretty young woman wearing a smart office suit doing squatting in the bushes?’ Or something like that, anyway.

  I had arrived well in advance of the arranged time to make sure I was not late and that I was well prepared. I had planned to spend about half an hour watching the cars pass by to make sure that I was quick enough to write down the number plates. I started practising, ever so slightly squeezing my head through the thicket at every car that passed, then back in as I frantically scribbled down the number plate, all the while thinking about telling my friends and family about Inna ‘Super-duper Spy’ Bond!

  Right in the middle of my daydreaming, I suddenly heard a rustling sound behind me, followed by the angry voice of an elderly woman: ‘Hey you! What are you doing there? Get out immediately. I have been watching you for a while. We have had enough of people pissing in our bushes. You wait. I have called the police already. They are on their way. They will take you to their quarters. You will have to pay a fine for spoiling our park area, and then you’ll have to come back and clean up after yourself!’

  I froze with fear and utter embarrassment, and wondered how it was possible to clean up pee from the ground. What could I do? I couldn’t tell her that I was on a covert surveillance operation, but I also couldn’t admit that I was peeing in the bushes! Right at that moment, my eye caught our client’s car passing by. I quickly decided that it was better to lose face than ruin the whole operation and said in a timid voice, ‘Just give me a minute and I’ll be out.’ After that, I started frantically writing down the numbers of the cars that followed the client’s silver Mercedes SLK, as I didn’t really believe that the angry babushka had called the police about someone peeing in the bushes.