Washington Post Magazine
January 19, 1999

It is well past midnight in the cold blackness of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and we are preparing for a possible assault. Nobody knows when or where the attack will come, only that it is virtually inevitable sometime within the next 18 hours.

We are a 12-person protective unit assigned to the isolated estate of a wealthy executive. Our command post is a wood-paneled room with a chalkboard in the servants' quarters. Most of us are slumped on the floor in exhaustion, having slept only four or five hours a night for the past week. Our team leader, Mike Norman, a 31-year-old, muscular ex-Marine, is standing in front of us, deciding who will sleep and who will guard the grounds.

"I'll stand the watch here," Mike says in a deep, take-charge voice, meaning he will man the post alone until daybreak. "We'll have a second patrol at the main house on two-hour shifts...and wake up at zero five forty-five."

I am a mere assistant team leader, but I decide to speak up: "Mike, I don't know if it's a great idea for you to stay up the whole night...We're gonna need you to run things in the morning." I look around me for support from the team; all I get are bleary-eyed stares.

Mike fixes me in his sights. With 12 years in the military, he is not accustomed to questions from the ranks. "I know my limits," he says firmly. "I'll be all right."

Several people start talking at once. We all want sleep, desperately need it if we are going to complete our mission. Somebody suggests shorter shifts, somebody says longer, somebody else questions how many guards we really need, and whether any of us will be able, without sleep, to drive at 6 a.m. when we will have to hit the road. Tempers are frayed and voices begin to rise. Several people just grunt their displeasure.

"Look! Let's get the job done!" shouts Joe Kolb, a 6-foot-7 former Marine from Gaithersburg, stalking across the room toward the door. "I'll stand watch!"

"Uh-uh," says William Garrett, a former nightclub bouncer from Chicago, shaking his head and raising his palms toward Joe. "I'll do it." William looks dead on his feet and angry with fatigue. He stands 6-feet-2 and nearly 270 pounds, and I am wondering who will be able to break up the fight if William and Big Joe get into it.

I look around at our unusual squad: three ex-Marines; four security officials from Fortune 500 companies; a burly chauffeur from New Jersey; a huge armored-car driver from Chicago; a British prison guard who used to work undercover in Northern Ireland; a French emergency room physician--and me.

I'm cold. I’m dead tired. And I've got some fresh bruises. I know that I need sleep quickly to be functional in the morning--or I might screw up the mission for everybody. I'm also wondering, what the hell am I doing here?

What we are all doing here is completing our marathon, sleep-deprived training to become bodyguards. Not just ordinary bodyguards, those stereotypical goons in ill-fitting suits. We are learning how to become high-class corporate bodyguards. We are getting a taste of everything from etiquette to explosives--firing shotguns, crashing cars and learning how to search a limousine for a hidden car bomb. But we are spending as much time discussing how to dress, how and when to make conversation, to be discreet, respectful and resourceful, and, above all, how to always be of service to our executive.

We are being schooled in the art of "executive protection" at the Executive Protection Institute in Berryville, Va. My 39 classmates--38 men and one woman--have paid $3,000 each for seven days of intensive instruction and real-life simulation under the guidance of retired Secret Service, FBI, police and military officials, along with experts in evasive driving, corporate security, international travel and table manners.

The growth of the American culture of celebrity and the globalization of business have fueled an increase in the demand for more sophisticated forms of personal protection.

When Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates was hit in the face with a cream pie last February in Brussels, it was a bizarre reminder that even the richest man in the world can be surprisingly vulnerable. Fear of stalkers, kidnappers, paparazzi or assassins is a constant for many people in the public eye. Yet many VIPs who want protection also refuse to give up their visibility and mobility. Like politicians and government officials, they want security that is effective but not excessive.

That's where Richard Kobetz comes in. Kobetz, a distinguished white-haired man of 65, is a former Chicago police commander who was once assigned to the protection detail of the late mayor Richard J. Daley. The legendary pol forcefully told his security people to keep their distance and "never put your hands on a voter unless you have an absolute need to protect me."

Kobetz founded the Executive Protection Institute in 1978 after serving as assistant director of the International Association of Chiefs of Police in Washington, where he became a specialist in terrorism and hostage negotiations. He has consulted on security for the White House, papal and royal family visits, scores of major corporations and public figures like Gates, Oprah Winfrey and Henry Kissinger.

"Ours is a different approach than the gorilla-in-a-suit, the old image of the bodyguard," Kobetz says. "We brought in the idea of protocol, etiquette, manners and, probably most importantly, advance work to avoid confrontations in the first place."

Kobetz's is one of only a handful of companies that provide such training. But interest in the field is growing, according to the American Society for

Industrial Security, whose 30,000 members make it the largest organization of security professionals. Executive protection was among the top concerns of corporations in ASIS's 1998 annual survey. Says spokesman Joseph Ricci, "It has moved up on the radar screen. Several years ago, it was not on the list."

The increase in international travel by executives and the downsizing of major corporations are key factors in fueling fear, Kobetz says. "Society is stretching out to extremes, more and more, of the 'haves' and the 'have-nots.' And the have-nots see TV and movies and magazines, and they have the feeling that they should have all that. And those who do have all that go into the position of protecting what they have." For some CEOs, however, executive protection is not really about protection at all. A high-class bodyguard is just another status symbol. Instead of guarding them from serious threats, the real purpose is more to enhance their importance and insulate them from inconvenience and from contact with inconvenient people.

Members of our executive protection class, the 43rd in Kobetz's 20 years in the business, briefly introduce themselves at an opening-night meeting at a Winchester motel. It is a mix of corporate, military and police officials, and assorted wannabes.

Security professionals from Boeing, Prudential, Eastman Kodak, Bell Canada, U.S. Surgical Corp., Automated Data Processing and Little Caesars are attending to learn the finer points of protecting their executives, as are bodyguards working for Kissinger and for Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen. There are also two Swedish bodyguards, two Canadian intelligence officers, and law enforcement officers from Michigan, Ohio and New Mexico.

In addition, we have a dozen guys who, like William Garrett, are looking for a career change. William is 30 years old, a huge baby-faced guy who grew up in a tough part of Chicago, dropped out of a junior college, and failed to get on the Chicago police force. He's been an insurance investigator, a bouncer and a repo man, which was much too dangerous for the money. Once, attempting to repossess a 1995 Cadillac DeVille on the South Side of Chicago, William was shot twice by the off-duty cop who owned the car. In his current job, William hauls money in an armored car to check-cashing companies on the South Side. He carries a Smith & Wesson .40-caliber automatic, but he has only a two-man crew, even though his company knows it should have three for safety. It's not worth the risk, he says, for $10 an hour. He desperately wants to find new work, and this, he hopes, may be it.

Then there's Mike Norman. Only three months out of the Marines, he has been locked in a dead-end job, assembling air conditioners in Florida. His goal is to work for the Secret Service or the FBI someday. He paid to come here because he sees executive protection as something he might be happy doing in the meantime--although he knows it probably won't make him rich.

At the high end of the profession, a few celebrity and corporate protection professionals can earn six-figure incomes, but most can expect more like $20 an hour.

The other hopefuls in our class include a professional wrestler from North Carolina, an unemployed chef from Milwaukee, a South Carolina park ranger, a real estate agent from Belgium, and a couple of former Army Special Forces operatives who are antisocial enough to scare off even the Marines. Like William and Mike, they are here because they believe the certificate of "personal protection specialist" that they get at the conclusion of EPI's course just might be their ticket.

During the get-acquainted cocktail hour, the conversations range from guns to cars to deep-sea diving to skydiving to getting shot up in Vietnam, gunned down in Chicago, and blown up in the Persian Gulf. Kobetz addresses us at the end of it, saying that the coming week's training will put us in some very unusual and difficult situations. We'll be going through 100 hours of training over the next seven days, we are told, and learning how to cater to the needs of our "principal," while mastering the dicta laid down by Sun Tzu, the ancient Chinese military strategist: "True excellence is to plan secretly, to move surreptitiously, to foil the enemy's intentions and balk his schemes, so that at last, the day may be won without shedding a drop of blood."

To me, it seems like an oddly demanding combination: part ninja, part butler; part samurai, part servant. But first Kobetz has each of us sign a form indemnifying him against anything in the training that "may result in injury, death or other damages to me."

I can't help but notice that almost everyone is considerably larger and more muscular than I. Observing and listening to a few of my more unusual classmates, I am also glad the course instructions warned, "DO NOT bring personal weapons." As we go to dinner, Kobetz says, "I think this will be one of the most fascinating weeks of your entire life." At this point, I am not too sure.

"He's got a gun!” shouts Gene Ferrara.

I pivot to the left, pull the Smith & Wesson .38-caliber revolver out of its holster and punch it toward the target 12 feet away. I quickly squeeze off a shot, flinching at the unexpected intensity of the recoil. Just beyond a thin plume of smoke, I can see my target--a wooden stake holding a cardboard rectangle the size of a man's torso--unblemished.

"Little high. Bring it down," yells our instructor, Tom Luddy, a retired Secret Service agent. He has to yell so I can hear him through the ear plugs we wear. Luddy and Ferrara, a former Cincinnati cop, are teaching us "point shooting," or instinct shooting, at a wooded firing range in Frederick County, Va.

This is a quicky technique for bodyguards. Unlike conventional police or military weapons training, which emphasizes grip, stance, breathing, sighting and other skills, this is pure reflex: pivot-pull-punch. Turn squarely toward your target, lift and snap your weapon smartly with an economy of motion, and punch it squarely at your adversary as you fire. Eyes stay on your target, not on your gun.

Shooting fast without using a sight is much harder than it looks, even at close range. I manage to hit the target 16 times in my 24 shots, which I declare a passing grade, particularly since I am the only one among our group of 20 who's never shot a handgun before.

The 12-gauge shotgun is more daunting. The blast from the Italian-made Benelli semiautomatic is, well, explosive, echoing sharply off the nearby hillside. We are in our second hour on the shooting range and my ears are ringing. I am working on a major headache by now, and it isn't even my turn to shoot yet.

The Benelli is still hot from the guy before me, and my hands are a little shaky as I hold the heavy gun while loading five fat green shells into the magazine. I quickly feel useless because the damn gun jams before I can finish loading and I need the help of Bill Horn, a friendly, local deputy sheriff who is our shotgun instructor.

"BLAAAAM!"

I feel a rush of adrenaline and the crush of the gun butt just below my collarbone. Our first five rounds are shoulder shots, and I learn the hard way to hold the shotgun tightly against my body to absorb the recoil.

"You had a kill shot!" Horn yells enthusiastically. "You got him right in the solar plexus!"

I am too dazed from the noise, the recoil and the smell of gunpowder to share his excitement. I am now supposed to keep my eyes on my imagined enemy while reloading four more shells from my pocket. But my gun jams again. In a real attack, I am dead meat.

Shooting guns is big fun. Like some kind of macho fantasy camp. But we learn that guns actually play no role in the vast majority of executive protection assignments. Bodyguards get no special exemption from most state gun laws that prohibit carrying concealed weapons. Firearms can't be carried on airplanes and in most foreign countries. And even in those rare instances when use of guns may be permitted, the weapons can only be used in the most extreme circumstances.

"When the defecation hits the oscillator," Ferrana warns us, "you are responsible."

Moreover, guns can't stop surprise attacks at close range, Luddy reminds us. Would-be assassins Arthur Bremer and John Hinckley, for example, each got off at least three shots before Secret Service agents could react. At 20 feet or less, there's no time to draw a gun, so the best way to save lives is to go for the assailant's weapon and knock it aside while getting your principal down and out of danger--as Luddy's former colleagues did when they shoved the wounded Ronald Reagan onto the floor of his limousine in the first seconds of the Hinckley attack.

"When all is said and done," Fernara tells us that night, "we are bullet catchers."

A dapper, silver-haired man, Ferrara directs law enforcement at the University of Cincinnati and also ran the NBC security command post at the Olympics in Atlanta and Barcelona. He reminds us of our bullet-catching role right after a training simulation in which six of us are assigned to escort a famous author to a book signing. I am part of an advance team scouting the room and the receiving line.

Earlier that day, we'd been trained how to spot an assailant (watch the eyes, but mostly the hands) and quickly hurl ourselves into harm's way, shielding our principal with our body while firmly pushing him or her downward to make a smaller target and yanking the principal by the waist away from the attack.

That little maneuver is even harder than it sounds. It is just one small part of the "choreography" of executive protection, explains instructor Anthony Christiana, a Louisiana police commander and former undercover organized crime investigator.

How do you protect your executive, but do it so unobtrusively that it doesn't cramp his style? "You have to learn how to walk with him. How to stay close enough to protect him, but far enough away so he doesn't have to introduce you," Christiana says. "It is like a dance. When he moves, you should move."

So, we practice dancing. We are taught that our best vantage point is to stay just behind and slightly to the right of our principal, roughly within arm's reach. We learn various formations--diamonds, boxes and wedges--for when a VIP needs multiple protectors, and we review how to handle surprise attacks in public settings.

"GUN! Three o'clock!" That blood-curdling yell serves several purposes: It alerts the entire team, and the principal, that an assailant is coming from the right-hand side; it also might momentarily stun the would-be attacker and create commotion in a crowd. The primary bodyguard would jump in front of the principal, bending him over, shielding him with his own body, and evacuating him toward 9 o'clock--and away from the danger.

We practice this maneuver under Christiana's watchful eye. We pair up and spring into action when Christiana shouts the gun warnings. Several pairs of us turn in the wrong direction and collide, or we get our feet tangled up and end up falling in large heaps of humanity.

We do better at the book-signing exercise--except that as we guide the famous author through the line of our classmates, she is shot four times with a very loud cap pistol. Obviously, we still have a lot to learn.

Tobie Jacob’s, a pleasant, fortyish blond woman, asks me to strangle her from behind. I feel a bit sheepish, but she smiles and insists. She is only about 5-feet-7, 130 pounds, so I've finally got a distinct size advantage. I put her in a firm headlock, and in one fluid movement she jams her right shoulder up into my armpit, yanks down hard on my arms, and easily pivots and throws my 175-pound body over her right hip.

Jacobs is a Maryland state insurance fraud investigator, but she is also an executive protection practitioner and instructor, and a black belt in the martial arts. She's been throwing men around since she was 10. Jacobs teaches us how to deflect blows, how to break front and rear strangleholds and how to use painful pressure points to disable an attacker.

I learn how to break a man's grip with one finger; how to administer what we used to call a "noogie" to someone's hand to get him to drop a weapon.

Most of our class is already schooled in the martial arts. I team up with Jim Gardner, an ex-cop from Chicago who is a driver for a health care executive. Jim is roughly my size and, more important, has a sense of humor, which comes in handy because we spend nearly half an hour hitting, grabbing and choking each other.

Our larger classmates are taking this very seriously. Some are working particularly hard to impress Kobetz and the 20 instructors because many of them own protection companies and often hire promising freelancers. Jim and I, on the other hand, are mostly laughing nervously.

The techniques really work, if you practice. Jacobs uses beefy Tom Luddy to show how you can remove a huge guy from a crowd without anyone even knowing that you are using force. She wraps her forefinger in a handkerchief, jams it under Luddy's nose and pushes the back of his head with her other hand. It looks like she is helping a nosebleed victim, while she is actually inflicting substantial pain and making Luddy follow her. Jim and I look at each other and consider practicing this maneuver, but dissolve in laughter.

Next comes combat training with tactical expandable batons, the modern weapon favored by many law enforcement agencies. Our instructor is Greg Light, a 250-pound former Massachusetts state cop who is now a medical student in Virginia.

"Today you will have a chance to experience fluid shock," Light tells us cheerfully, wielding a black aluminum baton. The flexible batons look like small telescope barrels, which, at the flick of a wrist, extend anywhere from six to 18 inches. The whip-like weapons have a hard metal ball on the tail end that can be delivered with a ballistic impact. Fluid shock, Light explains, is the painful reaction to a blow that hits flesh and nerve, as opposed to bone. Hitting bone is likely to cause breakage--and lawsuits, he says--while hitting fleshy targets on the arms and legs will disable without causing permanent damage.

"Do not strike the joints," Light says. "Stay away from the shoulder and elbow. We don't want to have bone chips. Stay away from the head, and the neck, and the back, where you can have kidney damage...and definitely don't hit the sternum," he adds, pointing to his own chest, "because this little bone right here can break off and go into the heart."

Light reminds us that the batons are defensive weapons. When attacked, we must first yell a warning like "Stop! Down!" to scare off the assailant--and ward off lawsuits.

We are paired up to start hitting each other using batons encased in foam rubber. I avoid the huge guys, and end up teamed with Gaetan Dedonder, a tall, slender Belgian real estate agent who lives in Miami.

Gaetan comes at me and I yell "Stop! Down!" as convincingly as I can, and smash him in the thigh with the baton.

He laughs. "You have to hit harder."

"I'm not into violence," I say, smiling lamely.

He attacks again, and I try to yell really menacingly as I smite him again in the leg. But he looks slightly amused. Then I watch my classmates. Mike Norman is ferociously shouting and brutally smashing the bodily fluids out of his ex-Marine partner. The two men are intense and seriously engaged. They're functioning at an entirely different level. I am momentarily inspired by that, so I start hitting Gaetan a little harder. And Gaetan responds in kind.

The next day I'm black and blue in several spots on my arms and legs, along with some impressive choke marks on my neck, courtesy of Jim Gardner.

Somebody will get killed by the end of the week. The assassin is most likely to strike at the mountain estate we are guarding, but we are not yet sure. Right now, however, my assignment is to be the undercover advance man at the local golf course.

The scenario: We are a six-person detail assigned to a California CEO who is visiting Winchester to discuss a hush-hush business merger. The visit is top secret, but the CEO nonetheless wishes to relax by playing a quiet round of golf, then freshening up at the hotel before a 6 p.m. dinner meeting at the Chinatown Restaurant.

Our task: Make sure the boss's round of golf goes smoothly and get him where he needs to be on time. For starters, we decide we must (a) find him a golf course, (b) find out where the restaurant is, (c) plan our travel routes, (d) get him a tee time and (e) keep him moving to assure he won't miss his meeting.

But as crackerjack executive protection specialists, we have been taught to do much more: Get phone numbers for police and fire, plan an alternate travel route, locate the nearest hospital and plan that travel route, ready a backup car in case of breakdown, set up a means of communicating with one another, and plan for the unexpected.

Our team meets in my motel room and divides the labor. My first task is the golf arrangements. I call Carper's Valley Golf Club and get a 3:12 p.m. tee time for the boss. When they ask the name, I'm momentarily flustered and say "Mr. Mann," although our executive is actually being played by Gene Ferrara. Time is tight, so I have to go ahead to the golf course with my partner, Fabrice Czarnecki, the French doctor, to line things up so Mr. Mann can go right on the links.

It's 2:45 when I tell the golf club manager I'm here to rent clubs for a 3:12 tee time.

"You Mr. Mann?"

"Uh ... no, he's my boss. Hell be here in a few minutes." I explain that I want to rent the clubs now and pay for the round before Mr. Mann gets here.

The manager explains that it costs $12 to play, but it will be only $6 if I just wait until after 3 to pay.

"That's okay. I can't wait. I'll pay the 12." I am getting nervous that things will mess up and Mr. Mann might be kept waiting. He would be unhappy. I cannot allow that.

The manager, a wise old gent named Ray Goff, looks at me quizzically and then at Fabrice and then back at me, and shakes his head. It is evident this is the first time in the history of Carper's Valley Golf Club that anyone has paid $6 extra for no good reason. I explain that Mr. Mann is our boss and we just don't like to make him wait.

"Good way to treat the boss," Goff says, still shaking his head. "And will you be wanting to rent a cart with that?"

I'm caught off guard because I'm not sure of our CEO's preference, so I go ahead and rent a cart, and the best set of clubs. Just when I think its all set, Goff says, "I'll need Mr. Mann's driver's license" as security for the expensive clubs and the cart.

"Uh ... is that really necessary?" It's close to 3 p.m., and I am starting to panic.

"Yep."

"Uh...um ...here's my driver's license, okay? I...uh...don't want to bother Mr. Mann."

By now old Ray is looking at me like I am crazy, and then his young assistant who has been listening to all this, comes out of the back room and asks, "Who's coming here? The president?"

I realize I have already nearly blown the assignment in terms of keeping a low profile. I also remember I have to get back to the front door of the clubhouse to greet Mr. Mann, when suddenly he strides briskly in. Ferrara, in a white sweater and beige pants, looks very much the wealthy silver-haired executive, especially with his executive escort Bill, another classmate.

I quickly usher Mr. Mann outside to the cart, clubs at the ready, and retreat a discreet distance.

"No balls," Bill whispers urgently. "No golf balls." I smack myself on the forehead, and retreat to buy balls and tees from Ray.

"Say, what company do you guys work for?" another golfer asks me. I realize we have quickly become big news at the little golf course. "Um, Mifflin Company. California," I tell him.

Then comes the heart of the executive protection job: We sit. We sit for a long time. We wait while the boss plays nine holes. We are bored. Then very bored. But we are also worried about what comes next, and what could go wrong.

About 5 o'clock, our CEO finally finishes, but Bill informs me the boss wishes to hit a bucket of balls at the driving range, which I must quickly arrange. Mr. Mann just strides off and I then find myself carrying the boss's golf clubs, scurrying to catch up. I also find myself slipping into the role of friendly servant.

"How was your round?" I ask congenially.

"Awful," he says, seeming very much the disgruntled exec who doesn't feel like chatting.

While the boss works the driving range, I stand to the side, as inconspicuously as possible, waiting to carry his clubs back. When he's done, our CEO is driven off in a chauffeured Lincoln Town Car. As I walk back to the clubhouse later, lugging his clubs, I feel very little of the glamour of executive protection, and more like an executive serf.

It's an ambush. I am driving a Mercury Grand Marquis, and a black Volkswagen Rabbit has turned broadside, blocking the road ahead. It is the classic modus operandi of kidnappers or terrorists. I slow down, but as I roll within about three car-lengths, I suddenly floor the gas pedal, brace myself and smash into the left rear panel of the VW, knocking it aside and accelerating right through it

"Yahoo!" shouts my passenger, Alberto De La Paz, a truck driver-chauffeur from Florida.

"Yow!" I concur.

This ramming exercise, using battered old cars at the BSR racetrack at Summit Point, W.Va., is the crowning event of a wild two hours. We have been speeding, skidding, sliding, dodging, braking and, many of us, nearly losing lunch. The instructors had offered us Dramamine, advising us to take one and not worry about possible drowsiness. I snuck two.

Earlier on the track, driving late-model white Chevrolets with veteran instructors in the car, we do amazing things. We go into repeated vicious skids on a wet, circular track and practice how to survive. We are taught how to execute "bootlegs," which are terrifying 180-degree turns at 35 mph. All you have to do is slam on the emergency brake to lock your rear wheels, sharply fling the steering wheel and... never mind. After practicing these, we learn "J turns," which are truly sickening 180-degree turns in reverse.

It is all quite nauseating, particularly because there are four of us in each car, so you must spend considerable time as a captive passenger. I am sweating profusely and wondering if two Dramamine will be enough.

The presence of an "Advanced Life Support" emergency truck at track side is not encouraging. Many of us, myself included, need to step out of the car periodically to feel Mother Earth. Several of my classmates actually get sick. As we finish, I am wondering how many of my bodyguard colleagues will ever really need to use these hair-raising maneuvers.

We wake up at zero five forty-five at Highlander Lodge, Kobetz's home, just as Mike Norman ordered. The lodge, a former monastery, dates to the 1700s, with gray stone walls built by Hessian POWs during the Revolutionary War. At dawn, the estate offers a spectacular 50-mile view clear across the Shenandoah Valley to the Alleghenies, but we cannot stop to admire it. We have four principals to protect.

Kobetz and his three houseguests, our instructors, each have different travel plans for the day, and our team must have drivers, bodyguards, route plans, emergency procedures and backups lined up for each. Mike, who has slept only half an hour, asks me for a report on the health and condition of our troops. Most of us are okay with roughly four hours' sleep, but I tell him that Fabrice and Sid are both getting sick, while William Garrett, like Mike, is in no shape to drive after all-night flashlight patrol.

When I ask William how he's feeling on no sleep, he says, "I'm dead, man, but I'll survive."

Our tasks are multiple: Kobetz has errands to run in Winchester. One instructor, Kathy Friese, must be taken to Winchester Airport where her husband is flying in from New Jersey to pick her up. Another guest wants to shop for a Harley-Davidson, and another is headed for Gold's Gym. Mike tells several team members, including William, to catch up on sleep, while the rest of us have assignments.

I'm assigned to the tail car with Sid, following two of our teammates, Bill and Michel, who are escorting Kobetz and Friese in Kobetz's red Jeep Cherokee. We stop unexpectedly for lunch. Sid and Bill, as drivers, stay with the cars while Michel, as team leader, enters the restaurant with the principals. I bring up the rear.

I'm thirsty and order a Diet Coke, but I realize that a 48-year-old bodyguard cannot drink more than a few sips because he would soon have to go to the bathroom and could disrupt the schedule. We'd been warned repeatedly during the week that our time was not our own. "Eat when you can eat. Sit when you can sit...Take care of your business" on your own time. Do not ever let your personal needs interfere with the timing of an operation. Some bodyguards carry empty plastic bottles in their cars for just such emergencies.

After we leave the restaurant, Sid and I nearly get separated from the lead car at a stoplight, but we make it uneventfully to Winchester Airport. Michel escorts Kobetz and Friese inside, the drivers stay with the cars--and I have to carry her bags. On the way back from the airport, Kobetz has to stop at a printing plant to pick up a large box--and guess who has to carry it. By the time we return to Highlander, I am more convinced than ever that this is not my field.

Back at the lodge, William, Big Joe and several others are still asleep. Another houseguest, Tony Christiana, tells us he's changed plans and wishes to go antiquing in Leesburg and return to Highlander by 4:30 p.m., change into dress clothes and go to the casino in Charles Town, W.Va. At the moment, Bill and I are the only ones free to accompany Christiana, so I tell Michel to make sure we have relief ready by 4:30, dressed properly per "Mr. Christiana's orders."

We climb into Kobetz's Lincoln Town Car and escort Christiana to Leesburg. Our rather cultured principal goes antiquing in four shops, then wine shopping. It is a thoroughly tedious assignment, and I struggle to remain vigilant yet not too obvious.

By late afternoon I am exhausted and find myself fervently hoping that Michel has remembered to get someone dressed and ready for the trip to Charles Town. Otherwise, I will have to go.

I am thrilled to see William Garrett and Big Joe Kolb waiting for us, shiny clean, wearing suits, ready to slide into the Town Car for Mr. Christiana's gambling trip. I take a shower and lie down for a few minutes, but I can't sleep because we still have to take Mr. Kobetz to dinner.

The assassin struck at a convenience store just off Route 7. Big Joe was driving the Lincoln and spotted a white Toyota pickup trailing him as he left Highlander Lodge. But after a few minutes, the pickup roared past him and Joe figured he was mistaken, so he never mentioned it to William or Mr. Christiana.

A couple of minutes later, they stopped for cigarettes and William went inside while Joe stayed with Christiana, carefully keeping the doors locked. A big man in casual clothes walked up to ask Joe directions, and Joe cracked the window a few inches to answer him. Before Joe knew it the man reached inside the car and slapped Joe on the chest with a gold sticker that said "DEAD."

Christiana ducked down behind the front seat, so the big man did not see him. Instead, the killer walked into the store and right up to William and nailed him, too.

Christiana called our command post on his cell phone, frantically telling us that his two bodyguards were dead, and that he had escaped and would meet us "at the designated place," which we knew meant the group dinner that night to mark the end of our weeklong course.

At the lodge, we are stunned and saddened by the killings. My first reaction is a twinge of guilt because I would have been one of the victims if William and Joe hadn't taken over for us. We don't yet know the details of the killings, nor do we know whether the assassin is now heading for us. Under Mike's command, we blockade the front entrance with a car and go to "Alert Status Red." When houseguest Bill Stanton, a New York detective, emerges from his room, dressed for dinner, we tell him he cannot leave because of the danger. He responds as perhaps only a New York private eye could: "What, are you [expletive] kidding? Who the [expletive] is gonna stop me?"

We are perhaps taking the game a little too seriously. So is William, who is very upset about being killed.

The assassin is introduced to us at dinner. He is a gregarious good ol' boy named Randy Chandler, former cop and preacher. He is also a former student of Kobetz's and is now the full-time protector of a prominent North Carolina televangelist. Chandler has been killing people for Kobetz, and enjoying it, for the past six years. His nickname is The Angel of Death. Tonight, though, he is spending some time consoling William, who is off by himself during the cocktail hour.

"You can't take it personally," Chandler tells him, smiling broadly.

"Yeah, yeah." William shakes his head and mutters, but he is visibly upset. Mike, Joe and other members of our team try to cheer him up and remind him it could've happened to anyone. There was no way to stop it.

Later, I ask William why he is so troubled. "We were relaxing too much," he says. Joe should have told him about the Toyota pickup and they should have been more on guard. I suggest to him that the assassin still probably would have gotten them. Besides, it doesn't matter because William is completing the course and will get his certificate, regardless of today's events.

That doesn't placate him. William says he saved up six paychecks, with help from his girlfriend, Dionne, to afford this course, and so he takes it damn seriously.

"I have always been a good worker," he says. "All the jobs I have, I take personally. I excel at what I do, and it was the same thing in this training." He doesn't feel like being cheered up. He won't join us for a drink just now.

The next morning is our final exam and graduation. The 90-minute test is 50 questions, including essays and multiple choice, which Kobetz says he will grade and assess later. AD of us who finish the course will be receiving our personal protection specialist certificates.

We also become part of Nine lives Associates, a 1,400-member worldwide group of Kobetz's graduates who receive newsletters, network among themselves, and take further training offered by Kobetz. We'll be invited to study, among other things, close quarter battle techniques and corporate aircraft security at seminars in Florida later this year.

As each of us is called to the front of the ballroom, applause, cheers and jokes ring out, like a high school graduation. For me, it's all been a hoot, but I am curious about my classmates' response.

"It is definitely a thankless profession. This confirms it for me," says Patrick Hawk, a 30-year-old University of Maryland criminology graduate who is highly trained in the martial arts and works for a wealthy industrialist. "You don't get thank-yous. But if something ever goes wrong, it falls on you."

Mike Norman has a more positive reaction. He says that adjusting to civilian life has been more difficult than he expected, and the course has really helped him. The Marines had taught him about shooting, driving and the martial arts. "This course," he says, "was more important in how to act. When to open a door. Where to walk. Where to position yourself. Trying to blend in. How not to look like you are just standing there. You think it should be easy, but it isn't...Learning how to be discreet. Understanding privacy while providing protection. It is a lot more subtle than I thought it would be." He is planning to use these skills in his new job, working for Kissinger Associates.

The biggest cheer at the graduation is for William Garrett, who, unlike all of our other classmates, goes around to shake the hand of every single instructor. William tells me that he feels he got a lot from the course "and I also got a lot of knowledge about what I don't know, and what I need to know."

"I was a little leery at first," William says of the class, because most of the other people had military, police and corporate experience, while he really had none. But he says he was encouraged to hear that some of the class members had risen above dead-end jobs into a new field. "This class made me realize this is something I really want to do," he says. "I'm hoping this will open up a lot of doors."

At the end, our class members and many of the instructors exchange business cards, phone numbers and e-mail addresses. Like any graduating class, many of us pledge to keep in touch--and some of us actually will. After all, you never know when you might need some extra protection.