Licensed to Kill (22 page)

CHAPTER 7

         

The Dog Track and the Swamp

“We thought this was something that was scaleable.”

—O
NE OF THE FOUNDERS OF
T
RIPLE
C
ANOPY

The Southland Dog Track lies just on the outskirts of West Memphis, Arkansas, set amidst a crowd of low-budget motels and twenty-four-hour diners. Traveling southward from Triple Canopy's Chicago headquarters on Amtrak's overnight City of New Orleans, I have come down to watch a few days of their training and selection process. The sixty men vying for spots on one of Triple Canopy's contracts will bunk at the Ramada down the street but will split most of their waking hours showing off their driving ability at the dog track or their shooting skills at a private shooting range. The hardscrabble surroundings of the training enterprise offer a concrete example of the contrast between the big-money lifestyle of private security firm owners and the low-budget existence of those who make their contracts and business pay off.

Triple Canopy is one of the newest and most aggressive players to appear on the private security scene. The name refers to the multiple layers of greenery that protect the floor of the rain forest and draws a metaphor for the multiple layers of security Triple Canopy applies to keep their clients safe. The company was founded in September of 2003 by a group of friends and investors. The core group consists of two army buddies from Special Forces, Matt Mann and Tom Katis, and John Peters, an investment banker. Iggy Balderas, former command sergeant major for Delta, makes the fourth for the current board of directors. Within their first year of operations, the company had grown from the original core group to a business supporting over eight hundred employees, and had generated over $100 million in revenue.

Triple Canopy likes to promote their corporate culture as derived from Delta, in comparison to Blackwater's SEAL legacy and HART's SAS ethos. Promoting a Delta-based image implies a secretive and management-oriented method of doing business, compared to Blackwater's boisterous and aggressive persona, while HART likes to maintain the lowest profile possible.

Like many start-ups in the exploding private security industry, Mann, Katis, and Peters started with little and scrambled to flesh out the corporate structure and hire and train operators after they had won their first bid. Matt Mann recalls how aggressively they worked to get that initial contract and the major financial risks they all assumed in order to pursue the opportunity. When a contract came up for bid to protect the governates in Iraq, Mann said, “The only catch is that to bid, you had to go over and do a security survey of the sites.” Of the four companies that were asked to bid on the $300-million blanket protection contract over six months, MVM and ArmorGroup never showed up, so Blackwater and Triple Canopy directly competed to win the contract. Matt Mann and former Navy SEAL Hal Poff “ran around the country in the back of a BMW with a towel around our heads,” but Blackwater only showed up to survey half the sites, opening it up for the nascent Triple Canopy to win the rest.

According to Matt Mann, “We won seventeen out of thirty-three [contracts]. The first six months was $80 million. The renewal was in the forty to sixty million range. We ended up lining up fifty million in credit from Wells Fargo and spending nine million in capital. To get in place, before we received one dollar, we would have to spend eight million. We had already spent a couple of million before we even had a contract. We were paying eight percent for our money, the penalty for being a new company. And it was a fixed-price bid so the government didn't guarantee us a profit.”

Their investment has paid off, since Triple Canopy is now one of the biggest American providers of private security services, referred to as one of the “Big 3,” along with Blackwater and DynCorp. In early 2006, the “Big 3” won a shared $1-billion contract to provide American embassy security worldwide.

By the time of this writing, Triple Canopy had made the big jump from their original Chicago offices to a suite near the locus of power in Herndon, Virginia, outside of Washington, DC. They've also dramatically upgraded their training facilities, but when I visited them in mid-2004, they were still living in the spartan existence of a fledgling start-up. Spending a week with the men of Triple Canopy training in West Memphis, Arkansas, I got to know the blood and flesh on which the Triple Canopy empire has been built.

During the fighting in Afghanistan and very early in the Iraq war, private security contractors were drawn from the most qualified and experienced operators, but that pool of potential recruits has been depleted by the demands of the security problem in Iraq, and now the applicants span a wider spectrum. Triple Canopy gets in an initial pool of roughly eleven hundred résumés a month, of which about one hundred fifty have any real credentials. About 15 to 20 percent come straight from military service, and the rest come from private companies, though they may still have a military background. The men in this class come from a variety of backgrounds and range from the experienced and cool to the intimidated and desperate. They have passed the initial résumé review and background check by personnel, and now have to prove that they can do the job. The ages range from midtwenties to early fifties. None of them are being paid while they go through the training, but Triple Canopy buys them a ticket to Memphis and pays for their accommodations.

By the time I arrive, the aspiring contractors have checked into the Ramada, two to a room. The hotel also houses a gaggle of senior citizen tourists, who watch and whisper about the men as if they're some variety of exotic species. The men sport what looks like all brand-new out-of-the-box 5.11 brand khakis and contractor gear—a fashion interpretation of OGA gear for plainclothes missions. Right now in West Memphis they belong to an ill-defined warrior class, but back home they are mostly average middle-aged men getting slightly paunchy and shaving their heads to hide the bald spot. They have wives, families, mortgages, car payments. Most possess a high school diploma and a decade or two of experience developing skill sets that have few applications in the civilian world. More than once in my time with them I will hear the common Special Forces joke that after twenty years in the service, an SF operator will have only a topaz ring, a Harley, an ex-wife, and can apply for a job as a Wal-Mart greeter.

A big, blond, and jovial Midwesterner named Jim Troutman—nickname Moose—heads the Triple Canopy training program. Jim holds court in a spartan suite on the second floor, though he tells me that his instructors stay at the nearby Holiday Inn because they don't like the bedbugs here. An ex-army and former Delta operator, his health and demeanor make him appear at least a decade younger than the “pushing fifty” he gives me for his age.

He was in the military for twenty-two years and six months before he was shown the door. He phrases it, “You do your twenty years and phhhhht,” as he mimics the trash being thrown out. “I was in Beirut, El Salvador, Zaire—forty-six countries.”

Since then he hasn't really retired. “I worked mostly in security—a year and a half in Bosnia, a year and a half in Kosovo. The Philippines. Afghanistan. After 9/11, I trained air marshals.”

Jim has been successful in his professional life, but as he advises me, “You can't hold a personal life together in this line of work…. I am not married anymore. In this work, you can't even keep a girlfriend.” He shows me a picture of his latest flame—a very young and attractive Hispanic-looking woman. Since I spend so much time away from home, he offers me a tip he has picked up on how to manage personal relationships over long distances: “Go on FTD.com and set up everyone's anniversaries and birthdays in advance.”

The ever-smiling and bespectacled Jim exudes pride about the quality of his makeshift training program, bragging that all his instructors have PSD and military training, and some have had recent combat experience in Iraq. He tells me the locals around West Memphis call his students the “Iraqi Killers” and claims that “crime has dropped dramatically in this town since we moved in.” He doesn't believe that you need the affluence of Blackwater's seven thousand acres and a bunch of bells and whistles to train and select. “It's all about the quality of instructors and training,” he assures me. “We invest about twenty grand in these guys before we hire them. We don't want their planes crashing, so we even stagger their flights.”

Corporate usually sends down about sixty men for a class, but Jim expects almost a third will be sent home without an offer of employment. Over the five-day course, they will cover State Department and higher protection detail skills and make sure the men can work cohesively on ever-changing teams. The men learn first aid, how to use a GPS (Global Positioning System), security fundamentals, advance work (checking out a location), and driving. The weapons training will start with the Glock 9-mm pistol using individual movement, and then advance to moving and shooting in large groups using the M4 rifle. As Triple Canopy gets up to speed, they will integrate heavier weapons like the Mark 19 grenade launcher, .50 cal machine gun, and more sophisticated group driving and shooting techniques.

Cecil, a sixtysomething ex–Special Forces who helps out with training, takes me to check out their driving course at the dog track—a dilapidated facility that can barely fill a dozen seats for the races. Luxuries for the mostly comatose dog race fans consist of plastic seats, cheap hot dogs, and watery beer. The muzzled greyhounds walk at a glacial pace to the starting booth. A starting bell sounds as a mechanical pink “rabbit”—actually just a bit of worn-out fluff—sets off on a circuit around the track with the dogs trying desperately to keep up. Somehow it seems it is a fitting allegory for the men who have come here to chase their dream to be contractors. From the bored looks of the few spectators, it seems that the shelter from the afternoon sun provides more of an attraction than the dogs.

Outside on the empty side of the track, the trainees are driving a circuit of drills. The track looks like a circus of orange cones, smoking tires, and weaving rented GMC Suburbans. Although a trained eye or ear can quickly sort out a marine from a cop from a Green Beret, the idea is to judge them solely on their skills and teamwork. If hired to do personal protection, they will have to work well within a team and be able to react to changing situations regardless of their past training.

On the side of the track, Cecil explains the system: “We use the big Suburban so they can get used to a big vehicle being moved…. They do swerve tests, reverse outs, and other exercises using orange cones.” The drills are designed to simulate a convoy coming under attack. Instead of grenades, the instructors throw fluorescent yellow tennis balls in front of the trucks. The students slam on the brakes, coordinate reverses, and reform the convoy for escape. In Iraq they might drive anything from a small import to an armored sport utility vehicle, but in West Memphis, they rely mostly on GMC Suburbans and Chevy Sedans from National Car Rental. They buy full insurance on each one, and Cecil tells me National doesn't seem to mind when they're returned a little bruised. “Or at least they never complain. We returned one that was rolled many times. I can't remember the story we invented, but they just looked at it and at us and smiled.”

The students vary widely in their driving skills. Many hesitate to lay on the power, while others lose control. One smashes into another car in yet another incident that will have to be explained to the rental company. A palpable tension hangs over these seemingly mundane exercises. Some panic and turn left when the instructor yells “Right.” Others make excuses, some curse. The instructors don't get angry, but just calmly suggest improvements and provide critiques to get the trainees up to Triple Canopy requirements. “We drive aggressively but try to strike a balance between being conspicuous and being a bullet magnet,” Cecil tells me.

In his time as a trainer for Triple Canopy, Cecil has learned one important lesson: “Cops know how to drive; soldiers know how to shoot.”

Tap, Rack, Bang

After a short drive past cotton fields and across weathered plank bridges, we arrive at a shooting range that makes the dog track look upscale. I see a sign with the Triple Canopy logo draped across the worn fence as we pull into the parking lot. The local shooting range complex Triple Canopy has hired for training looks about as permanent as the sand dunes on which it is built. A couple of trailers bolted together act as the main office. Inside, photos, plaques, and rows and rows of dusty hats from police, military and other units who have trained here cover the walls. There is even a signed photo of George and Laura Bush. The range has portable classrooms, storage containers, and a rambling collection of ranges and dilapidated “kill houses” constructed of railroad ties. Kill houses are crude mock-ups of building layouts that will be used to teach lessons in clearing rooms and close-quarter battle techniques using live fire.

The temperature is about eighty degrees and humid—a hazy day with few clouds. When we arrive, the teams are already practicing moving and shooting in teams. Today they are training with live ammunition in their M4s—the shortened version of the standard-issue M16. Most are conversant with the standard military rifle.

The ranges look low key. Old railroad ties pounded into sand berms soak up bullets, and makeshift shade structures with large, wide tables provide a space for loading and cleaning weapons. The instructor, Dave, a young athletic man wearing Oakley sunglasses and a white Under Armor shirt, lays out the program for me.

“This drill is an immediate action drill. They are trained to break contact because they are bodyguards, not infantry. The secondary purpose is proper utilization of cover. The tertiary point is using buddy teams…. I am just trying to get them to communicate. Most of the people are fairly good shooters, but they have to work as a team. We get guys that have a lot of tactical background. You also get a wide variety of shooting skills. Some infantry guys have never shot a Glock. Some cops haven't shot a long gun. Just their ability to handle stress is a key element of success here.