Where Is My Bodyguard?

Those four anxious little words are suddenly everywhere, casting a spotlight on the shadowy and booming business of executive protection.

- BEN WIDDICOMBE

A London billionaire industrialist recently convened a dinner at his mansion. The president of an oil-rich nation was invited, but the biggest surprise the host got was the intrusion into his tony abode of a most unexpected guest: a taster.

A taster is the member of a VIP's advance team who is tasked with going into wellappointed kitchens with a chemical kit to detect the presence of poison. The billionaire was somewhat taken aback by the cameo, but he was mortified by what happened next.

"The meal was all Indian dishes, and the live cultures in the yogurt sauces set off the kit's detector for biological agents. The whole banquet had to be scrapped and done over from scratch at the last minute, when everyone was already seated at the table," said a stunned guest who witnessed the faux pas.

"It's getting Game of Thrones out there." That's the state of affairs these days among the Gulfstream gentry. In the aftermath of the killing of a titan of industry, Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare, no security precaution is too extreme. Christopher Falkenberg, an attorney and former Secret Service special agent who founded Insite Risk Management in 2002, chuckles when he hears the anecdote about the taster.

"Unfortunately, the security industry is somewhat in the fear business," he says. "There's a guy named Bruce Schneier who coined the term 'security theater. It means finding things to do to give the client the impression that they're doing something" And there's always something to do.