hauled an old TV from the upper floor of the house down to the courtyard inside the first perimeter. The compound had a defensive force of fifty, and Klaussen had an idea of how to cement their trust. He gathered the fighters and set out chairs in a semicircle around the TV. Then he connected his laptop to it, pulled up a movie, and hit play. The opening scenes of Black Hawk Down flickered onto the screen.

Klaussen had learned that the paramilitary group his fighters were affiliated with, Ahlu Sunna Waljama'a, had in the past been aligned with General Mohamed Aidid—the man who led the at- tack on U.N. and U.S. forces in Mogadishu back in 1993, in the battle that gave the film its name. "It was my way of saying 'I'm on your side,'" Klaussen said. "'We're here to do a job. Let's work together.'"

When the film arrived at the eponymous scene in which the So- malis shoot down the American helicopter, the guards stood up and cheered wildly.

"Oh God, what have I done?" Klaussen thought, laughing to himself. "If a drone catches this moment, I'm gone forever. They're just going to drop a bomb on it." But the scheme seemed to work. "From that day on I had all the respect I needed," he said. The security force, which would eventually balloon to over three hun- dred fighters, had never heard of Johan, or Paul Le Roux, or Southern Ace. As far as they knew, Klaussen was the man they were hired to protect.