Kentucky Colonel, an honorific reserved for Kentuckians “unwav- ering in devotion to faith, family, fellowman, and country.”

Hunter’s path into Le Roux’s employ echoed those of other ex- military guys. Discharged in 2004, he’d returned to his hometown of Owensboro to settle into life with his wife, her two teenage boys, and a pair of dogs. But home life was dull compared to over- seas deployments, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan beckoned, with private security firms promising large paychecks and the chance to see real action. After getting hired and then quickly fired by Blackwater Security Consulting, he caught on with DynCorp, a contractor with close ties to the U.S. military. In 2006, Hunter headed to Iraq, where his job was collecting DNA samples from Iraqis and investigating bombings. He worked under constant threat of sniper fire and mortar rounds, and assisted the wounded after mass-casualty suicide attacks. He returned home after two years a changed man, increasingly short-tempered and moody. He had trouble sleeping and startled easily. “I spent a lot of time in my garage,” he wrote later. “I avoided being in public. I just wanted time alone. I didn’t want to go out or do anything. My wife said I needed help, but I couldn’t do contract work if I got help.” In- stead, he signed up again with a similar outfit, Triple Canopy, and returned to Baghdad. After a year, his friend Tim Vamvakias told him that he’d lucked into a cushier gig, working for a rich man in Manila.

In the Dasmariñas Village house, Klaussen at first found Hunter a sullen presence. But slowly he opened up, and both Hunter and De Meyer let on that they were serving as a roving enforcement team for Le Roux. Their work could constitute everything from intimidation of debtors who had missed a payment to shocking violence against those Le Roux suspected were stealing from him. “Most of the time, I think they didn’t use guns,” Klaussen said. “Joe was very capable of eliminating somebody without a gun.” Assassinations were called “bonus work” or “wet work.” The as- signments were doled out by Dave Smith, and Le Roux required photographic evidence that a job had been completed. “Some-