Johan William Smit. Still another birth certificate listed his identity as William Vaughn. Some people called him Benny, others Johan, John, or just Boss.

“I was forwarded an email from a friend that was working in Iraq,” a South African contractor named Marcus said. “They were looking for snipers and close-protection personnel. I sent my CV and was flown to Manila a week later. When I corresponded with him in the beginning, he used the name Alexander. When I met him, he introduced himself as John. I heard Filipinos talk about ‘Boss Paul.’ But then again, we all used pseudonyms in the Philip- pines.”

Among the handful of Americans sometimes paired with McCon- nell was a former U.S. Army soldier, Tim Vamvakias. Like many of the recruits, he had spent time in private contracting, in his case as a dog handler in the Helmand province of Afghanistan, embedded with a unit from the U.S. Army’s 3rd Special Forces Group. When his diabetes flared up, the company had terminated him. Unem- ployed and temporarily homeless, he’d joined Le Roux’s organi- zation in 2008, connected through his former colleague, an Irish ex-soldier named John O’Donoghue. “He said he had some ‘off the grid’ and ‘covert’ security opportunities for me,” Vamvakias said. “I was to update my open waters diving license and meet him in the Philippines for further info.” After he was settled in, Vamva- kias met with Smith in Manila, who told him they were providing security for an Internet mogul. “As far as I knew at the time it was a new security wing that was being formed,” Vamvakias said, “com- prised mostly of ex-Special Ops guys with combat experience ranging from U.S. Special Forces, British SAS, as well as ex-French Foreign Legion soldiers.”

Vamvakias, in turn, recruited his friend Joseph Hunter, a deco- rated U.S. Army vet with the hulking body of an ultimate fighter. Vamvakias and Hunter had served in the military together for sev- eral years in the 1990s. Now, in 2008, they were both working under Dave Smith in the employ of Paul Le Roux.

In Manila, Smith often doled out salaries to the mercenaries in