Remember the Time: Protecting Michael Jackson in His Final Days (2 page)

People think of Las Vegas as nothing but neon lights, hot pavement, and desert. But in the winter? At night? Once the sun sets, the temperature drops quick. Out at the airport, it was well below freezing. I had the heater turned up full blast to keep out the cold while we waited. The fact that we’d been given vehicle access to the tarmac, that was unusual. It wasn’t something I was used to, even for big-name clients. But in this town, in this line of work, unusual is the norm. It’s Vegas. An armed motorcade like this one might be hired for a movie star or a CEO, an athlete or a politician.
Hell, I might’ve been hired to help a deposed dictator fleeing a revolution in some third-world country somewhere. I didn’t actually know who I was there to pick up.

A couple days earlier, I’d come home from a three-month assignment that spanned two countries and five states. All I wanted was to rest and spend time with my daughter. Then I got a call from an associate of mine, Jeff Adams. Jeff and I were tight, almost like family. We’d worked together many times. He asked me if I was available to lead a security detail for a high-profile dignitary arriving in Las Vegas in two weeks. I would pick him up and escort him from point A to point B. Jeff said, “I’ve been in touch with the client’s assistant, a man named John Feldman. I told him about your background. He wants you to fax him your résumé and a copy of your driver’s license so they can do a background check on you.” He gave me an overseas fax number, and I jotted it down.

“Who’s the client?” I asked.

Jeff paused. He said, “I can’t give you that information just yet. But trust me, you’ll be glad you took this one—and you’ll need to be armed.”

I was a little apprehensive about committing, not knowing who it was for. But I’d been in the business long enough to know that sometimes this was just how things worked. Until trust is established, information is on a need-to-know basis. You’re contracted for two hours, you show up, execute the assignment, and that’s that. I’d done plenty of details just like it. I told him to count me in.

Over the next two weeks, these people did a background check on me, brought me on board, and I began making the arrangements. Two days before the client was to arrive, Jeff and I did what’s known as a pre-advance detail, mapping out the best route from the airport to this person’s new home, driving the route together, making note of every stop sign, timing the traffic lights, mapping out any congested areas we might encounter along the way. We decided that I would handle transportation
from the airport to the house, and Jeff would be waiting for us when we got there.

On the day of the detail, I arrived at the airport at seven-thirty. I’d told the car service to have its vehicles there by eight. When they arrived, I conducted a thorough inspection of each one. As I was doing that, I noticed that the rearview mirrors were equipped with video cameras aimed at the vehicle passenger seats. I called Jeff. “No cameras,” he said. “Period.” So I went vehicle to vehicle and disconnected each one.

At ten o’clock, we proceeded onto the tarmac. At 10:35, a Gulfstream V landed and taxied in our direction. I instructed the drivers to pull alongside the plane as the stairway was dropped. I exited my vehicle and walked back to the mother car, which had stopped right at the foot of the steps. I stood there and waited, ready to open the rear door for the passengers. The flight crew and the other drivers started loading the luggage into the SUVs.

First to deplane was a man in his late forties, black guy, neatly groomed but not particularly noteworthy. Then a woman came out. She had a sleeping child in her arms, and she carried him carefully down the steps. They were followed by two other children, both about elementary school age. They all climbed in the car. I thought, Okay, that must be it. I went to close the door and one of the kids spoke up and said, “Where’s Daddy?”

Daddy?

I looked back up at the plane. This man was coming down. He was dressed in all black, his face covered with a black scarf. As he got closer, I noticed his feet: slip-on loafers, slender ankles and white socks sticking out of these high-water pants. He came down, passed me, and climbed into the SUV with the children. I closed the door, got back in the lead vehicle, and we left the airport.

With the holiday traffic, it took us forty-five minutes to get to the house. Jeff was waiting. We pulled into the driveway; the gate closed behind us. My car stopped in front, and the mother car drove
around the side to let the family out in private. I helped unload the luggage—there were at least thirty bags—and we brought it all inside. Then I went back out to the driveway.

Jeff came out of the house. Over the two-way radio, he said, “We good?”

“Code 4,” I said.

At that point, I figured I was done. I got my subject from point A to point B. It’s a wrap. But the curiosity was killing me. I walked over to Jeff and said, “So tell me. Who is that guy?”

Jeff got this big grin on his face. “Didn’t you see him?” he said.

I shrugged. “Sure. I saw a skinny dude, a chick, and three kids.”

Jeff leaned in and whispered, “That’s Michael Jackson.”

I just stared at him. “Get the fuck outta here!”

He put his right hand in the air. “Death before dishonor,” he said. “Real talk.”

I didn’t believe it. He laughed at me a bit. Then the assistant, Feldman, the first guy who’d come off the jet, called for us to come inside. As we went in, I was like, Yo,
really
? Am I really gettin’ ready to meet Michael Jackson?

We went inside and this same guy was coming over to me with no scarf covering his face, and I was like,
Oh shit
. There I was, standing in front of Michael Jackson, shaking his hand. It was surreal. Jeff introduced us. In this soft, quiet voice, Mr. Jackson said, “Hello, it’s nice to meet you.”

I said, “It’s an honor to meet you, sir. I’ve been a huge fan for a long time.”

Huge fan? I
never
said that kind of thing to clients. Doing what I do, I’ve gotten used to being around famous people. But my heart was pounding in my chest; the hairs on my neck were standing up. I was trying to maintain my professionalism, but inside I was like a little kid. I
was
a huge fan. I still had my old Jackson 5 albums, the 45s and 33s, all of them. I still remembered watching him and his brothers on
Soul Train
, watching him do the robot to “Dancing Machine.”

We talked a bit about Motown Records, because I’d done some work for them and he’d seen that on my résumé. His children were behind him. Paris and Prince both said hello. Blanket was very reserved and quiet, hiding behind his father and giving a little wave.

Mr. Jackson said, “Kids, this is Bill. He’s our new security.”

I was like, Huh? New security? What’s he talking about? I’d been told this was point A to point B. Pick up a check and go home. An alarm started going off in the back of my head. And then Mr. Jackson said—more like a statement than a question—“You’ll be staying the night, right?”

“Um . . . yes. Yessir.”

“Great,” he said. “We’ll see you in the morning.”

They all said good night and went upstairs. I looked at both Jeff and Feldman. I said, “We need to talk.” We went out and stood in the driveway, and I said, “What’s going on here? Where’s this dude’s security?”

“Nation of Islam was holding his security down for a while,” Jeff explained. “He got some flak about that, so he’s making some changes.”

Feldman apologized for any confusion and asked me if I’d be comfortable staying the night, and perhaps longer.

I said to Jeff, “Is that the real Michael Jackson? Don’t play with me, man. It’s too cold, and I’m in no mood to be running around Las Vegas with some Michael Jackson impersonator.”

“Trust me,” he said. “This is the real dude. He looked at your résumé, saw you were with Motown, and straight up said he wanted you for this.”

“Okay. So when does the rest of the team get here?”

Feldman looked at Jeff and then back at me and he said, “I thought you knew. There is no team. You’re it.”

What?
Uh-uh. No, no, no. Now I was pissed off. I was being put in a position that I was not prepared for. There are people out
there who love this guy with a passion, and there are crazy people who hate him, and they’ll do anything to get at him. Any time I’d seen Michael Jackson on TV, he had a whole crew of people with him. I was all by myself. I didn’t know the property or the interior layout of the house. I didn’t have any of the gear I’d need for a detail like this.

I started to get a bad feeling. Something’s not right, I thought. I’d been doing this too long to believe that Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, was traveling with
no
security. Just an assistant and a nanny? Where was the staff? The manager? The entourage?

What I didn’t know then, but what I would quickly learn, was that the Michael Jackson who flew into Las Vegas that night was not the same Michael Jackson who’d left the country the year before. There was no entourage that night because there was no
body
, period. He was all alone. The most famous man on the planet, and we were the only ones who even knew he was back in the United States.

I agreed to stay, because what else do you do? The man told his children I was there to protect them. After a while, the assistant and the nanny left. They were staying at a hotel nearby. Then Jeff left too. He had another job he was already contracted for. Now it was just me. I did a sweep of the property, checked all the doors and windows, then set up on a folding chair in the garage. It was freezing. Garage wasn’t insulated. Twenty-eight degrees and I had on nothing but a two-piece suit, dress shirt, and tie.

It still hadn’t set in. None of it. I was trippin’. I wanted to call everybody I knew, but of course I couldn’t. And who would believe me anyway?

“Hey, guess what? I’m in a house with Michael Jackson and his family.”

“Who you with?”

“It’s just me. In the garage.”

“Man, somebody’s playin’ a joke on your ass.”

I stayed up all night, alert and cold. Every sound, every car that went by, I was up, looking around, checking it out. But mostly I just sat there, shivering my ass off and wondering, Where are all his people? Is some lunatic about to come climbing over the gate? What the hell am I even doing here?

About a quarter past seven, the sun finally came up. I heard the interior door to the house unlocking. It opened, and this tiny voice said, “Excuse me.”

I glanced up. It was the little girl, Paris. She stepped into the garage, holding out this cup. It was hot chocolate, with some of those little melted marshmallows in it. She just stood there quietly and looked at me and held out this cup and said, “Daddy said to give you this.”

PART ONE

CAN WE GO BACK TO NEVERLAND?

1

On June 19, 2005, Michael Jackson boarded a private jet with his three children and disappeared. Ten days later, following a brief stopover in Europe, he landed in the remote island kingdom of Bahrain in the Persian Gulf, which would be his home for the next year. Jackson, the universally recognized King of Pop, had gone into exile.

Michael Joseph Jackson was born on August 29, 1958, in the Midwestern steel town of Gary, Indiana, the seventh of nine children of Joe and Katherine Jackson. A musical prodigy almost from the time he could walk, Jackson soon joined his older brothers Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, and Marlon in the singing group managed by their father. They named themselves The Jackson 5. From the age of six, Michael was on the road with his brothers nearly every week, playing regional talent shows, nightclubs, and music festivals. By the time he turned twelve, he was one of the most popular entertainers in the country. Before he was twenty-five, thanks to the success of his now-iconic album,
Thriller
, he’d become the most recognizable human being on the planet.

Jackson’s spectacular career began to unravel in August 1993 when he was publicly accused of child molestation. While maintaining his innocence, to avoid a lengthy trial and further invasion of his private life, he agreed to settle the case out of court for a reported $22 million. That decision would haunt him for the rest of his days, casting a shadow of public suspicion over his every move. In the
years that followed, Jackson’s life stumbled and faltered and finally imploded when a second accusation of abuse surfaced in 2003, prompting a full criminal investigation by Santa Barbara district attorney Tom Sneddon, who had been on a mission to convict the singer ever since the first allegations had been made a decade earlier.

In April 2004, Sneddon convened a grand jury, which voted to indict the singer on charges of endangering the welfare of a minor. Jackson, determined to prove his innocence once and for all, agreed to stand trial. In January 2005, the case of
The People of California v. Michael Joseph Jackson
began, capturing the attention of the entire world. But after a two-year investigation and a six-month trial, Santa Barbara’s overzealous prosecutor had failed to produce a single piece of evidence proving any criminal misconduct on Jackson’s part. The jury voted unanimously to acquit, and on June 13, 2005, Michael Jackson walked out of the courtroom an exonerated man.

Exonerated but broken. Still reeling from the trial, and facing a crush of legal and financial problems that had built up during the years it had consumed his life, Jackson left America for Bahrain. There he lived as a guest of Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, a friend of Jermaine Jackson, who had introduced them. Sheikh Abdullah, the second son of the king of Bahrain and governor of the kingdom’s southern province, had aspirations of becoming a music mogul and saw in Jackson the perfect vehicle for building his entertainment enterprise. The two men formed a record label and announced big plans. But their relationship quickly soured, and in the summer of 2006, the singer left Bahrain and spent the next six months living in Ireland. Jackson was in love with the peaceful remoteness of the Emerald Isle, but his legal and financial problems could not be resolved by hiding out overseas. He needed to go back to work, and so the decision was made to move his family to Las Vegas, with the aim of securing a headlining slot at one of the hotels on the famous Las Vegas Strip.