Features

Standing in the back parking lot of Denny's diner on the outskirts of Indianapolis, the sun is stabbing at the concrete like an idle child with a pointy stick, the weather is freezing cold and I'm waiting patiently to meet people with guns.

Loosely translated, this means that I'm hooking up with a load of heavily armed people in the car park of a Little Chef analogue in a place that's the US equivalent of Dagenham.

Handily, I've told them I'll be bringing along a very fast, nicely exclusive Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT-8, and that nobody is expecting photographer Barry or myself back for a few days.

As time goes on, this seems less and less like a good idea. Luckily, we're not here to meet the low-rent Essex gangsters you find in the back of the typical Little Thief, but America's largest team of honest-to-God bounty hunters. Man hunters. The ones they used to call bounty killers.

The main man is a chap called Fred Slack. He's an ex-military type whose own brush with a particular set of criminals led him to become the bane of every bail-jumper this side of the Atlantic.

In the meantime, an unfortunate soaping accident in a carwash sees me standing in the toilet cleaning blood from minor wounds, and we haven't even started yet. As first impressions go, I'm not off to a great start.

The first member of the team we meet is Robert, Fred's younger brother. Dressed in an overcoat and jeans, he doesn't look like a bounty hunter, more a professional sportsman, a football player perhaps, maybe a sprinter.

He briefs us about what brought the Slacks to bounty hunting. Basically, Fred was an entrepreneur who was set up for a robbery attempt. After stealing his cash and car, the assailants beat him to a pulp, doused him in acid and then left a young lady to finish him off with a Tec-9 machine pistol.

At the killing shot, the gun jammed, Fred fought his way free and called the police, but his attackers were never caught. Until, that is, Fred became a bounty hunter and tracked them down. Sounds like a bad action movie - except it's infinitely more scary to know it's real.

When Fred walks in, he's a picture. Full 'Fugitive Recovery Team' bulletproof vest and blue military-style fatigues, complete with Smith & Wesson sidearm to the right, a spare pistol tucked unobtrusively into the trouser pocket.

Like his brother, he's a well-built, shaven-headed, fit-looking black man with an air of quiet confidence. I ask them what kind of mentality it takes to become a bounty hunter.