(FORTUNE Magazine) – Companies operating in dangerous regions need to cope with the security void left by the withdrawal of the Soviet and American empires. To stopper up the safety gap in far-flung locales from Kazakhstan to Colombia, they now turn to private firms like Defence Systems, part of British holding company Hambros. Says Defence Systems chairman Alastair Morrison, whose clients include banks, embassies, oil companies, and the United Nations: "We operate in places where you wouldn't go on holiday." Defence Systems uses personnel retired from elite military units to protect the U.S. embassy in Abu Dhabi and gold mines in Guyana. Speedboating agents patrol the seas around Angolan oil rigs for Texaco and Chevron. In one example of its postCold War entrepreneurialism, Defence Systems also has a joint venture in Russia with ex-members of the KGB antiterrorist unit Alpha Group that protects Crdit Suisse properties in Moscow. For all the muscle in his organization, Morrison, a former officer of the British Special Air Service, stresses the importance of "cerebral deterrence." Most of his guards are unarmed. Client British Petroleum, for instance, discourages sabotage of its Colombian oil fields by partnering with the local community to build schools, clinics, roads, and irrigation projects. Rising regional instabilities helped Defence Systems' revenues soar 50% this year, to $30 million. Thomas Boyatt, president of the company's U.S. arm, served as ambassador to Colombia under Reagan, and survived a 1969 skyjacking in Damascus. Says he: "I think we are in for more anarchy, not less, but there are still areas that have oil to be drilled, gold to be mined, and embassies to be protected."