Carlos Ghosn shared his secretive escape flight from Japan with a pair of Americans who have backgrounds in the private security business. One was a former Green Beret who has extensive experience in extracting hostages but also went to jail for fraud.

The manifest of the getaway flight from Osaka to Istanbul doesn¡¯t list Ghosn, but it includes two passengers named Michael Taylor and George-Antoine Zayek, according to people familiar with the matter.

For Taylor, the episode was the latest in a colorful career that began as a special forces paratrooper before he worked undercover for U.S. law enforcement and built a security firm that pursued contracts around the world. He emerges both as a murky and unusually public figure who found himself on both sides of the law.