Spy Tips on Downtime, Fax Machines, Explosives, and more…
Stopping an armed convoy is a tactical nightmare. The easily accessible cars the ones in the lead and at the tail are the ones that don’t matter. The trick is getting into position to target the key vehicle before anyone realizes what you’re doing. There’s no real safe way to do it. Send the lead car into a tailspin while inserting yourself into the convoy. And you can create your own little roadblock.
Covert operative is one of the most stressful jobs there is. Like soldiers, E.R. doctors, and astronauts, spies have to schedule extended downtime for decompression. Carry that stress too long, and it’s easy to start missing details, like a strange pair of shoes under the crack of your door.
Level-3 contagion facilities are designed with massive exhaust systems to quickly remove harmful gases in case of an emergency. They’re just about the only type of ventilation shaft a full-grown man can fit into, so they can double as a vertical passageway to the next floor up. But if you have to make your own exit.
Before cellphones were invented, it was much harder to call out to an office without everyone else in the building seeing that you were on the line. Diplomatic spies in the ’80s devised an easy solution to the problem, a corded handset wired to a fax machine gives you the freedom to make calls without showing a line in use. If you can find a way to hide from the security cameras, you can call out without anyone knowing what you’re doing.
Uncut RDX, sometimes known as T-4 or cyclonite, is the most powerful military-grade high explosive there is. It’s an incredibly stable solid that can withstand small-arms fire, but when detonated, expands faster than a plasticized formulation like C-4. Simply put, T-4 is the good stuff, a lethal explosive that creates a wall of fire and shrapnel that will decimate everything and everyone in its path.
For a spy, finding out you’ve been compromised, that someone has something on you, is the ultimate nightmare. The worst part for someone who has spent a career training for every situation, is knowing that there is nothing that you can do but grit your teeth and try to figure out exactly how bad the nightmare is going to be.