Spy Tips on the Caribbean, Scouting, Flares, and more…
Low-tech explosives may be clumsy and unreliable, but their simplicity makes them almost impossible to trace. Sophisticated bombs, on the other hand, are more effective but require expertise and specialized components, which means the more lethal the bomb, the more you know about the man who wants you dead.
There’s a reason that everyone from 17th-century pirates to present-day drug smugglers have operated in the Caribbean. It’s filled with tiny islands that are close to major ports but outside the reach of national laws. That said, the privacy that makes the islands great hiding places also makes them vulnerable. Your enemies may be able to hide from you, but you can hide from them just as easily.
Properly scouting a facility’s security is a two-step process. Observing the outside will tell you about its physical defenses, but to get a complete picture of your target’s manpower and security protocols, you need to get inside their walls, too.
Spies have long known it’s a good idea to bring along a fast-acting drug when you’re targeting someone for extraction. In the earliest days of espionage, that meant a rag soaked in chloroform or ether, but now it’s usually a syringe of propofol. It works quicker and has fewer side effects but shares one downside with its predecessors, you still have to get close to your target to administer the dose. Click here to read more…
Spy Tips on Disarming, Covert Offenses, Sieges, and more…
In any surveillance operation, you have to resist the impulse to grab your target and interrogate him immediately.
As a spy, a lot of missions depend on the world not knowing you’re there. When an op involves saving someone’s life and keeping your presence unknown, you have to make their escape look credible. So if the person you’re saving is an untrained civilian, you need to make it look liked like an untrained civilian.
Spies deal with foreign agencies, dirty corporations, dirty corporations, and criminal syndicates all the time, but none of them compares to dealing with families. Asking a man to take apart his business or turn on his country is easy compared to going into a man’s home and telling him how to deal with the people he loves. It’s usually a good idea. To tell the truth.
There are dozens of ways to disarm a man with a gun, but unfortunately, they all come with a risk that the gun will go off. No matter how good you are, it’s not something you want to try with a child present. Unless you want to tell a bereaved mom that you gambled with her kid’s life, because you felt lucky. Click here to read more…
Spy Tips on Drug Dealers, Deception, Navigation Systems, and more…
There’s a long tradition of using doubles in espionage. They’re mostly used by dictators who want to confuse would-be assassins, but they have other less-common uses, like framing someone for a crime they didn’t commit.
When confronting an armed enemy, the big question is what weapons they’re bringing to the fight. Trick your enemy into bringing the wrong weapon, and you’ve got the advantage. Someone thinks they’re taking fire from a sniper, for example, they’ll choose something long range with a long barrel. Which won’t do you much good in close combat.
For a spy, one of the most useful contacts in the criminal underworld is the small-time drug dealer. Their work demands that they stay informed about their rivals, their suppliers, the police, and any other bad guys who might be operating in their area.
The key to robbing an armed transport is to stop the vehicle without putting the guards on the defensive. Shooting a tire can cause a blowout without arousing suspicion, but it takes a gifted sniper to hit a target moving 40 miles per hour. Click here to read more…
Spy Tips on Destroying a Gun, Kidnapping, Revenge, and more…
As a spy, you’re in the information business – stealing it, protecting it, and, if you have to, destroying it. Some secrets are so dangerous that you can’t allow them to continue to exist. A murder weapon that implicates you in a crime you didn’t commit, for example, is a secret best kept with 4,000 degrees of burning thermite.
Whether you’re operating out of a war room in Langley or commandeering a hotel in South Beach, all CIA investigations work the same. Because analysts are tied directly into federal and local databases, they have information at their fingertips. What they don’t have is a magic button that tells them what is a real lead and what is a dead end. That takes boots on the ground, eyeballs on the screens, and lots and lots of coffee.
Whether you’re kidnapping a ruthless dictator in a foreign country or snatching an abusive boyfriend off the street, it’s best not to leave a mess behind. Using your target’s own car as a getaway vehicle keeps neighbors from asking about the missing owner. Plus, you don’t have to pay for gas.
People tend to think spies are motivated by love of the game, desire for adventure, or patriotic fervor. The truth, though, is that you don’t choose a life as a covert operative unless something deeper is going on beneath the surface, something more personal, something harder to explain, and something a lot more painful. Click here to read more…
Spy Tips on Tuxedos, Security, Hacking, and more…
It’s a cliché that spies wear tuxedos in the field. While there’s some truth to it, you don’t usually wear them to baccarat tables in Monte Carlo. Most of the time you’re in black tie, it’s at rubber-chicken dinners, political fundraisers, or charity auctions.
Pretending to be a belligerent drunk lets you get close to a target long enough to plant a tracker without them getting suspicious. Of course, if you plan on making a scene at a fancy hotel, you’d better be ready to pay the price.
Seeing a project through to completion requires a certain level of obsessiveness. The problem is you can’t turn it on and off. So you end up doing things no one else can understand, like sticking with an operation long after it’s over.
Intelligence-agency field offices have to find a delicate balance between blending in and providing adequate security. Which is why, whenever possible, they piggyback onto the facilities of fellow government agencies. Click here to read more…
Spy Tips on Field Operatives, Legal Documents, Fog of War, and more…
As a field operative, some aspects of life aren’t part of your daily experience. You may be familiar with the mountains of Afghanistan or know how to break down a .50-caliber machine gun, but that expertise comes at the cost of certain normal activities people take for granted.
One of the toughest parts of adjusting to civilian life after a major operation is the paranoia. You can’t turn it off. If a shopper behind you is carrying a suspicious package and avoiding eye contact, they could be there to do you harm. And if you’re right about the threat, the consequences could be serious. Of course, if you’re wrong, the consequences could be serious, as well.
Post-operation paranoia isn’t something you can control. It’s with you always when you’re working, when you’re relaxing. Even sleep is no escape.
Gaming facilities provide a natural habitat for loan sharks who are always hunting for gamblers who need a quick buck at a bad rate. As long as they don’t turn on each other, they’re at the top of the food chain. Click here to read more…
Spy Tips on Pursing, Covert Security, Civilians, and more…
When you’re pursuing someone, it’s tempting to focus exclusively on overtaking the other person. It’s often better to force the person you’re chasing to go faster than the terrain allows and wait for them to make a mistake. But even when a chase ends, you can never assume the other person will give up without a fight.
Intelligence agencies spend more money protecting secrets than stealing them. But no digital encryption or biometrically locked vaults can keep sensitive information from spilling out of an indiscreet asset’s mouth, which is why one of the most common duties for a spy is babysitting.
Covert security is all about making friends. You have to give yourself a plausible reason to be near your target. Some of the most important secrets in the world have been protected by a guy with a few stories and a drink in his hand.
Controlling an unruly asset is tough, especially when women and alcohol are combined, which is why, as a general rule, you don’t even try to control the hunter, you just scare off the prey. Click here to read more…
Spy Tips on Cover IDs, Magicians, Police Routine, and more…
In the world of intelligence, taking down an entire covert network is the ultimate challenge. It’s not something you can do alone. You need the resources of an entire intelligence agency behind you. You need solid intelligence that can point you in the right direction. But that’s just a starting point. You’re not after an individual person – you’re after dozens of people, all of them hiding, all of them with resources and skills, all of them fighting you by any means necessary.
It’s a gigantic jigsaw puzzle of information that requires months of research and analysis where one target leads to the next. A courier picked up off the suburban street leads to a spy hiding out as a diplomat in a foreign embassy leads to a hardened group of armed assassins in another place entirely. Sometimes it’s a surgical operation done with discrete teams that no one ever hears about. Other times, it’s all-out war.
But one thing is always the same – with each piece of the puzzle, you find you understand your enemy more clearly. You penetrate the secrecy that shields the people behind the scenes. Working your way to the top of the network to the people pulling the strings. You keep fighting, trying to put that last piece of the puzzle in place. Trying to find that last person who will give you the answers you’re looking for.
RFID security is easy to get around with a device known in the trade as a “gecko.” Complicated electronics, but a simple principle any key can be copied, even a digital one. Click here to read more…
