Spy Tips on Bribery, Abducting, Fugitives, and more
Bribery’s a lot more difficult than it sounds. There’s no way to shop around, so you usually overpay for whatever information you’re after. There’s no money-back guarantee if the information’s bad, and of course the only thing that you know for sure is that you’re handing your money to a thief and a liar.
When someone’s asking for sensitive information, it’s basic security to make sure that the person you’re dealing with is who he says he is. An easy way is to change details that the other person would know.
Spend enough time in international hot spots, and you learn that a lot of the worst monsters on earth are just spoiled rich kids. Mass murderers come in many shapes and sizes, but they tend to drink the same brands of champagne.
People love the sound of their native tongue. Even the most security-conscious person often lets his guard down when he hears somebody who speaks his language. If that somebody happens to be in a designer dress, so much the better.
Staying hidden isn’t always about sticking to the shadow. In fact, if you’re enemy’s eyes are adjusted to the dark, there’s no better place to be than behind the brightest light you can find.
If you’ve spent time working for the government, you understand that it’s a game with its own rules. If you want to make the government work for you, you have to know how the game is played. An FBI agent might hate you, but if working with you gets him out of an assignment he hates even more, you’ve got yourself a partner.
Being a fugitive takes work. When you’re being hunted, hiding isn’t something you can do effectively without help. So the best way to catch a fugitive isn’t to approach him as one of the people hunting him down. It’s to approach him as one of the people who can help him stay on the run.
Working covert ops, you learn to exploit weakness. You manipulate greed, fear, pride to make people do what you want. But when you’re dealing with true believers, those weaknesses aren’t there. All you can do is help or get out of the way.
As a spy, it’s usually best to be unknown. It allows you to adjust to any situation and be whoever you need to be. However, there are certain advantages to being known. A reputation can be a powerful tool.
Most people have a hard time letting go of their past. The same guy who will burn a village to the ground without a thought, often won’t throw away an old necktie because it reminds him of his high school graduation. If you know what you’re doing, you can hang him with that necktie.
It takes a lot longer to pull a gun than most people think it does, almost five seconds on average, to draw and line up a shot.
When you’re abducting someone, transportation usually isn’t the issue. There is no trick to driving a truck with someone hidden in the back. The challenge is getting them in the truck. You can walk them in, drag them in, or let gravity do the work and drop them in.
Spend time with corrupt, homicidal third world political figures, and you hear a lot of self pity. What kind of man throws his political enemies in prison and tortures them to death? Usually it’s a guy who feels so sorry for himself he feels justified doing anything. Killer, by and large, are whiny losers. But that doesn’t make them any less dangerous.
Most over the counter allergy medicine contain mild sedatives. In the right dosage, they cause a pleasant drowsiness. In the wrong dosage, they cause dizziness, hallucinations, and unconsciousness.
If you suspect you’re walking into an ambush, search for where the bad guys are hidden is probably going to get you killed. Unless you get lucky and find them in the first place you look, you’re dead. If you can manage it, the best move is to make it impossible to hide.
When you’re in a foot chase, the trick is in visual contact with whoever you’re pursuing until they run out of gas. Of course visual contact doesn’t do you much good if you’re separated by a 12 foot high razor wire topped fence.