There's a good reason covert operatives keep their work a secret from their families. Once your families know what you do, you've got problems. Best case, their scared. Worst case, they figure they can get into trouble and you'll get them out of it.
In gathering intel, little things can tell you a lot: a top flight alarm system, well placed cameras without blind spots, paying attention to strangers in the area.
More aggressive intelligence gathering is more delicate, but someone who knows what to look for can find out a lot.
One cheap and effective security measure is working in an area with low or no traffic. Anyone in a car is too obvious, so you force any would be followers to get out and walk.
Fighting is something you want to avoid. Once you fight someone, he knows your face. You kinda blow your cover once you hit a guy in the face with rebar. But when you have no choice, rebar it is.
When you want to turn someone into an asset, betray the people he loves, you have to get to know him. You need to know his frustrations. You need to know how he spends his time and money. You need to understand his hopes and dreams.
C4 has a plastic sheen and a putty like consistency. If you need to counterfeit it, the best thing I've found it cake icing, or fon dante as it is known in the cake trade.
If you need a moldable explosive that makes a bang, someone with Fiona's skills can make homemade C4 with spackle, petroleum jelly, and a bunch of other things I don't even want to know about.
Did you ever meet someone and it just seems to click instantly? You like the same things, share the same opinions, it seems like you've known them all your life. It could be fate, or it could be that you have a listening device planted under the dashboard of your car.
You'd be surprised how often covert operatives pose as international men of mystery. Fastasies about glamorous covert ops can be extremely useful to exploit, though some secret agent fantasies are more useful than others.
Anybody in the arms trade knows that the mark of a pro is the blow and burn - the detonator on what ever you're selling in case the deal goes bad.
Dealing with a blown cover is about stalling for time - stay alive long enough for them to tell what they know and tell a bigger lie to save yourself.
Riding in a car with a blindfold on takes some getting used to. The good news is that the driver's busy making sure that you can't see anything. He's not paying attention to whether he's being followed.
Any good operative is going to be a bit of a control freak. Above all they don't want to hear that the people they think they own really belong to someone who can destroy them.
There's nothing worse for someone who's spent time in intelligence work than to be up against a ghost. You can deal with an enemy you know, but an enemy you don't know - he could be a competitor who knows all about your operation, he could be law enforcement getting ready to bust you, could be a foreign agent setting you up for some deep spy game. Your only option is to disappear.
No comments:
Post a Comment