Episode 1: Pilot
June 28, 2007
Warri, Nigeria
Covert intelligence involves a lot of waiting around. Know what its like being a spy? Like sitting in your dentist’s reception area 24 hours a day. You read magazines, sip coffee, and ever so often someone tries to kill you.
Thug: “CIA.”
What do you say to that? No? Explain that a lot of spies don’t work directly for the C.I.A.? Lot of good that’ll do.
(After getting the notice that he’s Blacklisted, and subsequently beaten by Boris’ thugs:)
Sometimes the truth hurts. In these situations, I recommend lying.
In a fight, you have to be careful not to break the little bones in your hand on someone’s face. That’s why I like bathrooms: Lots of hard surfaces.
Southern Nigeria isn’t my favorite place in the world. It’s unstable, it’s corrupt, and the people there? Eat a lot of terrible smelling preserved fish. I will say this for Nigeria, though – it’s the gun-running capital of Africa. And that makes it a bad place to drive a passenger sedan into a crowded market.
If you’re gonna collapse on a plane, I recommend business class. The seats are bigger if you start convulsing. Although once you pass out, it really doesn’t matter.
(To Fiona: “Fi, why don’t you go run interference for me? Please, Fi? Come on, make one of those scenes of yours, you know? Bite one of them, set the other on fire. Just do it in about 10 minutes.”)
Most people would be thrilled to be dumped in Miami. Sadly, I am not “most people.” Spend a few years as a covert operative, and a sunny beach just looks like a vulnerable tactical position with no decent cover. I’ve never found a good way to hide a gun in a bathing suit.
When a spy gets fired, he doesn’t get a call from the lady in H.R. and a gold watch. They cut him off. They make sure he can never work again. They can’t take away his skills or what’s in his head, so they take away the resources that allow him to function – they burn him.
When you’re being watched, what you need is contrast – a background that will make the surveillance stand out. An F.B.I. field office is full of guys in their 40s. At most South Beach business hotels, it would be tough to tell which middle-aged guy was watching you. So, you stay in the place where everyone is a Jell-o shot away from alcohol poisoning. If you see someone who can walk a straight line, that’s the fed.
Need to go someplace you’re not wanted? Any uniform store will sell you a messenger outfit, and any messenger can get past a security desk.
Sam Axe: “You know spies — bunch of bitchy little girls.”
With this much money, things get complicated. Change a lightbulb in a place like this, and a week later you’re on a speedboat in the Cayman Islands with someone shooting at you.
“Mom?”
My mom would have been a great N.S.A. communications operative. Drop me in the middle of the Gobi desert, bury me in a goddamn cave on the moon, and somehow, she’d find a way to call me and ask me for a favor.
I don’t like stealing cars, but sometimes it’s necessary. I have rules though. I’ll keep it clean, and if I take your car on a work day, I’ll have it back by 5:00.
Figuring out if a car is tailing you is mostly about driving like you’re an idiot. You speed up, slow down, signal one way, turn the other. Of course, ideally, you’re doing this without your mother in the car. Actually, losing a tail isn’t about driving fast. A high-speed pursuit is just gonna land you on the 6:00 news. So you just keep driving like an idiot until the other guy makes a mistake. Again, all of this is easier without a passenger yelling at you for missing a decade’s worth of Thanksgivings.
Sleep through an aerial bombing or two, and noise isn’t an issue. You just need some privacy and a bed. In a pinch, you can lose the bed, but the privacy is important for projects like this one. With everyone x-raying and chemical testing their mail these days, a box of wire and pipe and batteries sprinkled with chemical fertilizer is a great attention-getter.
Doesn’t matter how much training you have; a broken rib is a broken rib.
I never run around in the bushes in a ski mask when I’m breaking in someplace. Somebody catches you, what are you gonna say? You want to look like a legitimate visitor until the very last minute. If you can’t look legit, confused works almost as well. Maybe get a soda from the fridge, or a yogurt. If you’re caught, you just act confused and apologize like crazy for taking the yogurt. NOthing could be more innocent.
Cracking an old-school safe is pretty tough, but modern high-tech security makes it much easier. Thing is, nobody wipes off a fingerprint scanner after they use it, so what’s left on the scanner, nine times out of ten, is a fingerprint.
Fighting for the little guy is for suckers. We all do it once in a while, but the trick is to get in and out quickly without getting involved. That’s one trick I never really mastered.
Powerful people don’t like being pushed around. You can never quite predict what they’re going to do, or have their washed-out Special Forces security guys do. Point is, blackmail is a little like owning a pit bull. It might protect you, or it might bite your hand off. That’s why it pays to make sure you know what they’re thinking, and that means eavesdropping.
To build a listening device, you need a crappy phone with a mic that picks up everything. But you want the battery power and circuits of a better phone. It’s a trick you learn when the purchasing office won’t spring for a bug.
Once somebody sends a guy with a gun after you, things are only going to get worse. But like it or not, you’ve got work to do. For a job like getting rid of the drug dealer next door, I’ll take a hardware store over a gun any day. Guns make you stupid. Better to fight your wars with duct tape. Duct tape makes you smart. Every decent punk has a bulletproof door. But people forget walls are just plaster. Hopefully you get him with the first shot. Or the second. Now he’s down and waiting for you to come through the front door. So, you don’t come through the front door.
People with happy families don’t become spies. A bad childhood is the perfect background for covert ops. You don’t trust anyone, you’re used to getting smacked around, and you never get homesick.
Thirty years of Karate, combat experience on five continents, a rating with every weapon that shoots a bullet or holds an edge… Still haven’t found any defense against Mom crying into my shirt.
Airbags save a lot of lives. But they also put you out long enough to get your hands cable-tied to the steering wheel.
(Coming Soon)