Burn Notice Spy Tips Season 1 Episode 12

Spy Tips on Cover ID, Freon, Hostage Situations, and more

Choosing a cover ID on the fly is always a challenge. When theres no time to think, its best to go with something simple that keeps your options open. Freon is available at most computer stores. Buy a can of screen duster, turn it upside down, and youve got it in liquid form. Its cold enough to crystallize the metal in many commercial locks. A hammer can take care of the rest. One advantage of working with the same team, is that secure communication is simpler. You dont have to work out a secret code. If you have enough history, the code is in every picture, every memento, every autographed leg cast. Surveillance is a two-way street. If you know someones looking for you, youve got an advantage. They follow your lead, go where they think you are. In a hostage situation, you have to be cruel to be kind. The more you care, the more leverage they have. Like buying a car. You have to make them think you can walk away. There are some fights you just cant win. A force can be so overwhelming, that no tactical approach in a fight is going to lead to a victory worth having. When you cant win in a fight, sometimes you have to settle for making sure that if you lose, everyone loses. It works for nuclear weapons, it works for me. The sticky bomb was originally developed in World War II for mining tanks. For the homemade variety, tile adhesive works best. Sticky, waterproof, and it comes in an easily portable plastic bucket.

A lot of people think the word commando means superhero, or at least something close to it. In the popular mind, theyre thought of as the ultimate elite soldier the solution to every problem. The fact is, a commando is just someone trained to fight under a specific set of circumstances. Hes the guy you send in when there are more bad guys than good guys, when surprise is the only advantage you can get in an operation. When it works, commandos seem unstoppable. Those are the operations that make the papers. When it doesnt work, commandos get killed just as dead as anyone else. Whether youre protecting a client, monitoring electronic surveillance, or meeting the man who burned you, youve gotta be patient. In the real world, covert ops doesnt involve many car chases or gunfights. Mostly its just hurry up and wait. Not too exciting. But you wait and you watch and you stay alert, because, at any minute the job can get way too exciting. There are two basic ways to blow up a car. Use the gasoline in the tank, or provide your own explosive. Theyre two techniques that use opposite ends of the car and are disarmed differently. Some people prefer the gas tank. Tends to look more like an accident but its less reliable. Others prefer plastic explosive on the battery, wired to the ignition. When youre communicating in code, sometimes you just have to hope that whoever youre talking to is smart enough to figure out what youre saying. Use a code thats too simple, and it will get broken. Use a code thats too complex and youre just talking to yourself. In any operation, communicating silently is often essential. Chalk marks, an unusual arrangement of objects anything that stands out from the background will do. A piece of cloth on a window. A warehouse door is going to be reinforced, but the walls arent. And the areas under the windows dont have load-bearing beams. A good trap doesnt scare people, it makes them curious. A speeding truck makes people scatter. A slow-moving truck, on the other hand, makes people want to take a closer look. Youre a funny guy. Youre trained, arentcha? Hmm? Lemme guess. Special Forces? See, me, Im an ex-Green Beret. Admit nothing, deny everything, make counteraccusations. For any operative, stashing weapons is second nature after a while. Spies hide guns like squirrels hide acorns. You never know when youll need some firepower, or where youll be when you need it.

Spy Tips on Fake Identities, Assassinations, and more

A fake identity is known in the spy trade as a false flag. Used to be you could make your own documents with a printer and a laminator. These days, though, IDs have magnetic strips, holograms and infrared watermarks. You need a pro. In some situations, a tactical retreat is your best option. A guy with a gun is a guy with a gun. You can fight him and risk someone getting shot or wait for backup. Corporations need spies just like governments do. Of course, theyre not called spies. Theyre called security consultants. Theyre basically mercenaries with nice suits.

One of the things you learn in training is to avoid situations that cut too close. If you had a rough childhood, a situation with an abusive father and a vulnerable kid is gonna make you angry. That can be motivating, but it can also be dangerous. Facts are the hallmark of a good false identity. Its harder to create history than it is to alter it. Plus, the more truth to your lie, the easier it is to remember. Just because there are no windows or doors, doesnt mean there are no exits. The thing to look for is the air-conditioner unit. Thats where the wall is weakest. Also, people watch doors. They dont watch air conditioners. A basic rule of covert ops is let someone else do your dirty work. Let someone else find the guy you want to kill. Its a great technique, as long as youre not the someone else. Shoot a propane tank and youll just get a big cloud of cold gas. You need an open flame and real good aim. Assassinations one percent shooting, ninety-nine percent preparation. Anticipating moves, devising approaches, recruiting sources, finding the perfect opportunity so the bullets almost an afterthought. Usually thats when a targets on the move when there are too many variables to control them all. There are ways to lessen the risk. An armed escort, taking an unpredictable route to your destination, having backup in a trail car. But ultimately, as long as the assassin knows where youre going, they have the upper hand.

Spy Tips on Bureaucrats, Dealing with Kidnappers, and more

Work around spies for a while, and you learn to be careful when it looks like youre getting what you want. Thats when you tend to let your guard down, get careless. Calling the cops on someone can teach you a lot. A foreign agent would run. So might an armed assassin. A bureaucrats going to act like a bureaucrat. Bureaucrats live for respect. East of the Balkans, that means a bribe. In the West, its more about showing you know theyre in charge. About forty percent of kidnapping victims are released safely. These statistics are affected by a number of factors, including the nationality of the kidnappers, the age of the victim, and whether a hostage negotiator is employed. The odds go down sharply if no one has any money to pay the ransom. A kidnapping is a business deal. The bad guys have negotiating power since theyre selling the life of a loved one. But, then again, they have a market of one, so they have to work with you. Working with untrained amateurs introduces an element of risk. Its a risk you have to live with in a lot of operations, although you often find yourself wishing everyone went through Green Beret training in high school. Once a kidnapper knows youre on to him, hell try to contact his partners to have the hostage killed. At that point, you have a choice. You can start choosing wreaths for the hostages funeral or take a hostage of your own.

The art of turning someone into a double agent is delicate. The target has to be put into a fragile psychological state. Its always easier to turn someone who works for a criminal gang into a double agent. The more secretive and ruthless their side is, the better. You work on their fear that any hint of disloyalty will get them killed by their own people. From Karachi to Bogota, every kidnappers favorite resource is a corrupt employee. An employee can handle alarms, police. You can get financial information, bank accounts. Youve even got a fall guy if anything goes wrong. To a professional kidnapper, a good man on the inside is worth a lot. And a bad man on the inside is worth even more. GPS devices are becoming more and more common these days. Mostly theyre for nervous parents tracking children. But theyre perfectly good for other uses. Rescuing a hostage isnt about battering rams and guns. Charge through a door with a gun, and chances are the person youre trying to save will be the first person lying on the floor dying of acute lead poisoning. So you come up with alternatives. Ingredients from the local pharmacy mixed with aluminum foil powdered in a coffee grinder will make a serviceable flash grenade that will stun anyone for a good twenty feet. Thermite is another handy tool. With a surface temperature of one thousand degrees, its used to weld together railroad ties. It will make pretty short work of most locks, too. If you cant get through a door without attracting attention, the next best thing is to attract a lot of attention. Once everyones looking at the door, wondering whats going on, you can pop in a flash grenade, and they wont see anything for a while. The longer youve been in the game, the more you have to be careful about underestimating an opponent. Say you dont think much of bureaucrats, dont feel theyre worth your time or attention. Then a bureaucrat is the perfect person to send to kill you. Theres no way to anticipate every danger. You need a backup plan for when things go wrong. Thats why home-court advantage is so important.

Spy Tips on Fight Bigger Opponents, Using Paranoia, and more

When youre giving five inches and a hundred pounds to a well-trained opponent, it helps to know the terrain better than he does. A good cover identity is a team effort. If you want to meet someone, its a good idea to play a little hard to get. Put people between yourself and the target. Make them come to you. Clandestine meetings are never fun to arrange. Its a big part of the job for a covert operative, but its never pleasant. Its not so much the fear of death that bothers you. Its driving to the meet with a bag over your head. Its tough to compromise a well-thought-out security system, but making someone think you can compromise it, well, thats much easier. Take surveillance cameras, for example. You can disable one by shooting a laser at it and overloading the light-sensitive chip. Leave around

some telltale signs of surveillance, like cigarette butts, a forgotten camera-lens cap. And the more security there is, the more likely they are to think theyve got a very serious problem. Even the security team itself can be an opportunity. The more employees you have, the more you have to worry about. Deliver some vague threats and a few hundred bucks to a security guard. If hes honest, hell tell his boss, who then wonders who wasnt so honest. For the cost of a nice dinner, you can get a whole security team canned. One of the dangers of any kind of psychological warfare is it can be too effective and send the target into a paranoid tailspin. That paranoia can be useful or deadly. The key to good security is good systems, consistency. But those very systems make you predictable. Where will you take your valuables? A bank you trust. Howre you going to get there? With armed men in a big SUV. When will you go? When the bank is least crowded. All good procedure, all one hundred percent predictable. If you know someones going to be at a bank at a particular time, its not hard to make it look like theyre robbing the bank. Shoot out a few video-surveillance cameras. Block off the street with a stolen car, like theyre preparing an escape route. Fire up a spark-gap transmitter to kill the security radios at the bank, and theyll really look like they know what theyre doing.

Spy Tips on Names, Coverage, Pick Pocketing, and more

For anyone who works in covert ops, names have a special power. Knowing someones real name, who they work for, youve got something on them. Out a spy in the field, and you can get him killed. Out a bureaucrat in a restaurant and youll just piss him off. The longer you run from the police, the more certain you are to get caught. Theres a small window of time after a chase begins before backup arrives, before helicopters are deployed. If you want any chance of getting away, youd best use this time to find someplace secluded and bail out. In intelligence work, surveillance is called coverage. Its like basketball. You can run zone defense or man-to-man. Man-to-mans risky. Follow someone too long, theyre going to get suspicious. Zone is usually the way to go. Stay put and let targets come to you. Less obvious, easier on the feet Explaining the rules of covert ops is always a challenge. Its a world where good guys look like bad guys and two wrongs do, in fact, make a right. They say you only get one chance to make a first impression with an employer. Doesnt matter if youre a store manager or a strong-arm guy, you have to put your best foot forward. Any new employer is looking for the same things. Are you willing to go the extra mile? Can you take the initiative, impress them? Military firebombs are typically white phosphorus or chlorine trifluoride. These are remarkably effective, but theyre also unstable, lethally toxic, and hard to find at the grocery store. The main ingredient in a homemade firebomb, on the other hand, is styrofoam. A military demolitions expert could put something together in a few hours. An IRA-trained guerilla can do it in twenty minutes give or take.

Being a spy, you have to get comfortable with the idea of people doing bad things for good reasons, doing good things for bad reasons.

Spy Tips on Optical Bugs, Using the Cops, Pick Pockets, and more
Sprinkle a mixture of flour and dayglo powder on your floor before you go out, and youll know whether youve had any visitors and what they were after. There are two kinds of government surveillance the kind thats there to look for something and the kind thats just there to make your life difficult. You can tie up a lot of resources by keeping a bugged phone line open. As long as its open, theyre supposed to keep listening. Say a few cryptic things now and then and theyll be stuck in their little van, trying to figure out what the hell youre doing. They cant go home, cant grab a bite to eat, cant take a leak. And the longer theyre stuck in a van with a set of headphones, the more you can find out about them. As a rule, spies dont like dealing with cops. Covert ops are illegal by definition. If they were legal, they wouldnt need to be covert. Still, the police can be useful if you need a little insurance against people shooting. When youre going into a meeting cold with people you know nothing about, you have to be extra careful. Pay attention to every detail. map out an escape route or two just in case. And never, ever show up as yourself. Another thing you look for is people who seem overly upset that things have changed, details that shouldnt matter so much. The optical bug is a high-tech toy that shoots a light beam in a window. It picks up vibrations from the glass and translates it into speech. You cant see the beam with the naked eye, but take the infrared filter off a digital camera, and it shows up nicely. As high-tech as a laser mike is, theyre not hard to defeat. They pick up vibrations on the glass, so you supply your own vibrations. When working a cover identity, the safest thing is to let the target take the lead. Youve got more information than he does. You want to keep that edge. Anyone with a security clearance is going to know not to leave anything in a hotel room. Theyll keep the important stuff with them. Usually itll be in a secure laptop with a few layers of encryption. Means you cant break into it. But if youre just looking to make somebody angry, you dont need to break into it. Put a big enough magnet where that laptop is going to be, and you can turn it into an expensive paperweight. When something serious is going down, its a good idea to show up nice and early so you can see the ground and assess the situation. Anyone whos ever handled large amounts of cash can tell you, its one of the toughest things in the world to move. Its heavy and dense dead weight. If its on fire, of course, that complicates things further.

Getting information out of someone who doesnt want to give it up is all about upsetting the targets emotional balance, impairing their judgment. Fears good for that. Angers not bad either. Sometimes, intelligence gathering involves sophisticated techniques and a lot of high-tech equipment. But sometimes its as simple as picking someones pocket.

Spy Tips on Seeing Through Security, Fake C-4, and more

Theres a good reason covert operatives keep their work a secret from their families. Once your family knows what you do, youve got problems. Best case theyre scared. Worst case they figure they can get into trouble and youll get them out of it. In gathering intel, little things can tell you a lot. A topflight alarm system. Well-placed cameras without blind spots. Paying attention to strangers in the area. If you know what to look for, a bunch of little things can tell you everything you need to know. One cheap and effective security measure is working in an area with low or no traffic. Anyone is 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. When you want to turn someone into an asset, get him to 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. C-4 has a plastic sheen and a putty like consistency. If you need to counterfeit it, the best thing Ive found is cake icing, or fondant, as it is known in the baking trade. Youd be surprised how often covert operatives pose as international men of mystery. Fantasies about glamorous covert ops can be extremely useful to exploit, though some secretagent fantasies are more useful than others. Anybody in the arms trade knows that the mark of a pro is the blow-and-burn. Its a detonator on whatever youre selling in case the deal goes bad. Dealing with a blown cover is about stalling for time. Stay alive long enough to figure out 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, if the drivers busy making sure you cant see anything, hes not paying attention to whether hes being followed. Any good operative is going to be a bit of a control freak. Above all, they dont wanna hear that the people they think they own really belong to someone who can destroy them. Theres nothing worse for anyone who spent time in intelligence work than being up against a ghost. You can deal with an enemy you know, but an enemy you dont know? He could be a competitor who knows all about your operation. Could be law enforcement getting ready to

bust you. Could be a foreign agent setting you up in some deep spy game. Your only option is to disappear.

Spy Tips on Blending In, Booby Trapping, Knife Defense, and more
You want to blend into a new city, you better be up on local sports. If it looks like youre about to get into a fight that could get you killed, try starting another one. When booby-trapping your home, its important to keep it simple. Make it easy to set up, easy to disable. One more thing about booby traps. Make sure your friends know not to drop by unannounced. The key to a good knife defense is to control the knife hand and strike with everything youve got. Running an operation, you cant let personal feelings get in the way. Its about planning and execution. Not about being angry. There is a reason family is always a good source of leverage, whether its a brother that always owes people money or a brother stuck in the trunk of a car. You cant really turn your back on them.

Spy Tips on Creating a Safe House, Approaching Spies, and more

Any high-security function is going to have a lot of oversight, a lot of meetings, a lot of bureaucrats checking up on each other. In all the confusion of the big event, its easy for another bureaucrat to just show up. The important thing is to disappear before people can ask questions. If they do decide to ask questions, you just have to hope youre in a building with a lot of hallways, a good service basement, and plenty of exits. But in the end, sometimes making an escape is just about being willing to do what the guy chasing you wont. Convincing a bully to back down is usually just a matter of showing youre not afraid of him. Of course, some bullies have guys with .357 magnums. Then you change tactics. When faced with superior force, you can do two things. You can retreat quietly, or you can attack with as much fanfare as possible. Outfitting a safe house is about two things. You need to know if someones coming, and you need to know how the folks youre protecting are going to get out of there if they do. If you cant be on babysitting duty all the time, you need to make sure that you know the minute somethings wrong. A thirty-five-dollar outdoor floodlight has a decent motion detector on it. Wire that to a cellphone, and youve got a remote alarm system that will call you if theres trouble. I love commuters. Anybody who drives the same route to work every day, its like theyre doing all the work for you, and a punctual commuter, a guy whos in the same place every morning at 8:36 AM, its almost too easy.

Threaten any serious criminal organization, and theyre going to do one of two things. Theyll send someone to make a deal Or theyll send someone to make a corpse. Either way, youve got something to work with. Approaching a spy in the middle of a job gives you a lot of leverage. Theyre playing a delicate game, and the last thing they want is someone coming in and smashing their delicate game with a brick. Basic rule of bodyguarding never fight with the protectee around, mostly, because if they happen to catch a stray bullet, you just lost your job.

Spy Tips Planting Bugs, Con Artists, Surveillance, and more

A surveillance photo can tell you a lot about the photographer. Surveillance takes planning. You have to scout the area. You need a place to sit and wait for the target for an hour or ten. You need to take a leak now and then. Lots of chances to get seen. Not all bugs are the same. If its got a battery, its disposable, short-term. If its wired into the house power, its a longer-term thing. If it has a transmitter, you can figure out how close the listener is. Once your surveillance knows youre onto them, the clock starts ticking. They know youre coming, so the question for them is whether they can destroy their equipment and get out of there in time. The question for you is whether you can find them before every bit of useful information is turned into a pile of burning slag. Con artists and spies are both professional liars. Cons do it for the money, and spies do it for the flag, but its mostly the same gig. They run operations, they follow security procedures, they recruit support staff and issue orders. When you go after a spy, you send another spy. The same goes for con artists. To catch one, youve got to beat him at his own game, be a better liar than he is. No matter how good your cover identity is, youve gotta sell it, and thats not always easy. Sometimes you have to decide just how committed you are to pretending you are who you say you are. I dont like running from cops, but it has its advantages. It builds your credibility with a criminal when you flee a crime scene. Bugs dont plant themselves. The fact is, even the fanciest equipment usually needs help from a good, old-fashioned crowbar. A good cover identity keeps the target feeling in control. You talk too much, drink too much just to let him know hes got the edge. Go after a group of people directly, and they pull together, they get stronger. Taking out a tight-knit group is about making them turn on each other. Plant the seeds of distrust and watch them grow.

Whether youre in Moscow, Tehran, or Miami, club girls are a good source of information. Men say things to a beautiful woman. They give out phone numbers, hotel keys. They let down their guard. Getting information from a club girl means buying drinks. A hit man is like a plumber, a dentist, or a mechanic. Everybodys always looking for a good one. Truth is, identity theft isnt hard. A number and an ID is all you need to drain a bank account.

Spy Tips on Car Chases, Safe Cracking, Losing a Tail, and more
In a fight, you have to be careful not to break your little hand bones on someones face. When youre being watched, what you need is contrast, a background that will make the surveillance stand out. An FBI field office is full of guys in their 40s. At most south beach business hotels, it would be tough to tell which middle aged white guy was watching you. So you stay in the place where everyone is a jell-c-shot away from alcohol poisoning. If you can see someone who can walk a straight line, thats the Fed. Need to go someplace youre not wanted? Any uniform store will sell you a messenger outfit and any messenger can get past a security guard. Figuring out if a car is tailing you is mostly about driving like youre an idiot. You speed up, slow down, signal one way, turn the other. Actually, losing a tail isnt about driving fast. A high-speed pursuit is just gonna land you on the six oclock news. So you just keep driving like an idiot until the other guy makes a mistake. Whether youre a coke dealer, a thief, an arms dealer, or a spy, you need someone to clean your money. Which makes a good money launderer the closest thing you can get to a yellow pages for criminals. Doesnt 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 Im breaking in someplace. Somebody catches you, whatre you gonna say? You want to look like a legitimate visitor until the very last minute. If you cant look legit, confused works almost as well. Maybe get a soda from the fridge or a yogurt. If youre 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 whats left on the scanner nine times out of ten is a fingerprint. The point is, blackmail is a little like owning a pitbull. It might protect you, or it might bite your hand off. Thats why it pays to make sure you know what theyre thinking, and that means eavesdropping. To build a listening device, you need a crappy phone with a mike that picks up everything. But you want the battery power and circuits of a better phone. Its a trick you learn when the purchasing office wont 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, youve got work to do. For a job like getting rid of the drug dealer next door, Ill 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. People with happy families dont become spies. A bad childhood is the perfect background for covert ops. You dont trust anyone, youre used to getting smacked around, and you never get homesick. Air bags save a lot of lives. But they also put you out long enough to get your hands cabletied to the steering wheel. You have to lose some fights so you can learn to win. I mean, look at this. I got the crap beat out of me. I have two black belts, and they kicked my ass. So you got nothing to be ashamed of with me, okay? Im the champ of getting beaten up. But Im also very good at winning. You want it to stop? The key to fighting a group is taking out its leader. Take out its leader, theyll all leave you alone. Its bully psychology. When you work solo, its about prepping the ground. Home-court advantage counts for a lot. Most bad guys expect you to just sit there and wait for them like those are the rules or something. If youre going to put prints on a gun, sticking it into somebodys hand isnt going to do it. Any decent lawyer can explain prints on a gun. But try explaining prints on the inside of the trigger assembly.