Why I am so Cautious

Previous Chapter: History

I build up multiple layers of disguises and covers as defense in depth. Usually I don’t need them, but every now and again they become critical. I was on a gig relatively early in my career when it seemed that everything that could go wrong did. I was identified during my initial surveillance, spotted again when I hit the target, was pursued afterwards and was in police custody and interrogated for two days. It was a simple job: take out the target making it look like an accident. The target didn’t have any particularly special protection and wasn’t any more paranoid than anyone else in her position. I’m sure I didn’t treat this job any differently than any other; I think it was just bad luck. One reason I spent two days with the police was to try and understand what they knew. Only after I felt sure that my capture was incidental did I move on (I keep lawyers on retainer for just such events, though in this case I was able to make do with the public defender).

The job was to take out this “captain of industry.” I guess one of her rivals (almost certainly male) felt vulnerable or whatever. I was doing my usual investigation prior to setting a price, and was slipping out after planting bugs in her office, when I was seen by several people in the building. I have no idea why they were there that late. While I deliberately disguised myself as a janitor and had all the appropriate IDs, I’m always uncomfortable when I’m seen unexpectedly. One of the group came to ask me what I was doing in the boss’s office. I had the forethought to have a bag of trash to display (I whipped some broken English on them; I made myself up to look Hispanic after all). The guy backtracked to the office as I was walking away. I guess to see if I’d stolen something; it was a sign of things to come.

After I took the job, I decided to have the accident look like food poisoning. The target was a “foodie” and was always trying something new. She was a fan of sushi and was well known to prepare her own from time to time. I felt she would be perfect to “accidently” try some Fugu, that deadly (if not prepared properly) puffer fish so popular in Japan (why people like to tempt fate, I don’t get; outside the military I’ve never jumped out of a perfectly good airplane). I knew she liked to do experimental cooking on her own and felt quite sure that no one would question her being silly enough to try something like this (like so many in her position, she had enormous ego). I got the fish, prepared it “wrong” and slipped into her place while she’s at work on a day I knew (via my bugs) she was planning on doing some kitchen experimenting. I mixed the “wrong” fish in with some fish that looked the same (and contaminated some of the other fish for good measure) and got ready to leave. I’ve developed in-depth skills with lock picking over the years and as a consequence generally don’t bother with keys even on my own locks.

I was locking the deadbolt on my way out, after having re-activated the alarm, and had my back to the hallway. Someone came out of another apartment, saw me and thought I was breaking _in_ and gave chase. Very noble of them. Also incredibly stupid. What if I really was a desperate person and took them on? Anyway, I had no problem outdistancing them on foot. They were clever enough to call 911. By the time I got to the lobby the cops were already there. When I was doing my research they always took at least another thirty seconds to show up, more than enough time for me to get to a place I could take my disguise off (if I took it off while in the stairwell it would be obvious I was disguised, which would blow my cover of a common burglar). Since I did extensive walk arounds, I knew intimately the surrounding roads, alleys, parks, etc. so took off toward the back, hoping they’d responded to the front only. That supposition was only partly true. As I exited the rear of the building, a police car was pulling in the alley. I felt confident I could beat these guys on foot, so took off the other way toward a park. It’s harder to hide in a park in the middle of the day, but I felt that there would be enough people to blend in. Surprisingly, one of the cops turned out to be an Olympic sprinter (well, it sure seemed like that the way he gained on me!) and was hot on my heels as I headed into the park. I didn’t want to get physical with the police. Nothing sets a town on edge like a cop getting roughed up or killed. I started to think that the better course of action was to get caught.

I allowed him to catch up with me and he did what I hoped and tasered me. Of course, that meant I got bashed in the face when I went down and had the “joyful” experience of those amazingly painful cramps. I was careful to hide my grin. By that time, I had tossed my professional lock picks and only had the crude ones you might expect to find on a common burglar.

While I didn’t pass out, I did pretend to be totally incapacitated. They stuck me in the back of a squad car, drove me to the building and had the witness ID me. Then they took me to the station and booked me. After dumping me in a holding cell, I got a chance to relax for a while. It was a couple of hours later when they took me for interrogation. I was curious to know if my cover would hold up. My skin was darkened along with my hair. Though still Hispanic looking, I was distinct from my earlier disguise as a janitor. Of course, I spoke with a thick Hispanic accent (and was fluent in Spanish when they brought in an interpreter) and wore fingerprints that matched up exactly with someone in their system who looked exactly like me. At first I denied I was in the building and tried to make out that I was unreasonably attacked in the park. Then I “reluctantly” agreed that I’d actually been in the building, but wasn’t trying to break in, just innocently walking down the hallway. When pressed, I eventually “gave in” and admitted I was trying to break in. As I observed the place quite a bit, I knew that the rear entrance wasn’t properly guarded. Since they had lots of rich residents in the building, they actually had minimal cameras once you got out of the lobby. Thus, I fed them a line about how I saw the back entrance open and decided to try my hand to see if I could steal something.

They’d read me my rights after they had tasered me and stuck me in the car. I knew, as soon as any competent lawyer heard that, I would be out on the street with all charges dropped. Before I left, I wanted to be sure they were sure I was just an incompetent burglar. I spent the night in jail with some drunks and petty thieves. I kept largely to myself. I’ve mastered the ability to look intimidating when I need to and only had to do so once to be left to my own devices. They had some news channel on the TV outside our cell and I was able to verify my target was taken out. One small concern I had was she would have a group of people over (my bugs indicated not, but people change their minds all the time) and there would be collateral damage. This wasn’t the case, it was totally clean. I wanted to give some more time to see if the police associated her death with my presence, so stayed another day. The morning of the second day I “thought” to ask for a lawyer and in a few hours was telling my story to a public defender. Sure enough, once she heard my rights were read to me when I was incapacitated from the Taser, I was out in a couple of hours, all charges dropped.

It’s because of things like this that I engage in these elaborate layers of disguises and covers. I was able to get off, despite being essentially caught in the act, because of prior preparation. No one else got hurt or killed, the job went off without a hitch, and no one knew I was involved. Despite seemingly everything going wrong, it was still a near perfect job. I did take extra precautions after that, but after mentally going over all the steps I took, I feel sure I wasn’t being lazy or taking shortcuts. Just had a run of bad luck.