He switched off the camera. I initiated my tracking software, locating his IP address. It was the same one he always used. Previously, I’d hacked his ISP and gotten his billing information, and from there it had been easy to run a background check. Victor Cormack, as far as I could research using both public and private records, had been telling me the truth about his job, his education, his past. On the surface, he was a normal, average person.
But anyone checking out my identity would assume the same about me.
I erased my Internet footsteps, deleting cookies, clearing the cache, and reformatting the C drive. A pain in the ass to do every time I went online, but a necessary one. Then I wiped the keyboard clean with a spritz of Windex and began my morning work-out.
Halfway into it, my encrypted cell phone rang. I finished my two-hundred thirty-ninth push-up, slid the sweaty bangs off my eyebrows with my forearm, and padded over to the breakfast bar to answer it. Only one person—the same person who knew my address—had this number. A call meant work. And work couldn’t be refused. The phone was even waterproof so I could take it into the shower.
I hit the connect button on the touch screen and waited, habit making me tune in to my surroundings. I could smell traces of the green pepper omelet and wheat toast I’d had for breakfast, along with a slightly sour odor coming from the sink telling me dishes needed to be done. The ambient sounds were unremarkable; the thermostat kicking on, the hum of the fridge, the ticking of a wall clock hanging over my computer, pigeons warbling outside.
To continue reading FLEE by J. A. Konrath and Ann Voss Peterson, visit your library or favorite ebook retailer and pick up a copy today.
Part of the appeal of my series about the half- American, half-Japanese assassin John Rain seems to be Rain’s realistic tactics. It’s true that Rain, like his author, has a black belt in judo and is a veteran of certain government firearms and other defensive tactics courses, but these have relatively little to do with Rain’s continued longevity. Rather, Rain’s ultimate expertise, and the key to his survival, lies in his ability to think like the opposition.
Okay, get out your notepad, because:
I’m writing this article on my laptop in a crowded coffee shop I like. There are a number of other people around me similarly engaged. I think to myself,
Okay. I’ve determined where the opposition is planning on carrying out his crime (this coffee shop), and I know how he’s going to do it (snatch and dash). I now have options:
avoid the coffee shop entirely (avoid
secure my laptop to a chair with a twenty dollar Kensington security cable (avoid how the crime will occur — it’s hard to employ bolt cutters unobtrusively in a coffee shop, or to carry away a laptop that has a chair hanging off it); and
hope to catch the thief in the act, chase him down, engage him with violence.
Of these three options, #2 makes the most sense for me. The first is too costly — I like this coffee shop and get a lot of work done here. The third is also too costly, and too uncertain. Why fight when you can avoid the fight in the first place? This is self-
Which brings us to an unpleasant, but vitally true, parable:
Except at the level of very high-value executive protection (presidents, high-profile businesspeople, ambassadors and other dignitaries), you are not trying to outrun the bear. You are trying only to outrun your friend.
Let’s combine these two concepts — thinking like the opposition, outrunning your friend — with an example from the realm of home security. And let’s add an additional critical element: that all good security is
If you wanted to burglarize a house, what would you look for? And what would you avoid?
Generally speaking, your principal objectives are to get cash and property, and to get away (home invasion is a separate subject, but is addressed, like all self-protection, by reference to the same principles). You’d start by looking at lots of houses. Remember, you’re not trying to rob a certain address; you just want to rob a house. Which ones are dark? Which are set back from the road and neighbors? Are there any cars in the driveway? Lights and noise in the house? Signs of an alarm system? A barking dog?
Thinking like a burglar, you are now ready to implement the outer layer of your home security. By some combination of installing motion-sensor lights, keeping bushes trimmed to avoid concealment opportunities, putting up signs advertising an alarm system, having a dog around, keeping a car or cars in the driveway, leaving on appropriate lights and the television, and making sure there are no newspapers in the driveway or mail left on the porch when you’re away, you help the burglar to decide immediately during his casing or surveillance phase that he should rob someone else’s house.
If the burglar isn’t immediately dissuaded by the outer layer, he receives further discouragement at the next