First Blood - Part 1

It looks like I'll be running my first op tomorrow night. I've been observing the oceanside estate of a top financial CEO every couple of days to see if any exploitable patterns emerge. When I do my recons I look like a bird watcher. I have a pair of binoculars, a digital camera with a telephoto lens and an acoustic parabolic dish booster with an output to an audio recorder. Yep, I'm the "compleat" turkey hunter.

Well I got lucky this morning - he is throwing a "Happy days are here again" bonus party this weekend. A work crew was busy setting up a large open-sided tent, a couple of dozen portable space heaters, 2 bars, several dozen tables and enough seating for quite a few big bonus banker butts. I scanned the area with the parabolic and picked up that it's tomorrow at 6PM. This is my 4th visit to the area and I've already scoped out the best spots and distances. The spot I have in mind puts me 550 yards away. I like it - far enough away to be undetectable, pretty much out of bodyguard pistol range yet definitely in range for me.

My original plan was to shoot him when he was out walking the grounds or sitting in his gazebo. I figure it would easily be at least several minutes until anybody noticed and called the cops. By then I'd be in my rental car and out of there. I'd have to drive South about a mile on a curvy 2 lane road, go past a junction and then another 1/2 mile through the nearest town and then get on a busy multi-lane road. This exposure added up to about 5-6 minutes - 2 minutes to get to the car and 3-4 minutes of driving. The town didn't have a police department and the nearest highway patrol substation was in the opposite direction. So all in all, this was an acceptable risk.

The party would be different. As soon as I start shooting, people would be whipping out cell phones and calling 911. And someone might have some military experience, figure out my general direction, and pass that on to the police. The worst case for me would be a nearby police helicopter with night vision gear or road blocks being put up. Driving out wasn't impossible but it was too close for comfort for me. I could ditch my gear and get by a road block but shooting down a police chopper is "no go" for me.

So how could I hide from a police chopper? Well I've seen some "anti-night vision camouflage" clothing items on the internet and if the police chopper just has light amplification night vision, this might actually be an improvement over regular camo. But if the chopper has infra-red gear, there's this thing called "the laws of physics" which pretty much screws anyone brave enough (stupid actually) to ignore them. I'm definitely not going to be that guy. Yeah I might be able to rig up a camo jumpsuit with dry ice packs to mask my body heat and cool my exhaled breath to match ambient air temps but it would take way more time than I had. And how ironic if I got detected because of a cold spot from the dry ice. Bottomline, I'm not going to be that guy either.

What else could I do? Well I've been a diver since childhood so going underwater is second nature to me. So into the water I go and my new plan is born. After the hit, I'll put on SCUBA gear and use a battery powered dive scooter to make turns for 1 knot @ a depth of about 10 feet. I'll go several miles down the coast, ditch the dive gear and come out at a secluded spot. About 5 miles South, there's a popular hiking trail and I could leave my car at the trailhead.

Those of you who are operationally-minded know how my having to work alone complicates things. I can't get dropped off or have a get away car waiting. A taxi sure as hell isn't going to work out here in the sticks. "Hey Mister, keep the meter running while I take this big bag of stuff out to the woods and then come back without it 10 minutes later." I don't have any lookouts or backup. I can't brainstorm or get opinions from others. And I've never done anything like this before. I'm figuring this out as I go along. I know I am way smarter than the average bear and yet I am still surprisingly humble - enough to know that going solo is very, very risky.

Hey if true life was like the movies I'd be a former Navy Seal and I'd have a Draeger MK7 closed circuit rebreather and the very cool JetBoots.com diver propulsion system which consists of a
shrouded prop on each leg and power cables to a battery pack at the small of the back. But no, I'm not ex-military, much less Salvation Army or even Boy Scouts. That's enough whining for now. The British have a saying "We shall suck it and see." The first time I heard it, I though it would make a fine title for a porno. Well suck it we shall.

I spent several hours scouting an exit spot on the shore. I wanted something pretty isolated so no one would see me coming out of the water and also not take my stashed camping and hiking gear. There wouldn't be anything incriminating - just run of the mill gear. But worst case would be that someone finds it and calls the cops for a missing person. Or I get a Sherlock Holmes wannabe who sees a possible link to the shootings. I picked a spot about 3 miles South of the hit site. It was a stretch of low cliffs, rocky ledges and overhangs with no sandy beaches or soft ground nearby. Hopefully this would also mean no campers. I entered a waypoint into my GPS and then considered how it would look like at night and what lights and landmarks I could use to backstop the GPS. My best bet would be to angle off the lights from the town about halfway between the hit site and exit point. I figured I could get away with surfacing every 15 minutes or so to confirm my progress down to coast. So long as I didn't exhale, there wouldn't be much of an IR signature and unless the chopper was right on top of me with a searchlight, I'd be ok.

So I'm at home now. My gear for tomorrow is squared away and I'm going to wrap up a special accessory package and then call it a night. Chance favors the rested mind...

Who Took Some Pot Shots at Lou Dobbs?

Sorry Mr. Dobbs! That was my fault. I was shooting at the house of the "big bonus" banker kitty korner from your house and a couple of rounds ricocheted. :-)

If you don't know who "Mr. Dobbs" is, this long, messy but honest WYSIWYG "full disclosure" link will inform you. (And no, I was not the shooter.)

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=Lou+Dobbs++I%E2%80%99ve+Been+Targeted+by+Gunfire&aq=f&oq=&aqi=

And check back here in a few days - I'll be posting my first "mission report" very soon...

Financial Warfare?

We've all heard about the next wave of gigantic bonuses that will be issued at certain financial institutions. And we've all heard the justification that if these obscene pay packages go away, then these financial geniuses will quit and go play in another sandbox.

And of course, we've all thought "well good riddance" to you!

Well how about this? What if we encouraged these parasites to move and go to work in countries classified as enemies of the US?

So what countries would you target first?

Nice Cans

Silence is golden. I've been working on my homemade version of what's commonly called a silencer but referred to as a "suppressor" or "can" by those in the know. Basically, the suppressor retains the hot, fast moving gas behind the bullet, muffles the shock wave and then releases the gas at a slower rate. The sharp crack you hear when a gun fires is the bullet and hot gas breaking the sound barrier.

Sure I could go out and buy one. It's legal in my state and if I weren't going to go financier hunting, that would be the easy (and legal) way to go. But then the Feds would have me in their paper trail. And it would be a rather short paper trail because I want a big can that will give me both a lot of noise reduction and completely contain the muzzle blast so no orange tongue of flame will give away my position. You see, most suppressors are for pistols, not rifles.

So I'm making my own suppressor. They are actually pretty easy to make even without a machine shop. The internet is loaded with plans and even videos - try searching on "improvised suppressors" for a nice starting point. And I don't mind that I'll be saving over a thousand bucks.

Since I don't need my suppressor to last for hundreds or thousands of rounds or look "professional" my task is even easier. I'm also willing to have what's called a "wet" suppressor which gives even more noise reduction over a "dry" suppressor. You see the fluid both reduces the temperature of the hot gas and also gets picked up (entrained) in the gas stream and slows it down even more. Oil or water are the 2 fluids used most often. There are stories that even urine has been used in a pinch.

The .308 caliber Ruger M77 hunting rifle I am using has a tapered barrel with no front sight. So what I did is coat the outside of the barrel with a mold release agent and insert a wooden dowel (snug fit) into the barrel to act as both a plug and a centering guide. Then I slipped a 7/8" ID (inside diameter) metal tube 20" long over the dowel and down the barrel till it was just an inch away from the stock forend. The metal tubing had two 3/16" holes drilled on opposite sides 13" from the tube end and about 14" from the forend. Epoxy resin will be injected into one hole and then flow out the other hole after the cavity between the tube and gun barrel are filled. But before I do that, I wrapped duct tape around the bottom of the tube and then I centered and shimmed the tube on the dowel. Now I could pour the resin and then leave the gun alone until the resin completely cured. The mold release made it easy to just twist and pull the epoxy filled metal tube off. This would be the core of my suppressor.

Part 2, literally and figuratively, coming soon.

Wall St Pay is like Combat Pay?

On Forbes.com several weeks ago, a former hedge fund manager (and now book author) presented the notion (in passing) that careers can end suddenly on Wall St so in a sense the high pay is like "combat" pay. <Link to Forbes item>

Well if you Wall St pukes want combat pay, I'll bring the combat live fire...

And over on the NPR Marketplace.org website,
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/10/06/pm-letters/

"Navy veteran Ralph Staples from San Diego, Calif., has a different perspective.

RALPH STAPLES: I find any comparison between bonuses and combat pay to be completely misplaced. In the risk versus reward tradeoff, on Wall Street if I don't perform, I may not get a bonus or be fired. In combat the risk is much, much higher. It is your life, loss of limbs or mental and emotional stability at stake." <Link to NPR item>

Well said Ralph. If I made the rules, I'd pay Wall St/Finance types way less and use the money to pay Teachers way more along with Cops and Military. I'd have a hidden agenda with boosting military pay - maybe we'd use em more carefully if it was more expensive...

And that's all I have to say about that...