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...