Espionage Aficionados discussion

How does one lose a tail these days? Let's break it down a bit.

1. You have no car you're on your own
2. You're in a car you're on your own
3. You're a "baddy" with all the usual resources bad guys have (spare cars etc but no helicopters)
4. You're a member of cia/ mi6 being tailed trying to get to your embassy.

Fun question; but I'm not sure its really an area where much 'personal leeway' comes into play. There's precise, prescribed ways in which a pedestrian is tagged when professionals are doing the tagging. If you know what standard practice is, then you know what you must do to defeat it; if you don't know what the standard practice is, then its unlikely anything you do will shake the tags. Of course, amateurs sometimes do the unthinkable, but still.

I'll just toss out some comments (not in order)

(2) If you're in a car, your tags will use a 'rolling box' method with their cars. One controlling car (like a van) a good ways behind you and as many as 12 roaming cars which revolve in position around you as you drive. You have to find some way to abruptly break out of the box in a way which won't let them re-assemble it around you. Its tough to do. The van is where all the roaming cars send their radio reports and whoever's in the van collates the info and makes decisions about how to keep the box in place.

(3) This item is stated too vaguely for me to answer. What is the exact situation?

(4) Losing a tail is straight out of any manual if you've actually spotted them on you. To discover if you have a tail, you find some very long, barren, empty road with few other commuters on it, where it becomes obvious that someone is with you; because otherwise why would they be going down some deserted, dead-end street with you? If there's no such street available, you visit a quick series of stores or venues and look for 'familiar faces'. Again, what are the odds that someone in the crowd would visit the exact same stores as you just chose? Of course, they try to vary the faces of the team around you so that you don't see the same face twice.

You wouldn't want to speed up to flush them because that tells them you know you're being tailed, and oftentimes you don't want to tip them to that. Instead, you can try to abruptly double-back, or stop and see who stops (but if they're good they won't fall for these cheap tricks). In all aspects, they will just be other pedestrians who don't seem to notice you at all. (Its not like the old days when you could just look for two guys sitting in a car together, doing nothing, ha.)

Once you know for sure you are being tagged, then the classic dodge is to duck into some crowded establishment which has multiple entrances--a train complex, for example--some place with too many for them cover at a moment's notice. Then you leave by one of those entrances and then re-check to see if they're still with you. Remember that the purpose of their surveillance is to identify places you go and who you communicate with. If they can also overhear your conversations and transactions, so much the better; but at the minimum they always want to know the first two (and of course, without you being the wiser).

The next part of question #4 (as you've stated it) is murky. First, if you are in a foreign country and you have no supposed ties to your agency--and you don't want to blow that cover--you wouldn't go straight back to your embassy after an op. You'd go to some prearranged place where you can be brought in safely by your team. Its up to you to shake the tail before you arrive there.

But let's say you had some cover-job *with the embassy* which might give you a plausible reason for racing back there in a panic--still, just the fact that you're scrambling to get there in a way which is obviously trying to shake pursuers, this shows you are aware that you no longer enjoy any cover. They then, are aware that you are aware you are exposed, thus, they don't have to bother with trying to follow you surreptitiously, they would then try to close on you.

See what I mean? If you have an 'innocent' embassy-cover then you wouldn't go out doing covert ops in the first place, under the assumption you could go completely undetected. You'd run an agent who would do the op for you and you would be his control. Meanwhile if you *were* out on some mission yourself, and you *had* blown your cover completely [and all that matters is making it safely back to base without getting killed] they would come out in the open to prevent you from getting back. So, in either case (blown cover, or intact) you wouldn't go straight back to base 'hot' because they could simply shoot you as you walk up to the gates. It'd be obvious where you were headed, after all. You'd really need to have a controller (arranged long in advance) with you yourself having no connection to your embassy and so you just find your way back to that control.

Okay so, how do you shake a tag when you're going to meet your controller? The usual system of pre-arranged checks, with fallbacks. Basically, when you're going to meet any contact at all, you 'pass' each other first at three preliminary places to check each other for tags before going to the 4th site which is the actual rendezvous. If either of you fails to give the 'all clear' signal, the meeting is cancelled and you wait until next week.

Now, I'll tackle question #1: you're being tailed on a busy city street. In this case there is usually a base-vehicle (like a van) 4 blocks behind you and something like 15 guys on foot, who are in a 'box' around you, (just as in a car pursuit). They change positions; usually 1 guy each 1 block away to the north/south/east/west of you and then three guys 'close in' with you (who frequently swap out for three other guys so you don't cotton on to what they're doing). They're all in communication with each other and these days its very hard to spot because of cellphones. But in the old days you might identify a tail because they'd have collar mikes. Collar mikes are hard to spot; but at least once you did spot one, you could be positive of what it meant.

They mainly want to cover the two streets to either side of you. They're not as concerned with you speeding up--because they will simply extend the box forward ahead of you--and they're not worried about you reversing course; because they would just reverse. As long as you stay on the street they are on with you; they have the upper hand. They're really worried about you darting to the next street over, (1 block to your right or left) where they don't have anyone behind you or in front of you--that is to say, the 'empty corners' of the box. Lateral movement is the issue; hence the reason for defining-the-shape-as-a-box in the first place. Your best maneuver is therefore an 'L' or 'hook' shaped movement of some sort to get you out via the corner. A strong box though won't just have four points on it (NSEW)--it will have eight. Every side and every corner covered.

If you are audacious and tough; one other method might be to reverse course swiftly, find the base vehicle a few blocks behind you and put it out of commission. Try to throw them into disarray. Or, try to leapfrog out using a trolley car, tram car, or some other mode who's route they hadn't considered. They'd need to get a man aboard with you--you can see this in 'French Connection', tons of other movies.

p.s. I think up above you are sorta asking as well for what goes on when no preparations have been laid down at all--well, in the case of no-prep--the minimum number of men you still need to trail someone on foot in the city, is three men forming a 'T' shape. Because when you come to an intersection, this is obviously the place where you might break; but a 3 man team can cover you adequately; not closely of course --loosely. Its enough to keep rotating.

This is strictly for some situation where the rest of the larger team is not available. If you enter a mall with multiple entrances the guy behind you might follow you in and when you emerge he will radio the other two guys to re-form the 'T' wherever you exit from.

The one problem (at least back in the day) was that radio range wasn't strong enough without a base vehicle but these days that's not an issue. *Private* comms can still be an issue. Not often though.

Nevertheless, the basic deal is just three men.

If you have less than 3 men, then you will only see success if you are *very sure beforehand* that you know where target's destination is, and all you're trying to do is make sure he doesn't do anything unusual along the way.

I'm actually very glad I wrote this all out, I can use it in one of my current writing projects!

One of my favs is, to go into a crowded restaurant which had multiple exits or a church(again crowded), and take a seat available in the as much center possible. After few minutes of idling - scream "O my god there's snake" and roll-out with exiting crowd, in this situation of confusion and mess, you can easily snatch/pickup a scarf or hat off someone and change your appearance. Once you exit, do not run, keep walking away from establishment and puff you go.

Yes, that's useful in some cases. Causing a stam-pede to im-pede your pursuers. Used to great effect in Alfred Hitchcock's 'Torn Curtain'!

Love that movie.

One more effective way of losing tail:

Suppose you are in some up market street driving your car and you spot a tail. Now usually tail cars are atleast 100 yards behind you and in a criss-cross pattern, so what you have to do is to loose them one by one. Slow down at a upcoming traffic light, and just pass it the moment it turns to red, so that tail car has to stop at the light just turned red, take the next left or right and keep repeating the maneuver until you loose all the tail. Once you are confident that you are on a stretch where you have lost the trail for few minutes, park your car abruptly, move out and take a taxi. Puff you go.

Now, to get into a embassy is a most tricky thing, if you are on "HOT" list of counter-intelligence branch of country of which you are in. Hiding in boots of car or supply trucks are old school and are now a days scrutinized to most minute details. In such case i would suggest for diversion-play. Ask your embassy to prepare for a 4-5 decoy cars, who will be ready to fly from inside of embassy to go to different parts of city. Agent has to reach near embassy in some unmarked vehicle, and those 4-5 decoy card have to leave embassy in some suspicious manner, like 4 guys sitting in the each decoy car with suits and microphones and they have to leave embassy in a hurry in kind of rush, so that watchers at embassy have no alternative other than to follow those cars. Now you can move in your unmarked vehicle into the embassy and puff you go.

Agree with the stoplight maneuver...a long-standing tradition, yep. Good reminder