Seek and Destroy is the twelfth episode of the second season and the twenty-fourth episode overall. 212

Feb 5 2009

Notes

Clients: Scott Chandler, Melanie

Bad Guys: Jacob Orr, Derek Poole

Synopsis

Michael, under the alias of Miles Parker, is hired by Scott Chandler to investigate strange activity - log-ins at odd hours, unusual computer activity and telephone bugging - at an art gallery. But after being attacked by the gallery's receptionist, Michael finds himself working against Chandler.

Meanwhile, Michael needs to find the person who planted the bomb at his loft, therefor he turns to arms dealer Seymour for help.

Spy Facts

Getting information is all about fitting in. If you're hunting for intel in the Middle East, that means a beard and a djellaba. If you're doing it on South Beach, you're probably wearing a swimsuit and flip-flops.

When it comes to intelligence gathering, you can't hold grudges. The guy who hit you with a baseball bat yesterday could be an information source today.

There are a lot of advantages to taking on a new identity when you take a new job. You can tailor your resume to the position, and it gives you a lot of flexibility. You just have to get used to the idea of lying to everyone you meet.

To protect someone without blowing your cover, you have to come up with a story, one that explains what they're doing, explains what you're doing and gets everyone out in one piece. Of course, not everyone is a born story teller.

A bug, in its simplest form, is just a microphone attached to a radio. Effective, but easy to detect with a frequency scanner. A more subtle device is the wireless key-logger circuit. Nearly undetectable and easy to install, it transmits every password you type into the keyboard. All surveillance devices, though, share a weakness: they're machines. When machines break, somebody has to fix them. More spies get caught changing batteries and fixing wires than any other single activity.

To make a magnet powerful enough to wipe a security camera tape, you need a strong power supply. A wall outlet will do nicely if there's one available. But if you need something more portable, a car battery works in a pinch. Of course, you have to be careful to use a heavy-gauge wire if you don't want a fiery explosion that covers you in battery acid. But do it right, and you've got a magnet powerful enough to wipe any magnetic media you can manage to get close to.

When you're playing the role of spy hunter and the person you're hunting is yourself, the trail of evidence can lead anywhere you say it does. And no one can create more fear, more paranoia than the spy-hunter.

For a female operative, picking a guy up at a bar is harder than it might seem. Most men have a sense for when a pickup is going too well. If it's too easy, they get suspicious. If it's too hard, they move on.

Once an operative has a guy on the hook, she needs backup to make sure things don't go too far. The proper sedative for cocktail hour ensures an early evening. Chloral hydrate is a mild but effective choice. It'll do the trick, but only if the target's interested in drinking it. If he's not, you have to induce unconsciousness some other way.

When it comes to security, the difference between a spy and a regular thief, is that a thief gets to take what he wants and run. A spy has to go back to the scene of the crime the next day and act like nothing happened. It makes the approach a little more delicate.

When you're a spy you spend a lot of time looking for people's hiding places. It's always good to start by searching where your target has the easiest access. Of course, smart targets don't always hide things where they have the easiest access. After that, the search gets a little more subtle. You look for signs of moved furniture, marks on the carpet, scuffs on the walls, anything out of place.

When you're playing the spy hunter, the goal is to get the target to trust you completely, to think of you as his only ally. Convince him that he's on the brink of disaster, and he'll tell you whatever you want him to.

One of the problems with running a criminal conspiracy, is that there's no way to avoid trust issues with your employees. If you steal with a guy, he knows you're a thief. If you kill with him, he knows you're a killer. It's a serious management issue.

Favored by bomb squads, disrupter shells are a specially-designed shotgun round filled with water. The blast can blow an explosive device apart without igniting it. The shells are only lethal up to about six feet. At 10 feet, they just hurt a lot.