For a couple of days I’ve been watching VIP1 and 2 (The Girlfriend) to try and establish a pattern that might help the job. His villa is by the sea and has walls, gates and alarms but is not at all good from a security point of view. A public path runs between it and the sea and the wall at one point is far too close to the low roof. The adjoining properties are too near as well, I know this because I am staying in one of them, courtesy of the agency. With all that taken into account, I don’t envy the bodyguard his job. Close protection is very much a team job and he is on his own with the dog, which itself is not a security asset unless you fear handbag snatchers.

 

I probably said before but I don’t like gimmicks and gadgets, I’m no James Bond in that respect. Occasionally, though, something comes along that is very useful and on this job I’m using one of my favourites.  A small motion sensor, originally designed to protect bicycles, sends a radio signal to a nearby camera that starts filming and uploads directly to my phone, which is very clever. The little Fiat Hire car is parked just up the road, actually outside my villa, with the camera on the back shelf pointing at the gate. I clipped a sensor to the steel garage gate as I stopped to tie a shoe outside the VIP villa, and a second one on the beach-door as I strolled nonchalantly past down the path. Now, whoever enters or leaves, I know about it.

 

This afternoon, they all left the villa together in the four-wheel drive and headed for town. VIP 1 and 2 walked a round a bit berore choosing a restaurant and settled in to what became a long lunch whilst SG (security guy) amused himself with calasthenics behind a bush in the land opposite.

 

 

I shouldn’t let my judgement of him be clouded by sympathy but the bare minimum to do his job is two on-shift at all times. One is watching the watched, whilst the other is watching for watchers (that’s one of mine, not Grandads) I looked really hard for a second team-member but there isn’t one.

Every other night they have a takeaway delivered from the Namaste Indian restaurant and sit in the glass-walled conservatory watching the sunset over the harbour.  Occasionally VIP2 is very friendly towards VIP1 on the sofa after the meal but I can’t help worrying about the effects of chilli-mouth on his soft parts (and they usually are, it must be worry over the oil price). I also noticed the rather amusing figure of SG peeping from between the curtains of his room which overlooks the romantic scene. A Night-vision camera-lens is a wonderful thing and yes, I have got lots of pictures of nocturnal animals and insects on the memory card in case anyone asks what I am doing.

VIP2 is due to visit the Peluceria (hairdresser – get me with the Spanish!) tomorrow morning, which I know because I have access to her phone diary thanks to a link I was sent in the ‘manual’ I have a week left if I wrap the job up then but there is no rush and I think I have the makings of a plan..

Hitman on holiday

I’m a freelance, I work for an agency, so I feel a little conflicted about holidays. On the one hand, it’s good to get away from the day job, which can get a little intense at times, but on the other hand ‘If you ain’t burnin’, you ain’t earnin’ as my Grandad used to say.

That’s why I was excited to get the email from the agency about a job in Fuerteventura this Christmas. From the brief it looked simple, ten whole days to find, fire and f*ck the heck out (Thanks again, Grandad, for that gem) and the fee will keep me solvent until March, at least. My contact, who I know only as ‘Capable’ usually tries to give me as much background as she can and some local contacts in what is known somewhat innocently as an ‘Event’ manual. These extremely useful documents are electronic these days but used to be paper and so heavy that you could (and I should know) kill somebody with one.

When you think about it, oil and the price of oil are the usual driving factors behind most of my work and this job is no exception. Evidently the double-whammy of prices in free-fall and a run on the Rouble means that someone’s patience has run out.

VIP1 (aka: the target), is Russian and has a holiday home here, which means that he is a little higher up the food chain than those of his countrymen who have bought-up most of Tenerife. He has a newly-built villa with good security and a great trophy girlfriend who has her own body-guard. The guard is, I can tell, tired of carrying and clearing-up after the Pug in the handbag. It’s a common mistake to confuse the role of bodyguard with butler but many in their position make it.

It’s also a widely-held misconception that we ‘Event’ managers pick up a weapon from a shady backstreet contact and set up a shoot from across the street, through a window with curtains behind which the target is vaguely viewed, dressed as maintenance men of some sort. There is usually a semi-naked woman in one of the other windows. I don’t know how those Hollywood Hitmen work, but glass and curtains are unpredictable transmitters of bullets, even big ones, as many a SWAT sniper has found on You-tube.

You also need to put more than one hole in a human to be sure of killing them with a gun. Even the famous head and chest ‘Double-tap’ beloved of ‘special-forces kiss and tell books’ is no substitute for a proper job. Sad to say, medical science has come a long way but is not yet up to a head replacement, if you know what I mean. Sorry about the gallows humour but it goes with the job.

Anyway, enough rambling as the sun is up and I need to put on my ‘Brit abroad’ cover and do a little more research on VIP1 before I make a first plan of action.