The Daring Book for Girls - Andrea J. Buchanan [80]
The Social Engineer: This person is brave, chatty, outgoing, and able to interact with suspects and others to extract information. She can be the public face of the team while other team members gather evidence or perform surveillance, using her considerable social skills to both distract and engage.
Of course, no matter what her specialty, a spy should be able to: appraise a situation, balance, bluff, climb, be diplomatic, escape when necessary, gather information, hide, intuit, be insightful, jump, listen, move silently, read lips and body language, respond quickly, tumble, transform, and, above all, be levelheaded.
After each mission, all members of the spy team should rendezvous at an agreed-upon meeting place or secret hideout, where they will report to the agent-in-charge and exchange information. No matter what her role on the team is, a spy should always note suspicious activity, try not to be seen or heard, cover her tracks, and never reveal her true identity to outsiders.
SPY LINGO
Acorn
Someone who is performing an intelligence function.
Agent
A person officially employed by an intelligence service. (Also undercover agent: a secret agent; deep-cover agent: an agent under permanent cover; double agent: an agent simultaneously working for two enemies; agent-in-charge: the head agent.)
Babysitter
Bodyguard.
Blowback
Unexpected negative consequences of spying.
Blown
Detected, as in “your cover is blown.”
Bona Fides
Proof of a person’s claimed identity.
Brush Contact or Brush Pass
Brief contact between two agents who are passing information, documents, or equipment.
Burn notice
An official statement from an intelligence agency saying that an individual or group is an unreliable source.
Chicken feed
Low-grade information given by a double agent to an adversary to build the credibility of the double agent.
Cobbler
Spy who creates false passports, visas, diplomas, and other documents.
Comm
Small note or other written communication.
Cover
A secret identity.
Dead drop
A secret hiding place somewhere in public where communications, documents, or equipment are placed for another agent to collect.
Doppelganger
A decoy or look-alike.
E&E
Escape and evasion.
Ears only
Material too secret to commit to writing.
Eyes only
Documents too secret to be talked about.
Floater
A person used occasionally or even unknowingly for an intelligence operation.
Friend
An agent or informant providing information.
Front
A legitimate-appearing business created to provide cover for spies and their operations.
Ghoul
Agent who searches obituaries and graveyards for names to be used by agents.
Honey Pot/Honey Trap
Slang for use of men or women to trap a person using affection or romance.
Informant
A person who provides intelligence to the surveillance team.
Joe
A deep-cover agent.
Legend
Background story or documents to support your cover.
Letterbox
A person who acts as a gobetween.
Mole
An agent who penetrates enemy organizations.
Naked
A spy operating without cover or backup.
Paroles
Passwords agents use to identify each other.
Peep
Photographer.
Pocket Litter
Items in a spy’s pocket (receipts, coins, etc.) that add authenticity to her identity.
Ring
A network of spies or agents.
Safehouse
A secret hideout.
Sanitize
To “clean up” a report or other document to hide sensitive information.
Sleeper agents
Spies who are placed in a target country or organization, not to undertake an immediate mission, but to be activated later.
Spook
Another word for spy.
Target
The person being spied on. (Also hard target: A target who actively maintains secrecy and doesn’t let on that she is aware of the surveillance team.)
The Take
Information gathered by spying.
Trigger
An agent who watches for the target and alerts the rest of the surveillance team when the target is spotted.
Unsub
An unknown subject in a surveillance operation.
Undercover
Disguising your identity, or using an assumed identity, in order to learn secret information.
Walk-ins
Agents