Paris is a Bitch

to answer it. Only one person—the same person who knew my address—had this number. A call meant work. And work couldn’t be refused. The phone was even waterproof so I could take it into the shower.
    I hit the connect button on the touch screen and waited, habit making me tune in to my surroundings. I could smell traces of the green pepper omelet and wheat toast I’d had for breakfast, along with a slightly sour odor coming from the sink telling me dishes needed to be done. The ambient sounds were unremarkable; the thermostat kicking on, the hum of the fridge, the ticking of a wall clock hanging over my computer, pigeons warbling outside.
    To continue reading FLEE by J. A. Konrath and Ann Voss Peterson, visit your library or favorite ebook retailer and pick up a copy today.

P art of the appeal of my series about the half-American, half-Japanese assassin John Rain seems to be Rain’s realistic tactics. It’s true that Rain, like his author, has a black belt in judo and is a veteran of certain government firearms and other defensive tactics courses, but these have relatively little to do with Rain’s continued longevity. Rather, Rain’s ultimate expertise, and the key to his survival, lies in his ability to think like the opposition.
    Okay, get out your notepad, because:
    All effective personal protection, all effective security, all true self-defense, is based on the ability and willingness to think like the opposition.
    I’m writing this article on my laptop in a crowded coffee shop I like. There are a number of other people around me similarly engaged. I think to myself,
If I wanted to steal a laptop, this would be a pretty good place to do it. You come in, order coffee and a muffin, sit, and wait. Eventually, one of these computer users is going to get up and make a quick trip to the bathroom. He’ll be thinking, “Hey, I’ll only be gone for a minute.” He doesn’t know that a minute is all I need to get up and walk out with his $3000 PowerBook.
(Note how criminals are adept at thinking like their victims. You need to treat them with the same respect.)
    Okay. I’ve determined where the opposition is planning on carrying out his crime (this coffee shop), and I know how he’s going to do it (snatch and dash). I now have options:
avoid the coffee shop entirely (avoid
where
the crime will occur);
secure my laptop to a chair with a twenty dollar Kensington security cable (avoid how the crime will occur — it’s hard to employ bolt cutters unobtrusively in a coffee shop, or to carry away a laptop that has a chair hanging off it); and
hope to catch the thief in the act, chase him down, engage him with violence.
    Of these three options, #2 makes the most sense for me. The first is too costly — I like this coffee shop and get a lot of work done here. The third is also too costly, and too uncertain. Why fight when you can avoid the fight in the first place? This is self-
defense
we’re talking about, remember, self-
protection
. Not fighting, not melodrama. As for the second, yes, it’s true these measures won’t render the crime impossible. But what measures ever do? The point is to make the crime difficult enough to carry out that the criminal chooses to pursue his aims elsewhere. Yes, if twenty-seven ninjas have dedicated their lives to stealing your laptop and have managed to track you to the coffee shop, they’ll probably manage to get your laptop while you’re in the bathroom even if you’ve secured it to a chair. But more likely, your opposition will be someone who is as happy stealing your laptop as someone else’s. By making yours the marginally more difficult target, you will encourage him to steal someone else’s.
    Which brings us to an unpleasant, but vitally true, parable:
    If you and your friend are jogging in the woods, and you get chased by a bear, you don’t have to outrun the bear. You just have to outrun your friend.
    Except at the level of very high-value executive protection (presidents, high-profile businesspeople, ambassadors and other dignitaries), you are not trying to outrun the bear. You are trying only to outrun your friend.
    Let’s combine these two concepts — thinking like the opposition, outrunning your friend — with an example from the realm of home security. And let’s add an additional critical element: that all good security is
layered
.
    If you wanted to burglarize a house, what would you look for? And what would you avoid?
    Generally speaking, your