Foresight is better than hindsight, an old saying goes; which is why all through this book I have stressed the importance of covering your trail as you carry out your job assignment.

Disguises, false identification, constant movement, all may have seemed extreme. But are they? Indeed not! Such "extremes" can mean the difference between a professional job and beginner's luck.

The professional walks away from his job with confidence and has no need to look back. The amateur hurries away looking back over his shoulder and lives in fear that he might have left some clue behind to bring the authorities calling at his door.

LEGAL IDENTIFICATION

False identification plays a very important role in covering one's trail, and using them requires a certain flair for dramatics. You must be just as comfortable with your assumed identity as you are with your own. You will have to learn to confidently display your false credentials so you will not arouse suspicion.

Where do you get these false identifications?

There are several good books and sources available on the subject. you can order them from several dealers who advertise in magazines or newspapers. You can find a "source" of stolen IDs of your own. Or, you can make them yourself.

I have a friend who has his own profitable business. He "borrows" the stash of big drug dealers and ships the goods out of state to sell. He says it's his way of helping the local authorities keep the home front clean.

Every time he hits a doper, he relieves everyone present not only of his stash, but also any weapons, cash, jewels and other valuables that he can carry away. HE figures that since it's legally considered armed robbery anyway, he may as well of the whole route with gusto!

From him I am able to purchase, at substantial savings, many throwaway weapons as well as a wide assortment of various identifications. I prefer to use out-of-state papers and he does hi best to provide them for me. He knows I'll pay top dollar for sets -- that is, driver's license, major credit cards, social security cards an the like -- all issued in one name.

The first thing I have to do to make the sets I purchase usable is to replace any photographs of the real owner with a photograph of myself. Using a sharp razor blade, I separate the backing from the card as carefully as possible () providing there is backing). Then I very carefully remove the photograph that appears on the form and substitute a passport or appropriate sized picture of myself, using the appropriately colored background. I attach it with a small bead of clear drying glue from the back side.

Once the photograph dries into place, I take a photograph of my new identification and take film to a guy I know who has an enlarger. He blows up the finished, one-piece identification to the proper size and I carefully cut it out and glue the backing that came from the original into place on the back of the photo. Then I cover the entire document in clear acetate so it looks like the real thing. Bending and twisting the finished product takes off the new look to make it look more authentic.

I then store my sets of identifications in a safe place until I need to use them professionally. And when I do use them, it is for identification purposes only. Never make any purchases on the stolen credit cards. Clerks generally don't verify credit card accounts only for verification. What shame that careless use of a stolen credit card should make short work of what might have been a profitable career!

If I use any identification sets on a hit, those sets are immediately destroyed as their use ends. Burn the cards or cut them into bits and bury or scatter in the wind. It's just another part of covering your trail.

LEGAL MONEY

In Chapter 8 I emphasized the importance of controlling your ego and being careful how you spend you newly earned money.

As a professional, you have th4e option of keeping a low profile and living a quiet life requiring only the basic necessities; or, by constructing dummy corporations and "laundering" the monies you earn, changing your lifestyle completely.

One time-tested and proven method of being able to legally use the monies you earn without fear of discovery does not require a great deal of business knowledge or sophistication.

For many years, the Bahamas, the Cayman Islands, Guatemala, Panama, and other small, poverty stricken countries shat do not tax their own impoverished citizens have lifted their countries standard of living and created jobs and business for their people by supplying us foreigners with tax havens to launder our illegal money., And they offer ironclad protections to us against snooping US officials and agencies.

The procedure is really quite simple: You form a corporation in one of these countries and put your illegal monies into that corporation. Then you form a legal US corporation as you business and Borrow the money you need to get going from the foreign corporation you have previously set up., The stiff fees you pay to the foreign government for this privilege insure the privacy and protection of true ownership.

Le'ts say your legal American corporation is a land development company, because you want to invest your laundered monies into real estate. A Foreign corporation in the Bahamas (your own secret corporation) has agreed to lend you funds to back you new American corporation.

From the money you acquire from the loan, you will meet your legal business expenses. You will pay rent on your office space, utilities, phone, salaries and so on. As an executive, your salary is bound to be a large one. Those working with you will also require large salaries commensurate with their abilities. What executive could function without a personal secretary?

As an executive, you will more than likely have an expense account and a company car. The car will have to be a really fine one to impress business associates and clients alike. You may also have a profit sharing plan retirement benefits, or group insurance.

With all this legality behind you, now you are free to wheel and deal in the real-estate of your choice. When tax time comes around, you will do what every patriotic American does, fill out your tax return. On that return, you will take all the legal deductions for your business expenses, interest payments on the loan you got from that big Bahamas corporation and an assortment of small business elated deductions you are allowed as you participate in American free enterprise.

You have become part of the system. You money and your lifestyle are above suspicion. Your lifestyle is justifiable by your legal income. Your time cannot be unaccounted for. busy executive do their business on the golf course, in jet planes, from their homes and quite often from out of town. You are no longer obligated to punch a clock or account for your working hours or absences.

From a financial point of view, you have become totally, legally, illegal.

LEGAL AID

By their own admission, law enforcement officers clear only a little more than 20 percent of the reported crimes in a given year. Less than half of those suspects arrested are ver convicted.

Fortunately for those of us who support ourselves from outside the law, the American justice System is so bogged down in technicalities, overcrowded jails, plea bargaining and a host of other problems, that even if charged with a serious crime, we can rest assured that the law is on our side and rarely that of the victim.

But what do you do if you happen to get picked up for questioning?

Most important, remember that you are innocent until proven guilty by a court of law,. Some people feel guilty until they can prove their innocence. Never assume this type of attitude, even if they catch you with the barrel of the gun still smoking.

You are under no moral or legal obligation to furnish information that may incriminate you.

The first thing you should do is find out whether you are being formally charged with a crime. If you are, demand your right to an attorney to guide you during questioning, and keep quiet until he arrives.

You should already have a good attorney picked out. The attorney should be a good criminal trial attorney, and not one who prepares wills or corporate papers or handles divorces. Preferably, he will be just a bit crooked (as most successful lawyers are). Although expensive, if he can save your hide, he is worth the price, whatever it might be. A good attorney will never plead his client guilty, nor will he accept any bargain that will get you time in prison. He knows that his job is to keep you out

You can divulge name, rank and serial number, but absolutely no personal information. Find out right away if you are being formally charged with a crime and what the charge is. If you are not being formally charged, there is a restriction on the length of time you may be held. And if you charged, usually you have a right to post bond and a speedy hearing before a judge to set that bond amount. This is where it pays to have set aside a bit of that cash. Unless you are a very accomplished and skillful liar, offer no information at all. Do not trap yourself in a web of lies and alibis.

Even though it is illegal, law enforcement agents are known for entrapment. Beware of being baited! During the interrogation they may toss bits of information based on they think things might have gone down to see if they can get a reaction. They may try to make you break by making you angry. Or they may tell you how this is the most professional job they've ever come across and try tog et your ego to talk for you.

Don't aid them in building a case against you. It is their responsibility to provide enough proof to build a case that will stand up Is court. And even if it gets that far, those twelve jurors still have to be convinced of your guilt beyond a shadow of a doubt.

If you have covered your trail, used fake disguises and fake identifications, and if there is no trace of a weapon to be found, they will have a hard time proving you were at the crime scene.

Remember, it's not up to you to prove that you were not there -- it's up to them to prove that you were

If you are caught in the act at the scene of a hit, of course that's another story. Against, you will not aid the authorities in any way, although you will be a model prisoner. With the evidence available to formally charge you with the crime, it will become paramount for them to prove your motive. They will offer plea bargains, deals, protection and the like to influence you to lead them to the man who hired you.

Your high professional ethics will obligate you to protect the man who is your employer. Your failure to do so will cut off any future job opportunities in this field. Or you may find that you, yourself, have become the mark.

But aside from this, be aware that these bargaining officials have already slotted you as an undesirable. you are capable of performing cold-blooded murder for a fee, a far cry from the crimes of passion they usually handle. To them, you are not fit to be part of organized society.

So you can bet your life, literally, that any protection they may offer will good only for the duration of their investigation and the trial proceedings that follow. They have neither the manpower not the funds to protect the likes of you forever and really don't care what happens to you after your usefulness is expended.

I read an account in the newspaper recently about a man who turned state's evidence for police protection and his own freedom. Oh, they let him go, all right. But the protection ended right after the trail. SO here he is, on probation, but at least a free man., And what happens? He gets stopped on the street and frisked by detectives who discover a gun on his person. When the man explains that he carries the gun for "self-protection purposes only" since police protection has ended, they don't pay too much attention. Instead, they put him away on a technicality, as they knew they could, after having used him to get to the real targets of their first investigation.

Even if you provide the authorities with nothing and still end up serving time in jail, beware of other inmates who may bribed to pump you for information about the details of your particular crime.

Recently while Jimmy Chargra was serving time in jail for drug trafficking, another inmate, also a convicted felon, was offered $250,000 and a parole for obtaining taped information to convict Chargra of hiring the hit man who was convicted of killing Judge "Maximum John" Wood. Fortunately for Chargra, he did not brag or boast to his fellow inmates about his criminal career and was acquitted of the charge.

Under the guise of a writer, I queried a law enfo4rcement officer about the use of "plants" in the prisons and jails for the purpose of gathering information.

"Sure we do it," he said.

"But isn't that entrapment?" I asked naively.

"Well, you can't use that in court," he admitted.

"Would you mind giving me an example of how it works?" I asked.

"Well, in my case, for instance I used to get sent on assignments all over the state. They'd throw me in the cell for a couple of days and my job was trying to get the suspect to talk," he related, "Like, one time, I was put in with a fellow who was accused of raping somebody. So for the first day, I acted real cool, like I didn't want nobody knowing my business. The next day, when they brought the mail around, I get two or three letters from women, all telling me what a good lover I am and how they wanted to have me again.

"So I'd leave these letters exposed on my bunk so the other guy was sure to notice.

"The next day, more letters of the same type came. And he jut had to ask how I came to get so much mail from chicks.

"I said, 'Man, if you had screwed as many women in your lifetime as I have, and if you were only half as good as me, you'd be getting mail, too.'

"Of course, he had to be one up on me, so we started talking about sex and he admitted to me that he had raped this girl and how he did it."

"Anmd you got that confession on tape?" I asked, trying to look appropriately impressed.

"Sure did!", he answered with a grin.

"But that confession wasn't admissible in court, was it?" I queried.

"No. But he didn't know that. All we had to do was play the tape back to him and let him know I was an undercover officer and he broke down and confessed in the interrogation room. We got him cold," he said smugly.

LET HIM WHO HAS EARS,LISTEN!

The important thing to do now, before the need arises, is to gain all the knowledge you can about the law and how it works, so if by chance it ever gets too close for comfort, you will able to handle the situation wisely.

I hope you have found the law enforcement handbook mentioned in Chapter 1 and have begun to study your own state laws. State laws vary, but federal law, like the Miranda Decision (You have the right to remain silent) are, of course, applicable throughout the United States.

Find out how long the authorities can detain you for questioning before they have to make formal charges.

Note any breaches of legal arrest procedures that may make your arrest null and void.

How many days are allowed din your right to a speedy trial? One day over, and the have to be, according to law, thrown out!

Learn about making appeals and appealing appeal decisions. Tangle up the authorities in their own red tape and watch them squirm as you squander thousands and thousands of the taxpayers' dollars.

Establish a good relationship with a good attorney now Ask him about these things, and how the law works from his side of the bench, defending the accused. he won't want to know why you are asking and probably won't pry. And don't ever come right out and tell him what you do for a living. After all, he will be defending your innocence.

The fee you pay him establishes you to access to his professional wisdom, and the information you get is yours for the asking.

Of course, the true test of being a professional is that you won't ever have to face these legal predicaments. Your work methods, low profile, the way you handle your money and personal business, your knowledge and attitude will all be working to protect you.

Then, some day, when you've done and seen it all; when there doesn't seem to be any challenge left or any new frontier left to conquer, you might just feel cocky enough to write a book about it.