Lots of things in life are unpredictable and you do not see them coming. On the other hand, choke points are predictable and if you can screw around with any of the variables – location, the direction of approach, method of approach or actions on location – you can turn a choke point into an opportunity.
So, coming into the car park from the furthest door from my car was second nature to me. As was undoing the lightbulb in the stairwell behind the door so that I did not announce that someone was entering the car park and drawing attention to me. Or teaching the Las Palmas escorts that I work with to make sure that the hotel room door is locked behind them when they go in to meet the client. Or making sure that any interconnecting room doors are securely closed and locked.
Lots of people have habits that inconvenience other people – they drop chewing gum, leave the toilet seat up, that sort of thing. Well, I am not guilty of any of those, but I do leave a wake of slightly untwisted lightbulbs behind me sometimes. I think of it as my personal campaign to keep maintenance staff gainfully employed.
As well as keeping myself gainfully alive.
So, I walked through the door into the car park without spilling shadow across the floor ahead of me and walked to the far wall parallel to where my car was parked. Rolling the outside edge of my tactical boots along the floor I made no more sound than I used to in the Killing Room practicing night assaults. What I was looking for were the likely hot spots – the locations where a possible assailant was likely to settle in to wait for me.
Parked cars give lots of hiding places, but they also obscure lines of sight. So unless someone was going to hide directly under or behind my car there was a very limited number of options. And since, as a relatively regular, I always tried to park in one of the dozen or so spots that I had checked out in advance, I knew exactly where those spots were. Good judgment often involves lots of forward-thinking and planning.
