A very good reason not to carry your phone or to be contactable in any way: the pursuers don’t have to find you; they only have to find your family members or other people/pets you care about and threaten them with harm to induce you to give yourself up. If you are not contactable in any way, this will be ineffective and pointless. There remains however the risk that your loved ones will be tortured for information on your whereabouts (whether or not they actually know).
A key question about the setup: how long in advance are you made aware that this is happening? If you have even an hour to prepare, you can do useful things like packing a bag, being appropriately dressed, etc., for a quick departure. If you have a day, you could make more detailed arrangements.
From the OP, I’m assuming he means you get 10 minutes’ notice. You can still pack, but honestly, you don’t even need to - you just need your wallet, ID, credit card, etc. Anyone can go 24 hours without changing clothes, assuming you are already wearing something that’s decent. You could be out the door in five minutes’ time.
Realistically, the moment you, the fugitive, get in your car and get even a hundred yards away from home, it’s game over. From that point on, the odds of your pursuers finding you is effectively nil.
It’s going to take longer than 10 minutes to persuade me that this is for real. A stranger contacts me and tells me I can get $100m if I start running now?
By packing a bag, I am not talking about changes of clothes. I am talking about water, oranges, map, warm clothing and a bivvy bag to get me through the night. My wallet and credit card are of no use to me where I’m going. Yes I could be out the door in 5 minutes but if I’m already packed I can be out in zero minutes.
My concern is that my car may be identifiable. The pursuers may offer a generous reward and thus enlist the help of the wider public, which makes my situation much more dangerous. I will either leave my car at home (I can be off road on foot fairly quickly) or drive it a relatively short distance and continue on foot to an area where I expect to meet no other humans at all. The latter helps to put some initial distance between me and pursuers, but if the car is found it may give a clue as to where I went.
Just for the record, I think it’s worthwhile for anyone, not just preppers, to have a 72 hour kit available and ready to go. I certainly do, especially after some of the wildfire evacuations in Colorado Springs.
Slightly different from what preppers will call a “bug out bag” which is generally similar, but often includes firearms and ammunition.
While true, the OP has finally confirmed you ARE subject to all legal consequences of your actions during the pursuit. Sending messages (VM or Text) to the target is going to pretty much doom you in court after the event. Be ready to see jail time and/or surrender of your now verifiably ill-gotten gains.
Interestingly enough a comedy clip showed up on my feed about this subject. Actually a parody of the British show others have talked about. This is the gist: starts in the control room, “Alright people we have 24 hours to find our targets…” “Found them.” “What?!” “It’s those guys being followed by a camera crew. Who else would be followed by a camera crew?” “You’re not supposed to mention the camera crew!”
Back in the 1970s a similar scenario was played out on The Partridge Family (a thriller writer bets he can find the whole family within a .couple of days - the stakes are $25,000 for charity if they win). He bugs their car, and nearly catches them a few times, and just before the deadline, finds them at their house (where they’ve returned) - but they’ve left the two youngest with a neighbor, so they still win.
It’s certainly reminiscent of the many versions of Most Dangerous Game that have been made over the years. Fairly recently there was a film called Self Reliance where a man will win millions if he survives being hunted by assassins for some period of time. The chief rule is they can only kill him when he’s alone.
This thread has got me intrigued. Any high quality, SMART movies/shows on this theme?
I just read a book where the Pursued drove to a crowded parking lot at an airport, then walked a ways and hotwired an old car.
I can’t believe that my reading hundreds of crime thrillers is finally paying off…
All I have to do is ask “Okay, what would a Badass Good Guy Protagonist do?”
Car-wise, I’d do the above. I’d park between two large SUVs then steal a car from Economy Long Term Parking, assuming the owner wouldn’t be back in a while.
Though this solution is best suited to staying off the grid for a week or a month.
Excuse me, I need to learn to hotwire a car, then pack a Go Bag full of warm clothes and a shit-ton of cash.
If these are just random civilians with no special access to my bank records or CCTV cameras or anything (and assuming they are not allowed to break the law) it seems like it should be relatively simple; drive to a hotel, check in for a couple of nights; stay in the room ordering room service.
If the ‘head start’ thing means they get to watch you departing (so they also have your vehicle details), I suppose it becomes a bit harder; drive to a train station and park there, but instead of taking a train, get on a bus and travel to the other side of town, then hotel etc.
I’d be very tempted to quickly pack a bag and…go to work.
I work for a defense contractor in a secure building patrolled by 24/7 security. Breaking into the building would be a federal crime (not to mention the armed response). We have showers, microwaves, refrigerators,and vending machines as well as some comfy couches in the executive areas,
Yeah, I remember watching a similar themed “reality” show some time back. More than ten years, even.
The runner in the show was an entire family, and they had to stay uncaught for a few days. The chasers were teams of professional private eyes and maybe? bounty hunters. Who’d assume the runners would seek help from family/old college friends/whatever, and have experience in how fugitives tend to think and act.
I remember one family actually went canoe-ing off into the Everglades.
In my area, the odds of 25 random people NOT having a close friend in the FBI or CIA or NSA, postal police, etc. is exceedingly low. Whether the friend is willing to take the risk of tracking me for their benefit is a deeper question. But between them, someone is going to either have the ability or a close friend who does.
So the phone stays home. I use my debit card once to grab all the cash I can. I buy a metro card with cash and jump on board Then I ride 2/3s of the way toward the end of one of the lines and board a random bus. Then I look for a church and ask them to hide me for the rest of the time. I’ve never known a priest or preacher who would have done that for a $10k contribution to their church.
quite soon, hop on a bus at a station that caters many (3+) lines
ride for some 10 stations then hop onto another random bus and do the same again
then get off and walk around (hat and big headphones)
… nobody cares about people walking - especially in a high population city… and if you don’t know where you are, chances are they wont find you, either …
I’d go to the local psychiatric hospital, let myself in (I have access since I do the medical clearance for the newly admitted patients), and hang out there until the 24 hours are up. Security is strict there, and there’s no way they are going to let random people in to wander around just to check if I’m there.