Sometimes, a Dead Drop isn't enough to get the job done: maybe the opposition's surveillance network is too extensive to just hide something, or maybe the recipient is new to this espionage business and needs a helpful alternative for their first exchange of information, or maybe you just need to deliver the stuff as quickly as possible.
Whatever the case, a live drop must be used...and sometimes, the only safe way to organize the transmission of goods or data is to make it look like they belonged to the recipient all along.
The most common form of the technique goes something like this: an agent goes to a public place arranged by their contact, preferably someplace crowded and difficult to surveil; their contact arrives, carrying the goods in a briefcase, a book, or some other similarly innocuous item; the contact approaches and makes it look as if the agent dropped something and "returns" it to them.
There are many other variations on this theme, however: a popular variant features the agent and contact both holding identical briefcases and secretly exchanging them under the pretense of retrieving their own property so any watchers will be none the wiser. Another popular variant completely inverts this by having the agent pretending to absentmindedly drop something so that the contact can pick it up.
However, regardless of how this goes, the same basic lost-property premise remains the same.
Compare and contrast the Satchel Switcheroo, the comedic, accidental version of the briefcase variant.
Examples
- Right at the start of Collateral, Vincent and an unnamed contact (played by Jason Statham) bump into each other at an airport and drop their briefcases. Once they've finished apologizing to each other, they "accidentally" swap briefcases and part ways. Of course, it soon becomes clear that Vincent's new briefcase contains a laptop detailing the identities of his targets for the evening...
- In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, the events that lead to Tom Riddle's diary being planted on Ginny Weasley proceed slightly differently than they did in the original novel: here, instead of just slipping the diary into the recipient's cauldron while nobody's looking, Lucius Malfoy briefly removes one of the schoolbooks under the pretense of wanting to take a look at it. Then, once he's finished, he returns the textbook — which really is the recipient's property — though sharp-eyed viewers will notice that he returns another book alongside it.
- In Nineteen Eighty-Four, surveillance is ubiquitous as it was in the original novel, so in order to hide her affair with Winston from the eyes of the Thought Police, Julia passes one message to him by rolling it up inside a pen and pretending that he dropped it.
- During Schindler's List, Itzhak Stern does his best to save his fellow Jews from the concentration camps by getting them documents certifying them as industrial workers — and too valuable to be killed — even though most of them are actually teachers, writers, musicians, and the like. In one case, after forging the documentation for a history teacher, Stern manages to save the intended recipient from being loaded onto a truck by pretending that the guy accidentally left his certificate at home and dragging him back to be reassessed with the forged certificate, loudly remarking, "How many times have I told you?"
- In Nineteen Eighty-Four, because all of Airstrip One is under the watchful eyes of the Thought Police, when Winston Smith finally makes contact with La Résistance via O'Brien, the only way for them to provide him with a copy of Goldstein's infamous book is to arrange for Winston to be at a demonstration in Central London during the climax of Hate Week. Here, at the height of the confusion over who Oceania is at war with, an unseen pedestrian says, "I think you dropped your briefcase," and hands Winston a briefcase containing the book.
- Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: Magical example; as Stephen Black finds himself being slotted further into the role of the Gentleman With The Thistle-Down Hair's Puppet King, people are supernaturally manipulated into giving him various kingly objects, often while convinced that they belong to him. Stephen has no choice but to accept them, to the point that his room ends up hopelessly cluttered with items.
- Sunshine: Rae makes a show of "returning" the pocketknife she "borrowed" from the undercover vampire Constantine — actually a Protective Charm she made to let him survive in sunlight. Impressively, she sells the act to The Men in Black who are interviewing them.
- In First Lensman, the bad guys pass a stash of smuggled drugs from one agent to another via a swap of identical lunch boxes. Subverted in that both agents are actually Lensmen who have infiltrated the drug-smuggling organization.
- Leverage: In "The Cross My Heart Job," an organ transplant nurse whose daughter has been kidnapped is blackmailed into turning over a donor heart. She does so by surreptitiously swapping coolers with a man standing beside her in an airport terminal. Nate witnesses the man pick up the cooler she set down, sees how distressed she is, and determines to find out what's going on.
- The inverted variant appears in Dragon Age II in the quest "Miracle Makers"; a city guard sergeant has Hawke eliminate a group of Carta swindlers, and in keeping with the sergeant's need to abide by Plausible Deniability, she pretends not to hear you when you report success...and "accidentally" drops your payment in such a way that it just happens to fall right into your hands.
- Fallen London: On the Upper River, one of the activities tied to the Great Game is supplying Halcyonic Tonic to a Surface power. You pour its contents into an agreed-upon location in the cobbles, and later, you're rewarded by a bureaucrat who pointedly asks you if you dropped your wallet, which contains your payment. You've never seen the wallet before, but you say yes.
- In Knights of the Old Republic, after you kill legendary bounty hunter Calo Nord in the wilderness of whatever planet you visit first in your search for the Star Forge, you will later be unexpectedly approached in the street by a stranger who claims that you dropped your datapad. If you accept the "lost" pad, he'll tell you to check to make sure it isn't broken before promptly leaving; the datapad turns out to be a message from the Genoharadan, inviting you to a meeting on Manaan to discuss membership—and warning you to come alone or not at all.
- In The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, in Markarth you are approached by a man who gives you a note under the pretense that you had dropped it. This gives you a miscellaneous quest which turns into The Forsworn Conspiracy.
- Homestar Runner: In the Strong Bad Email "unused emails", Strong Bad claims he sometimes sells email addresses to Bubs for spam mailing lists, and their exchange involves "accidentally" dropping "a CD of five thousand email addresses" and a sack containing "a quarter for each one".
