Spycraft - Melton [199]
To protect their identities, the court agreed that Orkin, along with the chiefs, could testify using alias names and wearing tailored disguises. The alias, chosen sometime earlier for the tech who had a reputation for clever puns and elaborate word play—he was “Mr. Orkin,” the bug killer. Whether the Libyans recognized the popular American extermination service was unknown, but as the trial date approached, the key witness became increasingly concerned with his choice of alias. What seemed amusing and fitting at the outset was now worrisome. Could the defense attorneys somehow use the pseudonym to discredit his testimony? Was he being too clever in such a serious matter?
To prepare the witnesses’ disguises, OTS selected a senior disguise officer who combined a sense of artistry to fit the person to the materials as well as match the materials to the subject. It was an exacting process. Orkin needed to not only look natural, he had to feel genuine within the disguise and be relaxed on the witness stand. The obscure OTS engineer would be transformed into the internationally recognized electronics expert “Mr. Orkin.”
The OTS disguise specialist eliminated Orkin’s trademark facial hair, shaved here and added there where previously none existed. “I had a nerdy, old blue suit, white shirt. I almost put a piece of tape on my glasses to finish the effect,” he remembered. “Then there was a stink raised by the Defense lawyers. They said, ‘We don’t want people coming in here in Shirley Bassey fright wigs.’ When we finally sat down with the defense attorneys for a preliminary meeting, after twenty minutes or so of lawyer-type discussion, they asked, ‘Are you in disguise now?’ I was and they couldn’t tell. So much for fright wigs.”
Orkin flew to the Netherlands and met with the prosecutors for a briefing on courtroom procedure. Using technology as evidence and experts to explain it was tricky business. Detailed scientific mumbo jumbo could confuse those without a technical background, and engineers, trained to think and speak with precision, could be trapped by clever legal questioning. For example, Orkin was reminded, a lawyer might ask if a scientific result is “100 percent accurate,” to which an engineer might answer in the negative, because the results were only 99.99 percent accurate. The possibility that the two suspects would escape justice through just such wordplay weighed heavily as the prosecutors prepped Orkin on how to make his data clearly understood in the courtroom.
“We’re going to ask you this, this, this, this, and this, and we’re going to establish your credentials,” the prosecutor told Orkin. “Don’t volunteer any more information. Just answer the question I ask you. I know what you know, and if I want more, I’ll ask for it. If I don’t, then let it go. But don’t start expounding.”
Prosecutors warned Orkin that the two defense attorneys had already established a “good cop/bad cop” routine during the previous days of testimony. “They told me that one of the attorneys stands up, is a real sweet guy, and tries to get you to say something you shouldn’t say. Then the other guy gets up, questions your parentage and everything else to try to get you upset,” he recalled.
Orkin arrived in court in his nerd disguise and spent forty-five minutes on the witness stand answering questions for the prosecution. He detailed the elements of reverse-engineering that linked the fragment to the timer and the timer back to MEBO. Whether the technical details confused the defense attorneys or they merely discounted