Be The Spy

As Dan walked into the meeting he could see that nearly everyone was there.  It would only be a few minutes before they started wondering where Johnathan was.  He did a quick inventory of attendees and said, “Where’s Julia?”
“On her way up now,” Kovan responded.  “We’re just waiting on her, Bob, and John.”
“Oh, good, John’s done with the his presentation early then,” Dan asked as he sat down.
“What presentation?”  Karen asked visibly irritated.
“I don’t know exactly, something for the board of trustees.  He got the short straw this month so he’s stuck entertaining them with power point for an hour.” Dan let it hang on that; he knew never to give too much information away at one time.
“I didn’t know he got stuck with that.  Couldn’t he get out of it somehow?  This is an important meeting.” Sam said.
Dan knew Sam was familiar with the trustee meetings so he had been confident she would verify it.
“The weasel probably couldn’t find anyone he didn’t already owe a dozen favors that could cover for him,” Karen said with disdain dripping from her voice.
Dan smiled and rolled his eyes in agreement.  Then he looked at Eric who he knew had a soft spot for John.  Eric looked like he wanted to say something in defense of his friend so Dan gave him a little nod that he knew would get the man going.
“Maybe he should have offered to sleep with someone to get out of it,” Eric’s comment and his glare were clearly direct at Karen.
Before Karen could respond Dan stood up and loudly said “Julia!  Bob!  I didn’t even see you two come in.  Its good to see you.”  Dan looked meaningfuly at Kovan who looked back with thanks on his face.
“If there are no other interuptions lets begin.”  Kovan spoke the words with a noticible edge of authority.

There are many circumstances where a spy may need spread disinformation, i.e. lie.  The techniques preferred will differ slightly depending on the situation.  In the most common situation you may need to spread your lie in casual conversation or simply claim to have received intelligence/equipment/aid/injuries from source B when source A was the actual origin.  The tips below will address that sort of situation.  They may not be applicable to an interrogation or lie detector test; those will receive their own article.

• Be the Lie – Before you tell your lie think it out clearly.  Imagine the situation where your lie is true and see it as it happens.  As you visualize this try to foresee what else would be effected if the lie were true.  Once you have a clear idea of the world in which your lie is true and exactly how it would differ from the real world you are ready to lie.  You can answer any follow up questions that may be asked.  By being ready before hand you accomplish two important things.  By setting this imagined scene as the absolute source your answers will be internally consistent.  You will also move the lie from the imagination section of the brain and into the memory section.  This will help to remove the give away of eye accessing cues.
• Eye Contact – This doesn’t mean you should force constant eye contact.  Become conscious of how much eye contact you normally make during conversation.  You’ll need to do this ahead of time.  Once you have a rough baseline try to maintain it during a lie.  This takes a lot of practice and awareness.
• Be casual about it – No matter how much you need to get the lie out you have to make it fit naturally into the conversation.  A sideways approach is also good.  Ask a question which you know will lead to an opening.  Again, don’t force it, just lightly steer the talk where you need it.  This is a skill you can practice in day to day life.  Pick something specific you wish to inject into a conversation and try to slide it in as naturaly as possible.  With practice this becomes so easy as to be laughable.
• Always sandwich a lie within the truth – When constructing a lie always include real facts and events that are verifiable without verifying the lie.  Keep the events/actions/words consistant with the situation and the people involved.  Beliefs are not based entirely on logic.  You can imply that if one thing is true the other must be and people will become convinced.  ie “I heard that Joe had an affair in Aruba.  I normally wouldn’t believe that but then I remembered, he did go to Aruba for that corprate training thing.  Now I can’t look his wife in the eyes anymore.”  Being in Aruba doesn’t equal an affair but I bet reading that you felt pretty sure he did have the affair.  Anyone listening can ask Joe if he went on the trip and when they do they will subconciously consider that all the validation they need.
• Never over sell the story – You have imagined an incredibly in depth scene.  You have thought through all the implications and effects.  You have ready answers for a dozen questions.  Remeber this though, just because you know all the details doesn’t mean you have to spout them off in a 10 minute long monologue.  When you are telling the truth you probably don’t give excessive detail without being asked.
  Lets take for example this truthful response to the question ‘What did you do last night?’
  “I grabbed burgers from that place up the street for dinner and watched TV, nothing big.”
  Now lets pretend thats a lie and tell it the wrong way for contrast:
  “After left work around 5:15 I went straight to Joe’s Burger Heven and bought a number 7 meal with a large diet soda.  My cashier was some guy named Bob with brown hair and achne.  I got my order and headed home.  I got there around 6:oo, let the dog out, and started eating.  I watched those 2 DVDs I borrowed from my brother and then I went to bed at 11.  Nothing big.”
  Which one sounds natural to you?  Give out enough information to sound natural.  If they ask for more answer them.  Mostly just try to seem like the information isn’t really important to you.
• Never commit to anything that wasn’t part of your scene – If they say “did you see my brother there?” you say “not that I noticed.”  Most people walk around never noticing their surroundings.  If you are asked about something that you didn’t plan on just say you didn’t notice.  You can say you were preoccupied with thoughts or a member of the opposite sex.  These are reasonable things.  Do not let someone make you feel pushed to commit to those details.  This is a common trick to catch a lie, don’t fall for it and do not let it make you feel nervous or panicky.  If they push to hard then contrast their invasiness with your indifference.  List off their questions and the answers you gave, characterizing them as way to pushy about weird things.  If you go this route only do it as a last resort because you run the risk of sounding defensive.  You can also try to sound consoling by asking them if they’re having a problem thats making them so curious about your business.  Again last resort only.
• Body language – The odds are that if you tried to act natural and looked relaxed, you would suddenly be and look very self-aware and unnatural.  Practice meditation and breathing for this one.  Don’t so much go for specifics just learn how to be calm and relaxed even if the situation makes that difficult.  A deep cleansing breath combined with a stretch will get you pretty relaxed to start and it looks natural in many situations.  Once you’re relaxed, just look for tightness anywhere in your body and let it go.  This will take practice both with meditation and with learning where you normally hold tension under stress.  Once you learn where you hold your tension normally it can become easy to monitor it and keep it from building.
• Never admit the lie – Once you have commited to a lie you must stay with it.  You can claim you were deceived by someone else or that you had misunderstood something but never admit to lying.  Remain calm, appear confused if shown conflicting proof.  Don’t allow yourself to be put on the spot, instead insist on framing it as you working with them to solve the confusion.  What you said was true based on the facts you had, the error must be somewhere else.