Underground: Tales of Hacking, Madness and Obsession from the Electronic Frontier (23 page)

In a daze, Kentucky walked away from the table, leaned his forehead against the wall and began mumbling quietly. The jewellery heister slowly followed and spoke to him briefly in hushed tones before returning to the table.

One of the guards had heard the ruckus and came up to the table.

‘Is that guy OK?’ he asked the jewellery heister while pointing to Kentucky.

Not even if you used that term loosely, Par thought.

‘Leave him alone,’ the heister told the guard. ‘He’s talking to the aliens.’

‘Right.’ The guard turned around and left.

Every day, a nurse brought around special medicine for Kentucky. In fact, Kentucky was zonked out most of the time on a cup of horrible, smelly liquid. Sometimes, though, Kentucky secreted his medicine away and traded it with another prisoner who wanted to get zonked out for a day or so.

Those were bad days, the days when Kentucky had sold his medication.

It was on one of those days that he tried to kill Par.

Par sat on a metal bench, talking to other prisoners, when suddenly he felt an arm wrap around his neck. He tried to turn around, but couldn’t.

‘Here. I’ll show you how I killed this one guy,’ Kentucky whispered to Par.

‘No--No--’ Par started to say, but Kentucky’s biceps began pressing against Par’s Adam’s apple. It was a vice-like grip.

‘Yeah. Like this. I did it like this,’ Kentucky said as he tensed his muscle and pulled backward.

‘No! Really, you don’t need to. It’s OK,’ Par gasped. No air. His arms flailing in front of him.

I’m done for, Par thought. My life is over. Hacker Murdered by Serial Killer in Rikers Island. ‘Aliens Told Me to Do It.’

The omnipresent jewellery heister came up to Kentucky and started cooing in his ear to let Par go. Then, just when Par thought he was about to pass out, the jewellery heister pulled Kentucky off him.

Par reminded himself to always sit with his back against the wall.

Finally, after almost a month behind bars, Par was informed that an officer from the Monterey County sheriff’s office was coming to take him back to California. Par had agreed to be extradited to California after seeing the inside of New York’s jails. Dealing with the federal prosecutor in New York had also helped make up his mind.

The US Attorney’s Office in New York gave Richard Rosen, who had taken the case on again, a real headache. They didn’t play ball. They played

‘Queen for a Day’.

The way they negotiated reminded Rosen of an old American television game of that name. The show’s host pulled some innocent soul off the street, seated her on a garish throne, asked her questions and then gave her prizes. The US Attorney’s Office in New York wanted to seat Par on a throne, of sorts, to ask him lots of questions. At the end of the unfettered interrogation, they would hand out prizes. Prison terms. Fines. Convictions. As they saw fit. No guaranteed sentences.

They would decide what leniency, if any, he would get at the end of the game.

Par knew what they were looking for: evidence against the MOD boys. He wasn’t having a bar of that. The situation stank, so Par decided not to fight the extradition to California. Anything had to be better than New York, with its crazy jail inmates and arrogant federal prosecutors.

The officer from the Monterey sheriff’s office picked Par up on 17

December 1991.

Par spent the next few weeks in jail in California, but this time he wasn’t in any sort of protective custody. He had to share a cell with Mexican drug dealers and other mafia, but at least he knew his way around these people. And unlike the some of the people at Rikers, they weren’t stark raving lunatics.

Richard Rosen took the case back, despite Par’s having skipped town the first time, which Par thought was pretty good of the lawyer. But Par had no idea how good it would be for him until it came to his court date.

Par called Rosen from the jail, to talk about the case. Rosen had some big news for him.

‘Plead guilty. You’re going to plead guilty to everything,’ he told Par.

Par thought Rosen had lost his marbles.

‘No. We can win this case if you plead guilty,’ Rosen assured him.

Par sat dumbfounded at the other end of the phone.

‘Trust me,’ the lawyer said.

The meticulous Richard Rosen had found a devastating weapon.

On 23 December 1991, Par pleaded guilty to two charges in Monterey County Juvenile Court. He admitted everything. The whole nine yards.

Yes, I am The Parmaster. Yes, I broke into computers. Yes, I took thousands of credit card details from a Citibank machine. Yes, yes, yes.

In some way, the experience was cathartic, but only because Par knew Rosen had a brilliant ace up his sleeve.

Rosen had rushed the case to be sure it would be heard in juvenile court, where Par would get a more lenient sentence. But just because Rosen was in a hurry didn’t mean he was sloppy. When he went through Par’s file with a fine-toothed comb he discovered the official papers declared Par’s birthday to be 15 January 1971. In fact, Par’s birthday was some days earlier, but the DA’s office didn’t know that.

Under California law, a juvenile court has jurisdiction over citizens under the age of 21. You can only be tried and sentenced in a juvenile court if you committed the crimes in question while under the age of eighteen and you are still under the age of 21 when you plead and are sentenced.

Par was due to be sentenced on 13 January but on 8 January Rosen applied for the case to be thrown out. When Deputy DA David Schott asked why, Rosen dropped his bomb.

Par had already turned 21 and the juvenile court had no authority to pass sentence over him. Further, in California, a case cannot be moved into an adult court if the defendant has already entered a plea in a juvenile one. Because Par had already done that, his case couldn’t be moved. The matter was considered ‘dealt with’ in the eyes of the law.

The Deputy DA was flabbergasted. He spluttered and spewed. The DA’s office had dropped the original charges from a felony to a misdemeanour. They had come to the table. How could this happen? Par was a fugitive. He had been on the run for more than two years from the frigging Secret Service, for Christ’s sake. There was no way--NO

WAY--he was going to walk out of that courtroom scot-free.

The court asked Par to prove his birthday. A quick driver’s licence search at the department of motor vehicles showed Par and his lawyer were telling the truth. So Par walked free.

When he stepped outside the courthouse, Par turned his face toward the sun. After almost two months in three different jails on two sides of the continent, the sun felt magnificent. Walking around felt wonderful. Just wandering down the street made him happy.

However, Par never really got over being on the run.

From the time he walked free from the County Jail in Salinas, California, he continued to move around the country, picking up temporary work here and there. But he found it hard to settle in one place. Worst of all, strange things began happening to him. Well, they had always happened to him, but they were getting stranger by the month. His perception of reality was changing.

There was the incident in the motel room. As Par sat in the Las Vegas Travelodge on one if his cross-country treks, he perceived someone moving around in the room below his. Par strained to hear. It seemed like the man was talking to him. What was the man trying to tell him?

Par couldn’t quite catch the words, but the more he listened, the more Par was sure he had a message for him which he didn’t want anyone else to hear. It was very frustrating. No matter how hard he tried, no matter how he put his ear down to the floor or against the wall, Par couldn’t make it out.

The surreal experiences continued. As Par described it, on a trip down to Mexico, he began feeling quite strange, so he went to the US

consulate late one afternoon to get some help. But everyone in the consulate behaved bizarrely.

They asked him for some identification, and he gave them his wallet.

They took his Social Security card and his California identification card and told him to wait. Par believed they were going to pull up information about him on a computer out the back. While waiting, his legs began to tremble and a continuous shiver rolled up and down his spine. It wasn’t a smooth, fluid shiver, it was jerky. He felt like he was sitting at the epicentre of an earthquake and it frightened him.

The consulate staff just stared

at him.

Finally Par stopped shaking. The other staff member returned and asked him to leave.

‘No-one can help you here,’ he told Par.

Why was the consular official talking to him like that? What did he mean--Par had to leave? What was he really trying to say? Par couldn’t understand him. Another consular officer came around to Par, carrying handcuffs. Why was everyone behaving in such a weird way? That computer. Maybe they had found some special message next to his name on that computer.

Par tried to explain the situation, but the consulate staff didn’t seem to understand. He told them about how he had been on the run from the Secret Service for two and a half years, but that just got him queer looks. Blank faces. No comprehende. The more he explained, the blanker the faces became.

The consular officials told him that the office was closing for the day. He would have to leave the building. But Par suspected that was just an excuse. A few minutes later, a Mexican policeman showed up. He talked with one of the consular officials, who subsequently handed him what Par perceived to be a slip of paper wrapped around a wad of peso notes.

Two more policemen came into the consulate. One of them turned to Par and said, ‘Leave!’ but Par didn’t answer. So the Mexican police grabbed Par by the arms and legs and carried him out of the consulate.

Par felt agitated and confused and, as they crossed the threshold out of the consulate, he screamed.

They put him in a police car and took him to a jail, where they kept him overnight.

The next day, they released Par and he wandered the city aimlessly before ending up back at the US consulate. The same consular officer came up to him and asked how he was feeling.

Par said, ‘OK.’

Then Par asked if the official could help him get back to the border, and he said he could. A few minutes later a white van picked up Par and took him to the border crossing. When they arrived, Par asked the driver if he could have $2 so he could buy a ticket for the train. The driver gave it to him.

Par boarded the train with no idea of where he was headed.

[ ]

Theorem visited Par in California twice in 1992 and the relationship continued to blossom. Par tried to find work so he could pay her back the $20000 she had lent him during his years on the run and during his court case, but it was hard going. People didn’t seem to want to hire him.

‘You don’t have any computer skills,’ they told him. He calmly explained that, yes, he did indeed have computer skills.

‘Well, which university did you get your degree from?’ they asked.

No, he hadn’t got his skills at any university.

‘Well, which companies did you get your work experience from?’

No, he hadn’t learned his skills while working for a company.

‘Well, what did you do from 1989 to 1992?’ the temp agency staffer inevitably asked in an exasperated voice.

‘I ... ah ... travelled around the country.’ What else was Par going to say? How could he possibly answer that question?

If he was lucky, the agency might land him a data-entry job at $8 per hour. If he was less fortunate, he might end up doing clerical work for less than that.

By 1993, things had become a little rocky with Theorem. After four and a half years together, they broke up. The distance was too great, in every sense. Theorem wanted a more stable life--maybe not a traditional Swiss family with three children and a pretty chalet in the Alps, but something more than Par’s transient life on the road.

The separation was excruciatingly painful for both of them.

Conversation was strained for weeks after the decision. Theorem kept thinking she had made a mistake. She kept wanting to ask Par to come back. But she didn’t.

Par drowned himself in alcohol. Shots of tequila, one after the other.

Scull it. Slam the glass down. Fill it to the top. Throw back another.

After a while, he passed out. Then he was violently ill for days, but somehow he didn’t mind. It was cleansing to be so ill.

Somewhere along the way, Rosen managed to get Par’s things returned from the Secret Service raids. He passed the outdated computer and other equipment back to Par, along with disks, print-outs and notes.

Par gathered up every shred of evidence from his case, along with a bottle of Jack Daniels, and made a bonfire. He shredded print-outs, doused them in lighter fluid and set them alight. He fed the disks into the fire and watched them melt in the flames. He flipped through the pages and pages of notes and official reports and let them pull out particular memories. Then he crumpled up each one and tossed it in the fire. He even sprinkled a little Jack Daniels across the top for good measure.

As he pulled the pages from a Secret Service report, making them into tight paper balls, something caught his eye and made him wonder. Many hackers around the world had been busted in a series of raids following the first Thanksgiving raid at Par’s house back in 1988.

Erik Bloodaxe, the MOD boys, the LOD boys, The Atlanta Three, Pad and Gandalf, the Australians--they had all been either busted or raided during 1989, 1990 and 1991.

How were the raids connected? Were the law-enforcement agencies on three different continents really organised enough to coordinate worldwide attacks on hackers?

The Secret Service report gave him a clue. It said that in December 1988, two informants had called Secret Service special agents in separate divisions with information about Par. The informants--both hackers--told the Secret Service that Par was not the ‘Citibank hacker’ the agency was looking for. They said the real ‘Citibank hacker’ was named Phoenix.