Black Hat Blues (31 page)

and trying to come up with a next move.

There was no obvious next move, though. They’d poured every ounce

of everything into pulling off the Clover sting, and there’d been no

point in planning much beyond the endgame. In the back of her mind

Chloe had pretty much assumed that if things went well with Isaiah,

then he’d probably want to partner with them again, which would have

been fine with Chloe. But Isaiah was no doubt still wrapping up all the

many loose (and sometimes burning) ends from his strike on the slavers,

and with Paul in the news wouldn’t be terribly inclined to have anything

to do with them. Same for Marco and his Crew—they were being good

about paying Chloe and the Crew’s share, but beyond moving money,

Marco claimed to have no leads on future plans or prospects.

Chloe ended up digging out the list of contacts they’d gotten from

Winston before everything with him went to hell last year. They’d sent

out a few feelers to the nearest and most promising Crews, and even

got a few responses back, but they hadn’t followed up much once Paul

came up with the idea of recruiting new members from hacker cons.

Then they’d focused in on going under cover to events and looking for

likely candidates. Looking back over the list now, she allowed herself

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163

to consider some of the more far-flung options, like a contact name

and drop box for someone named Henrik who operated out of Sweden

and in Northern Europe in general. Although getting over there might

be tough given Paul’s wanted status, Chloe was pretty sure they could

do it, especially with Marco’s help. Maybe an expansion into the Old

World was just what they needed—a sort of working vacation. She

decided to put together a letter reaching out to him.

The whole process would take months, between sending untraceable

letters back and forth and then encrypted messages and then whatever

else was needed. Chloe wouldn’t let on where she was really operat-

ing out of and then Henrik would probably be just as cagey about his

situation. There would have to be an exchange of favors to show some

good faith like gathering some intel on an American target for them or

moving some item through customs or whatever. Establishing that kind

of trust where they felt comfortable actually meeting could take a year

or more, but it seemed to Chloe like a good use of their down time and

it would be something to keep them occupied.

When she’d brought the idea to Paul (as she almost always did before

presenting something to the whole group), he’d seemed down on it at

first. But then he keyed in on the idea of establishing a base of opera-

tions abroad. She wasn’t sure she liked the fact that he was so excited

about the idea of what amounted to just running away. Then again,

if they had to run, they might as well have some goal to run towards

instead of just fleeing from the badness. Paul even tore himself away

from watching his own infamy unfold online long enough to help her

compose the original letter.

Chloe made the drive up to Miami to one of their letter drops. It was

a middle-aged woman named Ignacia who served as a kind of under-

ground, off the books Mailboxes Etc. She had extended family all over

the United States, and she would send them large care packages filled

with cookies and other people’s mail, which her relatives would in turn

send on from wherever they lived. Thus Chloe could send Henrik a mes-

sage that, were it traced, would dead end back in Dearborn, Michigan.

Likewise, Chloe could receive mail back where the sender was using an

address for one of Chloe’s aliases that was in Charleston or Austin. She

had two such messages, one of which was from an alias she recognized

as belonging to Isaiah. It contained nothing but a simple greeting card

signed with a pseudonym. That was not a good sign. The only reason

Isaiah wouldn’t use one of the other secure means of communication

they’d established was if he felt they were somehow compromised. Not

a good sign at all.

Paul had had better days.

OK, better weeks or months even. The feeling was like the hor-

rible, dulling emptiness of loss that comes after a bad breakup with

someone you love or, he assumed, when a loved one died. It sucked all

the energy out of you, all the verve, and there was nothing you could

do about it but lie there and let it wash over you, wash you away, until

the nastiness started to recede. It wasn’t unusual for Paul to have these

memory moments every month or so where he flashed back to some

really embarrassing or stupid incident from his life, like the time he’d

thought he and Angela Lindel were dating in the 10th grade up until

she made it clear they absolutely were not and never had been. Or the

time he’d invested all his savings into a joint venture with a flaky part-

ner to start their own comic book line. Or that time he got fired from

his own company. These moments would arc across his brain and for

just an instant he’d feel all the shame and awkwardness and regret, but

then they’d pass just as quickly, he’d say to himself, “Fuck it, that’s done

and gone,” and move on with his day as normal.

This was different because it was like having some of his greatest,

most epic failures replaying in front of him in what amounted to slow

motion. Websites, forums, and podcasts rehashing his former scandal,

and speculating about his current ones. He couldn’t just let the moment

pass because the moment dragged on and on and on. Chloe said he

should stop looking. So did Sandee and Bee and even Sacco. But how

could he stop looking? What else was there to look at? There were the

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165

worried e-mails from his old friends and particularly his family. He’d

never been close with his folks, not since he graduated from high school.

But he didn’t hate them or dislike them or anything like that. They

disagreed on so many fundamental things, from religion to politics to

what was funny or interesting, that going home had become a chore.

A chore he soon stopped doing after he graduated college. There were

phone calls and cards on holidays and birthdays, and his dad would

include him on his periodic e-mail blasts to his whole mailing list.

When he’d had to drop out of polite society a few years back, he’d sent

them a single letter assuring them he was fine and not to believe the

stories. Since then, no contact at all.

Giving up on his friends had been much harder. Although his world

had largely shrunk down to Greg and the others at Fear and Loading

Games while he’d been out in San Jose, he’d still kept in touch with a

number of his old high school and college friends, especially guys like

Conrad and Shelby and even Rick from the old gaming group. His

freshman-year sweetheart and he were on good terms and would talk

every month or so about life and love and the rest. But on Chloe’s very

solid advice he’d cut off all contact with all of them, and it had sucked.

They’d all written him concerned e-mails in the wake of his sudden dis-

appearance back in San Jose, and while he’d read them he hadn’t been

able to respond. He didn’t even read their e-mails for months afterwards

when he had Bee help him hack the accounts so he could blind forward

everything from the mailbox without anyone knowing he was looking

in case they were still trying to trace him. They’d been heartbreaking,

and he wished he could respond.

The first time around, things had been local news and Web news but

not national news. Now, thanks to the frenzied power of new media

to actually drive a story into mass consciousness, his infamy had gone

national. Tech bloggers from
Wired
and
Engadget
and
Valleywag
were digging up his old friends and family and interviewing them, asking

them about what Paul Reynolds was really like and why he might have

turned to a life of crime. Even his mother and father went on record

with a tech reporter from
The Washington Post
. Paul learned that he’d

always been a quiet kid who hated authority and was always getting

into trouble. He’d also been a lazy, feckless worker, a pain in the ass

to work with, an inattentive boyfriend, and a godless liberal. On the

plus side, he’d been a creative genius and amazingly imaginative and

either a hugely talented or massively overrated artist. It was like going

to group therapy except he didn’t get to do anything but listen to other

people talk about him.

166

Geek Mafia: Black Hat Blues

Sacco tried to assure him that, in retrospect, he’d relish his growing

reputation as the new Kevin Mitnick. That might even be true as long

as he didn’t have to spend as much time in jail as Kevin had. Or any

time for that matter. The stuff with the t-shirts and the fan sites was

one of the few bright spots in it all, although they kind of irked him

too. It wasn’t like they were lauding him for the good and cool things

he’d actually done. Instead they were just taking what Oliver had made

up and running with it, attributing all kinds of interesting crimes and

hacks to him. The fact that he had no measurable hacking skills at all

made the whole thing all the more ironic.

But in the end, Paul remained confident that the whole thing would

blow over, like it had before. In the short and medium run it meant

that he’d have to pretty much withdraw entirely from the face to face

aspect of any cons they pulled, but that was fine. Chloe and Sacco and

Sandee could handle that. Paul had always been more comfortable on

the planning side of things anyway. The idea of trying to set up shop

somewhere in Europe was especially appealing. Paul had never been

across the ocean, and the idea of a whole new continent where he’d

committed no crimes and wasn’t wanted or famous was pretty appeal-

ing. He’d begun spinning ideas around in the back of his mind about

the kinds of things they might be capable of pulling off over there.

Sacco spoke Spanish and Chloe knew a little French. Maybe he’d start

learning Italian or German or hell, Swedish.

He’d been alternating tabs in his browser between a forum thread

about him and an article about how Estonia was one of the most wired

countries in the world when Chloe got back from Miami with the

emergency letter from Isaiah. Or at least they assumed it was an emer-

gency letter. Reading it you’d never guess anything was wrong: “Happy

Anniversary, thinking of you and hoping you and yours are well. God

Bless. Jake.” Isaiah was using an emergency code that they’d established

back when things were still in the planning stage. The message meant

that somewhere along the line communications had been compromised

and the normal ways of talking to each other, including their crypto-

phones, couldn’t be trusted.

“I went ahead and sent the reply while I was there,” Chloe said. “He

should have it in a day or two, so I set the meet for three days from now

in the Boca Raton location.”

“OK,” said Paul, re-reading the letter just in case he might have

missed something. By using “anniversary” in his message, Isaiah had

sent his half of a list of suggested pre-arranged meeting places. Chloe’s

response had included the word “Love” which, when combined with

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167

“anniversary” signaled a Starbucks in Boca Raton. The time was pre-set

to 3:00 PM. “Do you think he’ll show up?” Paul asked.

“Why wouldn’t he?”

“I dunno. Don’t you think maybe he’s just blowing us off because of

all the heat on me? Maybe he’s not compromised at all. Maybe he’s just

assuming we are.”

“Could be, I guess, but then why call for a meeting at all? He could

just throw away his phone and not respond to e-mails. Cutting each

other off isn’t hard.”

“Maybe you’re right. We’ll see in three days.”

“When we meet up with him…”

“When you meet up with him. I’m not going.”

“Don’t you want to know what’s going on?”

“I do, but I’m not going anywhere I don’t have to. You can handle

this one. Take Sacco. He should meet Isaiah anyway. I’m going to hide

in our little fortress of solicitude here.”

“You’re sure?”

“Nothing else makes sense.”

It didn’t take three days before Paul started to suspect that Isaiah was

right to have hit the panic button. They’d expected some fallout from

their high profile attack on Clover, but they’d covered their traces very

well, and there was nothing that could lead back to them. When Sacco

had originally put forward the idea of using some of his activist contacts

as protesters against Wolverton, Paul had been skeptical about the idea.

It was a lot of added moving pieces to put in play, and he’d felt confident

he could stir up enough interest just through his online connections.

But the others had liked the protest idea, and when was all laid out

Paul had to admit it added a powerful punch to their attack. Stories of

corruption and faceless labor abuses were one thing, but actual people