The Fugitive Game: Online With Kevin Mitnick (22 page)

Pazaski hops back in and rattles off the MINs he suspects the
hacker is pirating while Young taps them into the laptop's memory.

"419-3006."

"Next."

"601-3020."

"Next."

"219-2-460."

The Jeep leaves the campus shopping center, and skirts the north-
ern border of the university, going west on 45 th Street. Young
knows from experience that the radio signals in a particular cell site
never travel identical distances on any two different days. Wet or
humid weather can impede the signals and create inaccurate read-
ings. The investigators need to know the exact radio coverage for the
hacker's suspected territory. As Pazaski drives, Young hits the F7
function key on his laptop and his scanner automatically searches
for the strongest channel. Pazaski drives the first loop quickly,
Young calling out the borders.

The boundaries set, they circle again just to be sure. The results
are clear. The heart of the cell site, the best place to trap the phone
hacker's calls, is the center of the bustling university area.

Trap readied, the investigators park in front of the Washington
Alumni House at the corner of 15th Avenue and 45th Street and
watch the stream of students, punks, and homeless.

Finger on the cursor key, the bounty hunter bounces through the
static of the twenty-odd channels. Once in a while, he catches a con-
versation, checks the MIN to make sure it's not the target, hits the
cursor key, and moves on. Modem breath is what he wants to hear.

Pazaski drives north of the campus, and parks at University Way
and 55 th Street NE. The engine idles, powering the Cellscope gear.
Time creeps by. Young watches a couple of kids dealing dope. A
gang of twelve-or thirteen-year-olds shuffles past the Jeep, eyeing
the blue-white glow illuminating the Jeep's interior, and the strange
antenna protruding from the roof.

It's a little after 5:30 p.m, and still they've heard nothing. Young
knows they're in the right place. It's gotta be somewhere in these six
square blocks. He switches the scanner to automatic trap mode, and
listens as it skips from channel to channel. When it traps one of the
preprogrammed MINs the laptop should scream.

Maybe a change in location would help. Pazaski sticks the Jeep in
gear, turns left on 55th Street NE, then right on Ravenna Avenue,
past the 1920s-style bungalows and under the elevated I-5 freeway,
west of the campus. They pass a bar and Pazaski jokes that they
should call it quits and have a beer.

But Young doesn't look up from the laptop. Pazaski downshifts
and drives up a steep residential street, circles the block, then parks
on 6th Avenue NE amid the tidy bungalows and well-manicured
lawns. They're looking southeast over the crowded I-5 freeway to
the houses and apartment buildings of the university district. A
pretty, old, brick church steeple dominates the view. The hundred
feet of elevation should improve reception.

"eeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEE!" the laptop screams.

"It's him!" Young yells. "We've got him!"

The call data pops up in a window in the upper right corner of the
laptop's screen.

MIN 206-619-0086,
ESN: XXXXXXXX
Dialed: 303-756-1116

It's a voice call. Some guy chuckling about computers to a friend in
Denver. Some guy wondering if he's been detected. It's the right
ESN, the right MIN, the right profile. They've gotta be listening to
their Skip Jacker.

"Coming from three o'clock!" Young shouts, the red LED locked
dead on the tall steeple of the distant church.

6:23 p.m., flashes the laptop.

Pazaski spins a U-turn, up one block to 5th Avenue NE, and roars
back down to Ravenna. Young's eyes are fixed on the dash-mounted
display.

The signal could terminate any second.

"We gotta get over there!" Young yells. "We can't lose the call!"

Pazaski speeds up to the light at 56th Avenue NE and Roosevelt
Way, past the bar, and slows to a crawl at the intersection below the
broad concrete freeway. It's the evening commute and traffic is
snarled.

Green, yellow.

"Damn it! Damn it!" Pazaski shouts. Six cars between them and
the light.

He's less than a quarter mile away. Seconds, if Pazaski could just
get through the light. What an irony, he thinks. They've got the Skip
Jacker's signal, but they're stuck in traffic.

"Damn!" Young yells, pounding the dashboard as the light turns.

But the phone hacker just keeps laughing, oblivious to their sur-
veillance. Young listens incredulously as he jokes about what sounds
like plans for computer sabotage. Revenge against people he used to
work with.

"These guys are electronic terrorists!" Young shouts.

He kicks himself for not bringing a tape recorder. At least then he
could have recorded his voice. They sound as if they might hang up
any second. The guy in Denver's shopping for a cellular phone, and
mentions a local price plan of forty dollars a month.

"Why don't you try the same 'free' service I'm already using?"
jokes the phone hacker.

"I want to keep a low profile," replies Denver.

If we can just get through this light, thinks Pazaski.

Green. Yes!

The Jeep roars south on Roosevelt Way, past Dante's Cocktails,
Paul's Auto Upholstery, and a neighborhood library.

Meanwhile, Denver is talking about the Hotel Gregorio near
US West Cellular. Young knows exactly where they're talking about.
He worked in Denver. The bounty hunter picks up more snippets of
conversation. Talk about generating reports and printouts for some-
one at his work. Talk about renaming some "test" file.

"If Elaine is gone, they'll never figure it out," boasts Denver.

"We'll really fuck them up!" laughs Seattle.

The red LED glows to the northeast.

"Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!" Young mutters, as they miss an-
other light.

South on Roosevelt Way. Young glances down at the Toshiba.
The decibel readings bounce. Getting closer.

"Left here!" Young orders, eyes glued to the display as they ap-
proach 50th Street NE.

"Left here. OK. Drive, drive, drive."

The decibel readings jump again at Brooklyn Avenue.

"Left here!" Young shouts. "OK, slow down a little."

They cruise by a beautiful old picturesque school, and then a
three-story brick and wood apartment building on the left. The sig-
nal jumps to -6odBm, the red LED blinking at nine o'clock.

This is it, Young thinks. "Keep going!"

Time to frame up the target location.

Pazaski circles to a narrow alley behind the apartment building.
Like a Geiger counter, the Cellscope leaves no doubt: -65dBm reads
the laptop, the LED pointing at the back of the building. This is the
place.

A voice is still coming over the ICOM 7000 receiver. Seattle is
laughing about the damage he's about to do.

Cocky son of a bitch, Pazaski thinks. He thinks it's some kind of
joke.

Dusk is falling as Pazaski pulls up by a fire hydrant in front of
5227 Brooklyn Avenue. Check out the mailboxes first, Young
thinks. Cross the street casually and take down the names.

A bank of brass mailboxes. Unit one, a blue typed label, Brian
Merrill.

"Ha, ha, ha."

The Skip Jacker's familiar belly laugh booms through the base-
ment apartment wall.

Amazing, Young thinks. He takes a couple more steps, and
presses his ear against the large wooden door.

"Ha, ha, ha.. . Yeah, I've got the records."

Young sprints back to the Jeep. "Kevin, you're not going to be-
lieve this! That was the voice on the call."

They run back together. This time, Pazaski crouches below the
peephole.

"The password is ... "

Pazaski's eyes widen and he gestures toward the door, silently
mouthing the words.

"That's him!"

Back at the Jeep, the Cellscope grabs a one-minute call at 6:44
p.m. and another at 6:45. Young walks behind the Jeep, quickly jot-
ting down a physical description on his palm: two white buildings
separated by concrete stairs and paths. Metal frame windows. Sus-
pect apartment subground, ochre brick facing, two street-facing
windows, curtains drawn.

"Jingle, jingle, jingle."

Couldn't be, Young thinks, glancing up.

The Skip Jacker! He's locking the white door to unit one. He's
built, pushing two hundred pounds, wavy, shoulder-length hair,
mustache, silver-rim glasses, a dark leather jacket and faded jeans.
He's carrying a purple and black athletic bag.

They can't grab him because they're not cops, and they don't
want to risk spooking him. But that doesn't stop them from trail-
ing him.

Young ducks behind a van, watching until the phone hacker
walks a safe distance down the street. Young hops back in the Jeep
and Pazaski pulls a U-turn and trails him.

Hands in his pockets, head slightly bent, the phone hacker crosses
50th Street NE, passes Burger King, and walks into Safeway.

Pazaski veers into the Burger King parking lot. They need a solid
physical description. And Young is worried he may already have
been spotted.

Pazaski jumps out and brushes past the homeless in front of the
Safeway. He grabs two bottles of Arizona Iced Tea and a bunch of
bananas, and then casually falls behind the phone hacker in the
checkout line. The hacker's face is in profile. He has no idea he's
being watched. Tall, Pazaski thinks. Glasses, pretty buffed, not too
heavy, not bad looking. Not at all what he'd expected. He's buying a
large bottle of Evian water.

Pazaski pays for his bananas and drinks and returns to the Jeep.

"Todd, he's a normal guy," Pazaski tells Young. "He bought a
bottle of water. No porno mags, nothing unusual."

But the phone hacker is walking briskly, passing Burger King,
turning away from his apartment. He walks toward the evening
melting pot of students, workers, and street people, and then he's
gone.

It's Saturday night, and the elec-
tronic surf is up.

Todd Young is back, alone, sitting in his Jeep, down the street
from Merrill's apartment. He locks onto Merrill dialing a familiar
L.A. cellular roamer access number.

The Skip Jacker is chatting about computers with someone who
sounds like his father. He's getting emotional. He wants to talk to
his grandfather.

"He's not going to talk to you 'cuz you're a fugitive."

"I know, I know! What am I gonna do?" groans the Skip Jacker.

Is this guy wanted? Young wonders. Is Merrill some bigtime cy-
bercrook?

Todd Young is driven now. Brian Merrill is somebody big, he can
feel it. He bangs out a ten-page affidavit over the weekend and faxes
it on Monday to the Seattle Police Department and, on a long shot,
to the local office of the Secret Service.

But the local police and Secret Service don't share his enthusiasm.
Frustrated, Young phones a cop he knows at the nearby King
County PD.

"We want to do it," the cop tells him. "But it's outside our juris-
diction. Try John Lewitt in Seattle."

Young dials the cop in the Seattle PD Fraud and Explosives

Division, and Detective Lewitt says he'll get right back to him.
But a few hours later Lewitt too calls with bad news. His boss
says the case isn't big enough. It's the same story with the Secret
Service. Special Agent Tom Molitor with the local office is inter-
ested, but the U.S. Attorney in Seattle isn't.

A ten-thousand-dollar fraud isn't worth their time.

Eight days have passed since Young first tracked Merrill. He's still trying
to get the cops to act, but nobody seems to want the cybercrook.

On Saturday, October 15, around 5:30 p.m, Young methodi-
cally loads up his family Jeep with his receiver, directional finder,
laptop, and Doppler antennae. Young wants to get into the guy's
head, find out what he does on the weekend. He tells his puzzled
wife they're going to the university district. They'll make it a date. A
little cybersurveillance, dinner, and a movie.

"He lives right there," Young announces fifteen minutes later,
proudly pointing to the basement unit.

Young parks at his usual spot by the elementary school on
Brooklyn at about 6 p.m. Twelve minutes later, he traps a call. An
unfamiliar MIN flashes on his screen, but Young knows it's him: the
call is to one of Merrill's familiar L.A. cellular roamer access lines.
Four minutes later, the Skip Jacker dials L.A. again.

At 6:24 p.m., the Skip Jacker emerges from his apartment and Young
scribbles in a notebook that he's wearing the same clothes as before. He
and his wife watch as Merrill pulls a cell phone from its black case, dials,
and places it to his ear. The call flashes on Young's laptop: