Underground: Hacking, madness and obsession on the electronic frontier Part 18

After a few weeks at the motel, however, he couldn't shake the feeling that he was being watched. There were too many strangers coming and going. He wondered if the hotel guests waiting in their cars were spying on him, and he soon began jumping at shadows. Perhaps, he thought, the Secret Service had found him after all.

Par thought about how he could investigate the matter in more depth.

One of The Atlanta Three hackers, The Prophet, called Nibbler occasionally to exchange hacking information, particularly security bugs in Unix systems. During one of their talks, Prophet told Par about a new security flaw he'd been experimenting with on a network that belonged to the phone company.

The Atlanta Three, a Georgia-based wing of The Legion of Doom, spent a good deal of time weaving their way through BellSouth, the phone company covering the south-eastern US. They knew about phone switching stations the way Par knew about Tymnet. The Secret Service had raided the hackers in July 1989 but had not arrested them yet, so in September The Prophet continued to maintain an interest in his favourite target.

Par thought the flaw in BellSouth's network sounded very cool and began playing around in the company's systems. Dial up the company's computer network, poke around, look at things. The usual stuff.

It occurred to Par that he could check out the phone company's records of the motel to see if there was anything unusual going on. He typed in the motel's main phone number and the system fed back the motel's address, name and some detailed technical information, such as the exact cable and pair attached to the phone number. Then he looked up the phone line of the computer chalet. Things looked odd on that line.

The line which he and Nibbler used for most of their hacking showed a special status: 'maintenance unit on line'.

What maintenance unit? Nibbler hadn't mentioned any problems with any of the motel's lines, but Par checked with him. No problems with the telephones.

Par felt nervous. In addition to messing around with the phone company's networks, he had been hacking into a Russian computer network from the computer chalet. The Soviet network was a s.h.i.+ny new toy. It had only been connected to the rest of the world's global packet-switched network for about a month, which made it particularly attractive virgin territory.

Nibbler called in a friend to check the motel's phones. The friend, a former telephone company technician turned freelancer, came over to look at the equipment. He told Nibbler and Par that something weird was happening in the motel's phone system. The line voltages were way off.

Par realised instantly what was going on. The system was being monitored. Every line coming in and going out was probably being tapped, which meant only one thing. Someone--the phone company, the local police, the FBI or the Secret Service--was onto him.

Nibbler and Par quickly packed up all Nibbler's computer gear, along with Par's hacking notes, and moved to another motel across town. They had to shut down all their hacking activities and cover their tracks.

Par had left programs running which sniffed people's pa.s.swords and login names on a continual basis as they logged in, then dumped all the information into a file on the hacked machine. He checked that file every day or so. If he didn't shut the programs down, the log file would grow until it was so big the system administrator would become curious and have a look. When he discovered that his system had been hacked he would close the security holes. Par would have problems getting back into that system.

After they finished tidying up the hacked systems, they gathered up all Par's notes and Nibbler's computer equipment once again and stashed them in a rented storage s.p.a.ce. Then they drove back to the motel.

Par couldn't afford to move on just yet. Besides, maybe only the telephone company had taken an interest in the motel's phone system.

Par had done a lot of poking and prodding of the telecommunications companies' computer systems from the motel phone, but he had done it anonymously. Perhaps BellSouth felt a little curious and just wanted to sniff about for more information. If that was the case, the law enforcement agencies probably didn't know that Par, the fugitive, was hiding in the motel.

The atmosphere was becoming oppressive in the motel. Par became even more watchful of the people coming and going. He glanced out the front window a little more often, and he listened a little more carefully to the footsteps coming and going. How many of the guests were really just tourists? Par went through the guest list and found a man registered as being from New Jersey. He was from one of the AT&T corporations left after the break-up of Bell Systems. Why on earth would an AT&T guy be staying in a tiny hick town in North Carolina?

Maybe a few Secret Service agents had snuck into the motel and were watching the chalet.

Par needed to bring the paranoia under control. He needed some fresh air, so he went out for a walk. The weather was bad and the wind blew hard, whipping up small tornadoes of autumn leaves. Soon it began raining and Par sought cover in the pay phone across the street.

Despite having been on the run for a few months, Par still called Theorem almost every day, mostly by phreaking calls through bulk telecommunications companies. He dialled her number and they talked for a bit. He told her about how the voltage was way off on the motel's PABX and how the phone might be tapped. She asked how he was holding up. Then they spoke softly about when they might see each other again.

Outside the phone box, the storm worsened. The rain hammered the roof from one side and then another as the wind jammed it in at strange angles. The darkened street was deserted. Tree branches creaked under the strain of the wind. Rivulets rushed down the leeward side of the booth and formed a wall of water outside the gla.s.s. Then a trash bin toppled over and its contents flew onto the road.

Trying to ignore to the havoc around him, Par curled the phone handset into a small protected s.p.a.ce, cupped between his hand, his chest and a corner of the phone booth. He reminded Theorem of their time together in California, of two and a half weeks, and they laughed gently over intimate secrets.

A tree branch groaned and then broke under the force of the wind. When it crashed on the pavement near the phone booth, Theorem asked Par what the noise was.

'There's a hurricane coming,' he told her. 'Hurricane Hugo. It was supposed to hit tonight. I guess it's arrived.'

Theorem sounded horrified and insisted Par go back to the safety of the motel immediately.

When Par opened the booth door, he was deluged by water. He dashed across the road, fighting the wind of the hurricane, staggered into his motel room and jumped into bed to warm up. He fell asleep listening to the storm, and he dreamed of Theorem.

Hurricane Hugo lasted more than three days, but they felt like the safest three days Par had spent in weeks. It was a good bet that the Secret Service wouldn't be conducting any raids during a hurricane.

South Carolina took the brunt of Hugo but North Carolina also suffered ma.s.sive damage. It was one of the worst hurricanes to hit the area in decades. Winds near its centre reached more than 240 kilometres per hour, causing 60 deaths and $7 billion in damages as it made its way up the coast from the West Indies to the Carolinas.

When Par stepped outside his motel room one afternoon a few days after the storm, the air was fresh and clean. He walked to the railing outside his second-storey perch and found himself looking down on a hive of activity in the car park. There were cars. There was a van.

There was a collection of spectators.

And there was the Secret Service.

At least eight agents wearing blue jackets with the Secret Service emblem on the back.

Par froze. He stopped breathing. Everything began to move in slow motion. A few of the agents formed a circle around one of the guys from the motel, a maintenance worker named John, who looked vaguely like Par. They seemed to be hauling John over the coals, searching his wallet for identification and quizzing him. Then they escorted him to the van, presumably to run his prints.

Par's mind began moving again. He tried to think clearly. What was the best way out? He had to get back into his room. It would give him some cover while he figured out what to do next. The photos of Theorem flashed through his mind. No way was he going to let the Secret Service get hold of those. He needed to stash them and fast.

He could see the Secret Service agents searching the computer chalet.

Thank G.o.d he and Nibbler had moved all the equipment. At least there was nothing incriminating in there and they wouldn't be able to seize all their gear.

Par breathed deeply, deliberately, and forced himself to back away from the railing toward the door to his room. He resisted the urge to dash into his room, to recoil from the scene being played out below him. Abrupt movements would draw the agents' attention.

Just as Par began to move, one of the agents turned around. He scanned the two-storey motel complex and his gaze quickly came to rest on Par.

He looked Par dead in the eye.

This is it, Par thought. I'm screwed. No way out of here now. Months on the run only to get done in a hick town in North Carolina. These guys are gonna haul my a.s.s away for good. I'll never see the light of day again. Elimination is the only option.

While these thoughts raced through Par's mind, he stood rigid, his feet glued to the cement floor, his face locked into the probing gaze of the Secret Service agent. He felt like they were the only two people who existed in the universe.

Then, inexplicably, the agent looked away. He swivelled around to finish his conversation with another agent. It was as if he had never even seen the fugitive.

Par stood, suspended and unbelieving. Somehow it seemed impossible. He began to edge the rest of the way to his motel room. Slowly, casually, he slid inside and shut the door behind him.

His mind raced back to the photos of Theorem and he searched the room for a safe hiding place. There wasn't one. The best option was something above eye-level. He pulled a chair across the room, climbed on it and pressed on the ceiling. The rectangular panel of plasterboard lifted easily and Par slipped the photos in the s.p.a.ce, then replaced the panel. If the agents tore the room apart, they would likely find the pictures. But the photos would probably escape a quick search, which was the best he could hope for at this stage.

Next, he turned his mind to escaping. The locals were pretty cool about everything, and Par thought he could count on the staff not to mention his presence to the Secret Service. That bought him some time, but he couldn't get out of the room without being seen. Besides, if he was spotted walking off the property, he would certainly be stopped and questioned.

Even if he did manage to get out of the motel grounds, it wouldn't help much. The town wasn't big enough to s.h.i.+eld him from a thorough search and there was no-one there he trusted enough to hide him. It might look a little suspicious, this young man running away from the motel on foot in a part of the world where everyone travelled by car.

Hitchhiking was out of the question. With his luck, he'd probably get picked up by one of the agents leaving the raid. No, he wanted a more viable plan. What he really needed was to get out of the area altogether, to flee the state.

Par knew that John travelled to Asheville to attend cla.s.ses and that he left very early. If the authorities had been watching the motel for a while, they would know that his 5 a.m. departure was normal. And there was one other thing about the early departure which seemed promising. It was still dark at that hour.

If Par could get as far as Asheville, he might be able to get a lift to Charlotte, and from there he could fly somewhere far away.

Par considered the options again and again. Hiding out in the motel room seemed the most sensible thing to do. He had been moving rooms around the motel pretty regularly, so he might have appeared to be just another traveller to anyone watching the motel. With any luck the Secret Service would be concentrating their search on the chalet, ripping the place apart in a vain hunt for the computer equipment. As these thoughts went through his head, the phone rang, making Par jump.

He stared at it, wondering whether to answer.

He picked it up.

'It's Nibbler,' a voice whispered.

'Yeah,' Par whispered back.