Underground by Suelette Dreyfus (books to get back into reading txt) 📖

his California police file, and maybe even surveillance photos. They knew his personality from telephone bridge conversations which had been recorded and from the details of his Secret Service file. Perhaps they had even tracked him around the country, following a trail of clues left in his flightpath. Whatever research they had done, one thing was clear. These agents felt like they knew him intimately—Par the person, not just Par the hacker.

It was a strange sensation. These guys Par had never met before chatted with him about the latest Michael Jackson video as if he was a neighbour or friend just returned from out of town. Then they took him further uptown, to a police station, for more extradition paperwork.

This place was no World Trade Center deluxe office. Par stared at the peeling grey paint in the ancient room, and then watched officers typing out reports using the two-finger hunt-and-peck method on electric typewriters—not a computer in sight. The officers didn’t cuff Par to the desk. Par was in the heart of a police station and there was no way he was going anywhere.

While the officer handling Par was away from his desk for ten minutes, Par felt bored. So he began flipping through the folders with information on other cases on the officer’s desk. They were heavy duty fraud cases—mafia and drug-money laundering—cases which carried reference to FBI involvement. These people looked hairy.

That day, Par had a quick appearance in court, just long enough to be given protective custody in the Manhattan detention complex known as the Tombs while he waited for the authorities from California to come and pick him up.

Par spent almost a week in the Tombs. By day three, he was climbing the walls. It was like being buried alive.

During that week, Par had almost no contact with other human beings—a terrible punishment for someone with so much need for a continual flow of new information. He never left his cell. His jailer slid trays of food into his cell and took them away.

On day six, Par went nuts. He threw a fit, began screaming and banging on the door. He yelled at the guard. Told him none too nicely that he wanted to `get the fuck outta here’. The guard said he would see if he could get Par transferred to Rikers Island, New York’s notorious jail. Par didn’t care if he was transferred to the moon, as long as he got out of solitary confinement.

Except for the serial killer, the north infirmary at Rikers Island was a considerable improvement on the Tombs. Par was only locked in his cell at night. During the day he was free to roam inside the infirmary area with other prisoners. Some of them were there because the authorities didn’t want to put them in with the hardened criminals, and some of them were there because they were probably criminally insane.

It was an eclectic bunch. A fireman turned jewellery heister. A Colombian drug lord. A chop-shop ringleader, who collected more than 300 stolen cars, chopped them up, reassembled them as new and then sold them off. A man who killed a homosexual for coming onto him. `Faggot Killer’, as he was known inside, hadn’t meant to kill anyone: things had gotten a little out of hand; next thing he knew, he was facing ten to twelve on a murder rap.

Par wasn’t wild about the idea of hanging out with a murderer, but he was nervous about what could happened to a young man in jail. Forging a friendship with Faggot Killer would send the right message. Besides, the guy seemed to be OK. Well, as long as you didn’t look at him the wrong way.

On his first day, Par also met Kentucky, a wild-eyed man who introduced himself by thrusting a crumpled newspaper article into the hacker’s hand and saying, `That’s me’. The article, titled `Voices Told Him to Kill’, described how police had apprehended a serial killer believed to be responsible for a dozen murders, maybe more. During his last murder, Kentucky told Par he had killed a woman—and then written the names of the aliens who had commanded him to do it on the walls of her apartment in her blood.

The jewellery heister tried to warn Par to stay away from Kentucky, who continued to liaise with the aliens on a regular basis. But it was too late. Kentucky decided that he didn’t like the young hacker. He started shouting at Par, picking a fight. Par stood there, stunned and confused. How should he deal with an aggravated serial killer? And what the hell was he doing in jail with a serial killer raving at him anyway? It was all too much.

The jewellery heister rushed over to Kentucky and tried to calm him down, speaking in soothing tones. Kentucky glowered at Par, but he stopped yelling.

A few days into his stay at Rikers, Faggot Killer invited Par to join in a game of Dungeons and Dragons. It beat watching TV talk shows all day, so Par agreed. He sat down at the metal picnic table where Faggot Killer had laid out the board.

So it was that Par, the twenty-year-old computer hacker from California, the X.25 network whiz kid, came to play Dungeons and Dragons with a jewellery thief, a homophobic murderer and a mad serial killer in Rikers Island. Par found himself marvelling at the surrealism of the situation.

Kentucky threw himself into the game. He seemed to get off on killing hobgoblins.

`I’ll take my halberd,’ Kentucky began with a smile, `and I stab this goblin.’ The next player began to make his move, but Kentucky interrupted. `I’m not done,’ he said slowly, as a demonic grin spread across his face. `And I slice it. And cut it. It bleeds everywhere.’ Kentucky’s face tensed with pleasure.

The other three players shifted uncomfortably in their seats. Par looked at Faggot Killer with nervous eyes.

`And I thrust a knife into its heart,’ Kentucky continued, the volume of his voice rising with excitement. `Blood, blood, everywhere blood. And I take the knife and hack him. And I hack and hack and hack.’

Kentucky jumped up from the table and began shouting, thrusting one arm downward through the air with an imaginary dagger, `And I hack and I hack and I hack!’

Then Kentucky went suddenly still. Everyone at the table froze. No-one dared move for fear of driving him over the edge. Par’s stomach had jumped into his throat. He tried to gauge how many seconds it would take to extricate himself from the picnic table and make a break for the far side of the room.

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