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SIXTEEN
Crashing Eric’s Private Party
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ver since the dinner Lewis and I had with Eric, I’d been thinking about
that key he claimed to have that would let him into any Pacific Bell central
office. I decided to ask him if I could borrow the key. I wasn’t going to tell
him what I wanted it for, but my plan was to get into the Calabasas central
office, gain access to the COSMOS computer, and try to find out when the
wiretaps had been installed on my father’s lines. And whether there was a
notation in COSMOS not to give out any information, or to call Security, if
anyone inquired about the lines.
Once we were inside the CO, I’d be able to see what boxes were
connected to my dad’s lines and verify the numbers the wiretappers were
using to dial in to them. When I had those numbers, I could look them up in
COSMOS and find the date the numbers were activated, which would tell
me when the wiretaps went in.
About 10:00 one night in February, Lewis and I drove over to Eric’s
apartment building at the address I had gotten from Pacific Bell after I
obtained Eric’s number using the caller ID ploy. The building was
impressive, a pretty upscale and buttoned-down apartment complex for a
guy like him—a spread-out, two-story stucco building with a locked
entrance and a remote-controlled garage gate. We waited until someone
drove out of the garage, and walked in. I could have described the place
before seeing it. Carpeted lobby, tennis courts, swimming pool with
Jacuzzi, palm trees, recreation room with a large TV.
What was this hacker from the nightclub crowd doing at a complex
intended for corporate stiffs, people being put up at company expense while
in LA on short-term assignments?
Apartment 107B was partway down a long hall. Lewis and I took turns
pressing our ears to the door hoping voices from inside might give us some
clues about who was in there. But we couldn’t hear anything.
We found our way to the recreational center and rang Eric’s apartment
from the pay phone. I smiled as Lewis dialed his number, amused because
any good hacker would know the pay phone numbers in his own apartment
complex. If he was as good as he claimed, Eric would have added caller ID
on his line and would recognize that Lewis and I were calling from his
building.
Poor guy. He was angry that I had found out his phone number and way
angrier that we were calling from only a few yards away. We told him we
wanted to talk. He said, “I never have hackers up.” He finally told us to
give him five minutes and then he would come down and meet us in the rec
room.
I was struck once more by how much he looked like a rock musician,
with his lanky build and blond shoulder-length hair, his boots and jeans, his
dress shirt. He stared at us in disbelief. “You need to respect my privacy,”
he hissed. “How did you find me?” He sounded nervous, as if he thought
we might have come with guns.
My answer was a taunt. “I’m very good at what I do.” I said it with a big
in-your-face grin.
He kept returning to his theme of the day about our not respecting his
privacy.
I said, “We didn’t come to violate your privacy, we came to get your
help. We think a friend’s lines are being wiretapped by Pacific Bell. You
said you had keys to the central offices. I’d like your help finding out.”
The “friend,” of course, was me, and there wasn’t any “think” about it.
“Which CO?” he asked.
I didn’t want to give him details. “It’s a satellite ESS office,” I said,
identifying it by the type of switch. “Unmanned at night.”
“The key isn’t here now,” he said. “I don’t want to get busted with it.”
“Can you let me borrow it?”
No, he didn’t feel comfortable with that.
At that point, I confided in him. “Hey, it’s not really a friend. I’ve found
out they have intercepts on all my dad’s lines, and I’m scared because I
don’t know how much they know. I don’t know who it is or when it
started.”
He asked how I knew, and I told him how I’d social-engineered the
Calabasas frame tech into telling me. I tried to tell him he could trust me. I
was pleading with him and trying to convey a sense of urgency because I
needed to do it now. I really wanted to get him to go get the key for me
while I waited.
“Eric,” I said, “if I find out they have enough evidence to send me back
to jail, I’m going to disappear.” The three of us talked for a while about
what countries had no extradition treaties with the United States.
I pressed him again about the break-in, but Eric wouldn’t commit
himself, saying he’d let me know. We spent a long time discussing how the
phone company wiretapped people. He even told me that he went into the
central office himself every week to make sure there was no dial number
recorder (DNR) attached to his own line.
He still wasn’t willing to give me the key, but he said he would be happy
to take me to the central office and go in with me. Since I didn’t completely
trust him, I gave him only one of the three monitor numbers I had and
didn’t let him know I had the other ones. It was a kind of a test, to see if he
was trustworthy or not.
Finally Lewis and I said good night and walked away.
Whoever had put Pacific Bell up to installing those intercepts could by
now have had enough evidence to send me back to prison, so not knowing
what the wiretappers had overheard, I was really freaking out, my gut
continually nagging at me. Sometimes, afraid to sleep at home, I’d check
into a budget motel to relieve my anxiety.
We were going to go in together, but over the next several days, Eric
kept giving me excuses about why he couldn’t go tonight, why he couldn’t
tomorrow, how he had to work over the weekend. Meanwhile I grew more
cautious. His behavior seemed suspicious; I was growing anxious about the
risk. I told him, “I won’t go inside, but I’ll act as a lookout.” Finally we
picked a date; it was all settled that we would go in the following night.
But the next morning, he called, saying, “I went in last night,” and gave
me the monitor numbers—and I could tell he was giving me the correct
ones. He told me he’d looked up the numbers in COSMOS. The numbers
had been established on January 27, so the boxes had been hooked up
sometime after that.
I asked him how he’d gotten past the padlock on the outside gate. He
said there wasn’t any when he got there. But every day, as I drove from my
dad’s apartment, I passed that CO, and every day I saw that padlock. This
was a huge red flag. Now I was really nervous. Why would he bullshit me
about a thing like this, something he knew was so important to me?
I’d have to be even more on my guard with this guy. I just couldn’t trust
him.
But the secret of where he lived wasn’t a secret anymore, and he was
shaken. The whole episode had only added to the mystery… but I was on
the verge of unraveling the puzzle.
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