Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World’s Most Wanted Hacker

Where to next?
I
wanted to go someplace where technology jobs were plentiful, but Silicon
Valley was out of the question, because for me, returning to California
would be inviting disaster.
My research indicated that while it rained a lot in Seattle, the rare sunny
days there were beautiful, especially around Lake Washington. And to top it
off, the city offered an abundance of Thai restaurants and coffee shops. That
might seem like an odd factor to weigh in making a decision like this, but I
was especially fond of Thai food and coffee then, and I still am today.

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And of course, with the Microsoft campus in adjacent Redmond, Seattle
had long been a hotbed of technology. Everything considered, it seemed
like the town that would best meet my needs. Seattle it would be.
I bought a one-way Amtrak ticket, hugged my mother and grandmother
good-bye, and boarded a train, which pulled into Seattle’s King Street
Station two days later. My new identity kit included a driver’s license,
Social Security card, and my usual items to establish credibility—all made
out in my new Brian Merrill name. I found a motel and registered under my
new identity.
I had planned to burn the Eric Weiss identity documents but in the end
decided to keep them as a backup, in case I ever needed to quickly abandon
the Brian Merrill persona for some reason. I stuffed them in a sock, which I
stowed at the bottom of my suitcase.
Denver had been good to me except for that bad last chapter. The last
chapter in Seattle would trump it in spades.

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THIRTY-ONE

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Eyes in the Sky
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O
n my very first day in Seattle, my pager goes off at 6:00 a.m., scaring
the shit out of me: nobody but De Payne and my mother have my pager
number, and Lewis knows better than to wake me this early. Whatever it is,
it can’t be good news.
Bleary-eyed, I reach over to the bedside table, grab the pager, and look
at the screen. “3859123-3,” it reads. The first string of digits I know by
heart: the phone number of the Showboat Hotel and Casino.
The final “3” means code 3: