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By Root 634 0

up all my résumés and cover letters. I waited in a long line of mostly students to have the résumés printed on ivory linen stock. Then, when it was finally my turn, I was told that my print job wouldn’t be completed until morning. Damn! I wanted to get them out in the mail straightaway. The clerk told me to try another Kinko’s, a few blocks away. I walked over to the other store but got the same story there: “We won’t have your print job ready until the morning.” Fine. I said I’d pick it up in the morning, though I knew I’d likely be online all night, would sleep through the morning, and not get back to Kinko’s until sometime in the afternoon.

It didn’t turn out like that.

On the way home I stopped at the twenty-four-hour Safeway near my apartment and bought some groceries plus a turkey sandwich and some potato chips for a late-night dinner.

It was a little after 1:00 a.m. when I got back to my apartment building. The Secret Service operation I’d heard over my scanner had left me feeling a bit jittery. Like a character in a spy novel, I took the precaution of walking down the opposite side of the street so I could look for any suspicious cars, and to make sure my apartment lights were still on.

But they weren’t. The apartment was dark. Not good—I always left some lights on. Had I forgotten this time, or was it something else? There was a red truck parked on the street, and I could see two figures in the front seat: a man and a woman, kissing. That conjured up a funny notion: could it be two Federal agents, making out as a cover? Not likely, but the thought relieved my tension a little.

I walked straight up to the truck and asked the passenger, “Hey, sorry to interrupt, but I was supposed to meet my buddy here. Did you see anyone hanging out around here waiting?”

“No, but people were carrying boxes out of that apartment”—as she pointed to the windows of my apartment. What the fuck? I thanked her and said that wasn’t where my friend lived.

I bolted up the stairs to the apartment of the building manager, David, and rang his doorbell, even though I knew I’d be waking him up. A drowsy voice shouted out, “Who is it?” When I didn’t answer, he opened the door a crack. “Oh, hi, Brian,” he said in a sleepy, irritated voice.

I tried my best to hide my anxiety. “Did you let anyone into my apartment?”

His answer was a stunner, something I could never have expected:

“No, but the cops and the Secret Service busted down your door. The Seattle Police left a search warrant and a business card saying you should call them right away.”

Starting to wake up enough to be truly annoyed now, he added, “And you’re going to pay for the door—right?”

“Yeah, sure.”

I told him I was going to call them right away.

Sweating, with a sour taste of panic in my mouth and a sinking feeling in my stomach, I bolted back down the stairs and through the alley, looking for some sign of trouble—an unmarked car, movement on the roof, anything.

Nothing. Nobody.

One small blessing: if it was the Seattle Police, not the FBI, then they were looking for the Brian Merrill who had been making unauthorized cell phone calls, not for fugitive hacker Kevin Mitnick.

Drews had said the Seattle Police and Secret Service searched my place and then just left. Surely they wouldn’t be lame enough to toss my place without staying around to make the arrest.

I walked away fast, knowing I didn’t dare run, sure the manager must already be on the phone calling the cops or Feds to report that I had shown up and then split.

Still carrying the briefcase I had thankfully left the house with hours earlier—it contained all my paperwork for new identities—I was expecting to see a police or unmarked car any second. I dropped my bag of groceries into someone’s trash.

My heart was starting to beat faster and faster. I walked as fast as I could without breaking into a jog, staying away from major streets until I was a couple blocks away from my apartment. I kept thinking about all the stuff in my briefcase, including those blank but certified birth certificates from South Dakota.