Free The Fugitive Game: Online With Kevin Mitnick by Jonathan Littman Page A

of other
L.A. radio giveaways. Austin admitted his crimes, and put up bond
for the $50,000 bail, but still Austin needed to understand. He was
the educated member of the gang after all. Why had Eric betrayed
him?
    ■ ■ ■
    Late tonight on the Sunset Strip, a few months after the bust, Austin
can finally confront Eric. He hops out of his car and approaches.
Suddenly the rocker reaches behind his back. A black shape whips
forward. Austin flashes on the time Eric jammed his gun to a
homeless woman's head. But it's just an innocuous Motorola flip
phone.
    "What's up?" says Eric coolly, as if he were expecting the chance
encounter.
    "You changed your hair color," offers Austin.
    "No, I haven't," Eric shrugs, though he's clearly got new blond
highlights.
    "So why'd you turn me in?"
    "They wanted to put me away for ten years," Eric begins defen-
sively, and then becomes more combative. He doesn't need to make
excuses. He was just doing his job. When the feds debriefed him he
could have made it worse for Austin. Made it seem like Austin did
more than he did. "I didn't like you talking with Frecia, and I didn't
like the double agent game you were playing, telling Poulsen one
thing and me another."
    Austin can't believe Eric turned him in just because he talked to
one of Eric's girls. And that line about him being a double agent? All
he did was teach Eric how to hack: how to wiretap by computer and
win radio prizes. Is that why Eric ratted him out?
    Austin protests for a moment, but realizes he's getting nowhere.
He motions to say goodbye, but Eric isn't finished. "We should
talk," Eric suggests, asking Austin to give him a ride home. Eric
wants to see what Austin's up to, whether he's freelancing or
whether the feds sent him to check up on him.
    But at his third Oakwood apartment (Mitnick's already discov-
ered the first two) Eric shows Austin the toys the FBI has let him
keep: a lineman's test set useful for wiretapping, a computer, a mo-
dem, and a thin, flat tape recorder to plant on himself. Even more
surprising is some of the paraphernalia Austin recognizes from the
past, notebooks Eric used to document commands to hack into Pac
Bell and other computer systems.
    "They're trying to get Kevin Mitnick," Eric announces, handing
Austin a ham and cheese sandwich, and joking, "You're eating gov-
ernment ham."
    Austin listens carefully as Eric describes how the FBI is footing the
bill for more than just the eats.
    "They've got me set up to bust hackers. They pay me cash, and
they pick up the thirteen-hundred-dollar rent. They're going to let
me live here awhile."
    Austin gets the feeling Eric shouldn't be confiding these secrets.
But could the FBI really be in business with Eric? The whole thing
sounds so off the cuff, so unsupervised. Handing a guy like Eric cash,
a cellular phone, his own apartment, and tools to wiretap? The FBI
has to know about Eric's credit frauds, his wiretapping for a Holly-
wood detective, his bondage games, his gun.
    "I've been talking with Mitnick," Eric brags.
    ■ ■ ■
    Over the next year, Austin spots Eric on the Strip every few months.
He keeps his distance, never letting Eric spot him. But in August
1993, a happenstance gives Austin an opportunity for revenge. Like
Kevin Mitnick and so many other hackers, Austin has a score to
settle with the double agent. One afternoon, Austin is out for a drive
with a friend on Laurel Canyon Boulevard, winding up above the
bright lights of Hollywood.
    "There it is!" she cries, excitedly pulling over.
    She's spotted the BMW she saw a few days ago on Lookout
Mountain, the California Highway Patrol baseball cap still sitting on
the rear dash, the expensive motorized antenna protruding from the
roof. Eric's BMW. Eric had made no secret about what he was doing
with the equipment. He was monitoring a DEA operation with his
scanner, snapping photos of a DEA undercover plane with his tele-
photo lens.
    At least that's the story he gave her.
    As a self described "FBI