In late November 1991, Par flew up from Virginia Beach to New York. An acquaintance named Morty Rosenfeld, who hung out with the MOD hackers a bit, had invited him to come for a visit. Par thought a trip to the City would do him good.
Morty wasn't exactly Par's best friend, but he was all right. He had been charged by the Feds a few months earlier for selling a password to a credit record company which resulted in credit card fraud. Par didn't go in for selling passwords, but to each his own. Morty wasn't too bad in the right dose. He had a place on Coney Island, which was hardly the Village in Manhattan, but close enough, and he had a fold-out sofa bed. It beat sleeping on the floor somewhere else.
Par hung out with a Morty and a bunch of his friends, drinking and goofing around on Morty's computer.
One morning, Par woke up with a vicious hangover. His stomach was growling and there was nothing edible in the fridge, so he rang up and ordered pork fried rice from a Chinese take-away. Then he threw on some clothes and sat on the end of the sofa-bed, smoking a cigarette while he waited. He didn't start smoking until he was nineteen, some time late into his second year on the run. It calmed his nerves.
There was a knock at the front door. Par's stomach grumbled in response. As he walked toward the front door, he thought Pork Fried Rice, here I come. But when Par opened the front door, there was something else waiting for him.
The Secret Service.
Two men. An older, distinguished gentleman standing on the left and a young guy on the right. The young guy's eyes opened wide when he saw Par.
Suddenly, the young guy pushed Par, and kept pushing him. Small, hard, fast thrusts. Par couldn't get his balance. Each time he almost got his footing, the agent shoved the hacker backward again until he landed against the wall. The agent spun Par around so his face pressed against the wall and pushed a gun into his kidney. Then he slammed handcuffs on Par and started frisking him for weapons.
Par looked at Morty, now sobbing in the corner, and thought, You narced on me.
Once Par was safely cuffed, the agents flashed their badges to him. Then they took him outside, escorted him into a waiting car and drove into Manhattan. They pulled up in front of the World Trade Center and when Par got out the young agent swapped the cuffs so Par's hands were in front of him.