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KINGPIN

twenty-eight credit cards, and six California driver's licenses, each with a different name. When detectives served a search warrant on his house they found more watches and a .22-caliber Walther P22 handgun.

The gun was bad news. Instead of a larceny charge and a probation violation Janer was now facing a federal beef for being a felon in possession of a firearm. Janer wasted no time in offering to lead the feds to the source of the counterfeit cards. In the standard arrangement for snitches, the government agreed to let Janer “proffer” his information under a limited grant of immunity: Nothing he said would be used directly against him. If they found it useful—if it led to arrests—they'd consider recommending a reduced sentence on his gun-possession charge.

In two proffer sessions totaling nearly eight hours, Janer spilled his guts to a local Secret Service agent and a federal prosecutor. He told them about Chris Aragon, his ring of cashers, and “Max the Hacker,” a six-foot-five computer genius who'd been cracking banks from San Francisco hotel rooms.

He didn't know Max's last name, he said, but he'd once written a check to the hacker's girlfriend for $5,000. Her name was Charity Majors.

The Secret Service wrote up the interviews and entered the data into the agency's computer, but the agency never followed up on the information, and prosecutors declined to grant Janer any special consideration. He was sentenced to twenty-seven months in prison.

Max Vision had dodged a bullet. Janer's statements sank into a giant government computer—they might as well have been stashed in the cavernous warehouse in the final scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark. As long as nobody had occasion to dig them up, Max was safe.

Meanwhile, Max began the process of getting Carders Market up and running. He had plenty of experience setting up legitimate websites, but starting a crime site would take special preparations. For one thing,