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KINGPIN

Electronic surveillance confirmed that Max was operating from the Oakwood. The FBI had won a secret court order letting them electronically monitor the IP addresses connecting to Carders Market's false front at a U.S. hosting company—the modern equivalent of taking down the license plates outside a mob hangout. Several traced back to broadband subscribers living within a block of the corporate apartment complex and running Wi-Fi.

Two weeks earlier, a female Secret Service agent disguised as a maid had ridden up the elevator with Max and watched him unlock apartment 409. The apartment number was the last piece of data they’d needed.

There was just one more stop before they’d move in: the Orange County Central Men’s Jail, a grim lockup in the flat, sun-baked center of Santa Ana, California. McKenzie and federal prosecutor Luke Dembosky were shown to an interview room to meet Chris Aragon.

Chris was the last holdout in the Orange County crew. Clara and six members of his crew were headed to plea deals that would ultimately net them from six months to seven years in prison. Clara would get two years and eight months. Chris’s mother was looking after the two boys.

Once the introductions were made, McKenzie and Dembosky got down to business. They couldn’t do anything about Chris’s state case, but if he cooperated, he’d have a nice letter in his file from the U.S. government attesting that he’d helped in a major federal prosecution. That could sway the judge at sentencing time. It was all they could do.

McKenzie produced a photo lineup and asked Chris if anyone looked familiar.

Chris’s situation was grim. With his bank robberies and drug-smuggling convictions, he was eligible for California’s tough three-strikes law. That meant a mandatory twenty-five-to-life.

Chris picked out Max’s mugshot from the photos. And then he told the feds the story of Max Vision’s drift to the dark side.