Littman asked if I’d read Markoff’s story of the previous day. When I said I hadn’t, he read it to me over the phone, I suppose listening to gauge my reaction. I pointed out that the U.S. Marshals’ plea for help had been published the day after Markoff broke the story about Shimmy’s Christmas Day attack. It didn’t feel like a coincidence to me. "It felt like part of a planned strategy to leverage the public’s fears about cyberspace against me," I told him.