Davis - WIRED: John McAfees Last Stand

John McAfees Last Stand

A WIRED SINGLE

BY JOSHUA DAVIS

WITH PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRIAN FINKE

November 2012

John McAfee went to Belize to get away from it all. But he couldnt escape himself.

On November 12, 2012, Belizean police announced that they were seeking John McAfee for questioning in relation to the murder of his neighbor. Six months prior, I began an in-depth investigation into McAfees life. This is the chronicle of that investigation.

TWELVE WEEKS BEFORE THE MURDER, JOHN MCAFEE FLICKS open the cylinder of his Smith & Wesson revolver and empties the bullets, letting them clatter onto the table between us. A few tumble to the floor. McAfee is 66, lean and fit, with veins bulging out of his forearms. His hair is bleached blond in patches, like a cheetah, and tattoos wrap around his arms and shoulders.

More than 25 years ago, he formed McAfee Associates, a maker of antivirus software that went on to become immensely popular and was acquired by Intel in 2010 for $7.68 billion. Now hes holed up in a bungalow at his island estate 15 miles off the coast of Belize. The shades are drawn so I can see only a sliver of the white sand beach and turquoise water outside. The table is piled with boxes of ammunition, fake IDs, Frontiersman bear deterrent, and a single blue baby pacifier.

McAfee picks a bullet off the floor and fixes me with a wide-eyed, manic intensity, his light blue eyes sparkling. This is a bullet, right? he says in the congenial Southern accent that has stuck with him since his boyhood in Virginia.

Lets put the gun down, I tell him. Id come here to investigate why the government of Belize was accusing him of assembling a private army and entering the drug trade. It seemed implausible that a wildly successful tech entrepreneur would disappear into the Central American jungle and become a narco-trafficker. Now Im not so sure.

But he explains that the accusations are a fabrication. Maybe what happened didnt actually happen, he says, staring hard at me. Can I do a demonstration?

He loads the bullet into the gleaming silver revolver and spins the cylinder.

This scares you, right? he says. Then he puts the gun to his head.

My heart rate kicks up; it takes me a second to respond. Yeah, Im scared, I admit. We dont have to do this.

I know we dont, he says, the muzzle pressed against his temple. And then he pulls the trigger. Nothing happens. He pulls it five times in rapid succession. There are only six chambers.

Reholster the gun, I demand.

He keeps his eyes fixed on me and pulls the trigger a sixth time. Still nothing. With the gun still to his head, he starts pulling the trigger incessantly. I can do this all day long, he says to the sound of the hammer clicking. I can do this a thousand times. Ten thousand times. Nothing will ever happen. Why? Because you have missed something. You are operating on an assumption about reality that is wrong.

Its the same thing, he argues, with the governments accusations. They were a smoke screenan attempt to distort realitybut theres one thing everybody agrees on: The trouble really got rolling in the humid predawn murk of April 30, 2012.

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IT WAS A MONDAY, ABOUT 4:50 AM. A TV FLICKERED IN the guard station of McAfees newly built, 2.5-acre jungle outpost on the Belizean mainland. At the far end of the property, a muddy river flowed slowly past. Crocodiles lurked on the opposite bank, and howler monkeys screeched. In the guard station, a drunk night watchman gaped at Blond Ambition, a Madonna concert DVD.

The guard heard the trucks first. Then boots hitting the ground and the gate rattling as the lock was snapped with bolt cutters. He stood up and looked outside. Dozens of men in green camouflage were streaming into the compound. Many were members of Belizes Gang Suppression Unit, an elite force trained in part by the FBI and armed with Taurus MT-9 submachine guns. Formed in 2010, their mission was to dismantle the gang structure and to bring individual gang members who have committed crimes to justice.

The guard observed the scene silently for a moment and then sat back down. After all, the Madonna concert wasnt over yet. Outside, flashlight beams streaked across the property. This is the police, a voice blared over a bullhorn. Everyone out!

Deep in the compound, McAfee burst out of a thatched-roof bungalow that stood on stilts 20 feet off the ground. He was naked and held a revolver. By 2009 he had sold almost everything he ownedestates in Hawaii, Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas as well as his 10-passenger planeand moved into the jungle. He announced that he was searching for natural antibiotics in the rain forest and constructed a mysterious green laboratory on his property. Now his jungle adventure was coming to an end. The commandos were converging on him. There were 31 of them; he was outgunned and outmanned.

Motherfuckers, he muttered.

McAfee walked back inside to the 17-year-old in his bed. She was sitting up, naked, her long frizzy hair falling around her shoulders and framing the stars tattooed on her chest. She was terrified.

As the GSU stormed up the stairs, he put on some shorts, laid down his gun, and walked out with his hands up. The commandos collided with McAfee at the top of the stairs, slammed him against the wall, and handcuffed him.

Youre being detained on suspicion of producing methamphetamine, one of the cops said.

McAfee twisted to look at his accuser. Thats a startling hypothesis, sir, he responded. Because I havent sold drugs since 1983.

NINETEEN EIGHTY-THREE WAS A PIVOTAL YEAR FOR McAfee. He was 38 and director of engineering at Omex, a company that built information storage systems in Santa Clara, California. He was also selling cocaine to his subordinates and snorting massive amounts himself. When he got too high to focus, hed take a Quaalude. If he started to fall asleep at his desk, hed snort some more coke to wake up. (Larry Ellison had worked at Omex as well and used his time there to launch his own company in 1977, which would become Oracle.) McAfee had trouble making it through the day and spent his afternoons drinking scotch to even out the tumult in his head.

Hed been a mess for a long time. He grew up in Roanoke, Virginia, where his father was a road surveyor and his mother a bank teller. His father, McAfee recalls, was a heavy drinker and a very unhappy man who McAfee says beat him and his mother severely. When McAfee was 15, a family friend pulled him out of class to tell him that his father had shot himself. Every day I wake up with him, McAfee says. Every relationship I have, hes by my side, every mistrust, he is the negotiator of that mistrust. So my life is fucked.

McAfee started drinking heavily his first year at Roanoke College and supported himself by selling magazine subscriptions door-to-door. He would knock and announce that the lucky resident had won an absolutely free subscription; all they had to do was pay a small shipping and handling fee. So, in fact, I am explaining to them why its not free and why they are going to pay for it. But the ruse worked, McAfee recalls. He learned that confidence was all that mattered. He smiled, fixed them with his penetrating blue-eyed gaze, and hit them with a nonstop stream of patter. He sounded convincing, even if his pitch made no sense. I made a fortune, he says.

He spent his money on booze but managed to graduate and start a PhD in mathematics at Northeast Louisiana State University in 1968. He got kicked out for sleeping with one of his undergraduate students (whom he later married) and ended up coding old-school punch card programs for Univac in Bristol, Tennessee. That didnt last long, either: He was arrested for buying marijuana, and though his lawyer got him off without a conviction, he was summarily fired.