The Mastermind

Once, sitting on a plane next to a relative, he pulled out his tablet to show off something. “He got all flustered and shy, and wanted me to see his ‘greatest achievement,’ ” the relative said. “It was an article written by him for some travel magazine. I read it and was astounded, it was really good.” Le Roux told them he’d been submitting stories under pseudonyms for years without success. “He wanted to be a writer.It was his greatest ambition.”

I’d like to claim that this was some kind of linear process, a journalist-turned-detective expertly following a trail of breadcrumbs down the path to the secret lair. But, in truth, people and stories came to me scattershot, and I found myself constantly circling back to reevaluate some fact that I’d been told before. I piled up puzzle pieces and then sifted through them, seeking connections, and then set out to pile up some more.

He’d had good parents, after all. But something about his name being listed as “unknown” on the certificate seemed to haunt him. “She could have put down any name,” he told the relative. “But she put ‘unknown.’ ” Years later, the relative would remember the discovery as the moment when something changed. “I have always felt that was a main driving point in his life. He needed to be someone, be known.”

I’d always been intrigued by that dark side myself, seeking out stories about clandestine worlds and assumed identities. Once, for a story in Wired, I’d tried to disappear into a new identity for a month while the magazine offered $5,000 to anyone who could find me. (They did, tracking me to New Orleans, where I was living in a dingy apartment rented with a fake ID.) The more I learned about Le Roux, the more I wanted to know how he’d done it, how he had brought so many people along with him, and how it had all gone so wrong.