FUGITIVE LUND SLIPPED EASILY INTO DOUBLE LIFE

In the 23 years since Michael Lund disappeared, the alleged kingpin of
Pacific Northwest pot smugglers led a double life that included being a
husband and father to two boys.

It wasn't until federal marshals arrested the 64-year-old fugitive Tuesday
in front of his teenage sons at a Motel 6 in Denver that the family learned
the truth about the man they knew as Steven McCain.

"We are all shocked about it," said Michael Ayler, the boys' stepfather and
the new husband of their mother, Wendy. "We had no idea about it. She
didn't know; the boys didn't know, either."

Lund's underground existence began in April 1978 after the Coast Guard
seized a freighter hauling 37 tons of marijuana 130 miles off the
Washington coast -- the largest pot bust ever in the Puget Sound region.

Federal agents at the time said Lund planned to use his 61-foot racing
sloop to bring the marijuana to shore at his home on Sequim Bay.

A number of people involved in the plot were captured, charged and
convicted, but Lund, a dashing former world champion freestyle skier, vanished.

He changed his identity and kept his past a secret, but he hardly went into
hiding. He got married and divorced, worked a variety of jobs in several
states, even started ill-fated business ventures.

He was finally tripped up by a routine child-support case.

Lund, or McCain, had been summoned to family court in Arapahoe County near
Denver by his former wife. He was held in contempt last week after his
ex-wife alleged that he had not provided her copies of his income tax
returns and owed $730 in child support for his sons, Michael, 18, and Hans,
14. He was hauled off to jail for the weekend and returned to court Monday.

"He shucked and jived the judge like you wouldn't believe," said attorney
Glenda Gifford, who represents Wendy Ayler.

McCain convinced the judge that he would lose his job at a Santa Barbara,
Calif., construction company if he didn't get back to work that day,
Gifford said.

Even as the court hearing proceeded, a computer matched the fingerprints
taken from McCain in jail as belonging to the longtime fugitive Lund. But
Lund "was already out, so we had to start chasing him," said Deputy U.S.
Marshal Tito Del Valle of the Seattle office.

When deputies caught up with him at the motel, Lund surrendered without
incident. "He's an old man," Del Valle said.

Wendy Ayler met the man she knew as McCain more than 20 years ago. They
were married Aug. 29, 1980, in Lakeside, Ohio. After living several years
in Santa Barbara, they moved to Jackson Hole, Wyo.

There, they both worked as motel desk clerks, recalled Robert Hartung, an
old friend from the ski town.

For the first few years, Hartung said the McCains seemed like a lovely
young couple. They had a baby boy. He remembered wistfully that McCain
"skied like a dream in boots that were 8 or 9 years old."

But Hartung wasn't surprised yesterday to learn that McCain was a wanted
man living a lie.

He first became aware of McCain's dark side when he abandoned his young
wife after she almost died during the birth of their second child.

"He left her with the two children and he was gone," Hartung said. "No one
quite knew where. He fell off the end of the earth. It was shocking. I knew
them both as friends."

Hartung said he lent money to McCain to open a glider dealership in town
and was never repaid.

On Hartung's cash, McCain and his wife traveled to Germany, bought gliders
and paid for space at a local airfield. But the business venture fizzled,
and McCain suddenly left town in the late 1980s.

"I found out he was in Santa Barbara, and I was trying to collect the
money," Hartung said. "But I couldn't get anywhere, and I never heard from
him again."

Three years after his 1990 divorce, McCain filed for bankruptcy protection
in California, listing $89,000 in debts. Hartung is listed as a creditor
owed $37,000.

"I felt hurt, betrayed, taken advantage of," Hartung said yesterday. "I
trusted him."

McCain apparently failed in an earlier business venture in Santa Barbara.
State business records show that he was president of Blue Skies Fisheries
Inc. from November 1981 until November 1983. Wendy McCain was listed as the
registered agent for the business.

Most recently, McCain had reinvented himself as a construction worker. He
earned about $52,000 last year as a carpenter and construction supervisor
for Campanelli Construction in Santa Barbara. He went by the first name
Lance, and was respected by his co-workers.

"I'm stunned," said Joe Campanelli, company president. "This is hard to
believe, really hard to believe." He said he expected McCain to report to
work Monday and didn't know what had happened until he spoke with a Seattle
Post-Intelligencer reporter yesterday.

"I really like Lance a lot," Campanelli said.

Campanelli declined to answer questions about McCain's personal life,
citing his respect and friendship for the man.

Jan Rohrbach identified Lance McCain as her neighbor. She said he lives
with a woman in a rented home in a community of about 40 homes in a canyon
about 10 minutes' drive from Santa Barbara.

"You never know who you've got living next to you," she said.

A call to the home Rohrbach identified was answered by a woman named Gayle
Sandell, who declined to comment yesterday.

Lund is being held in a federal detention center near Denver. He appeared
before a federal magistrate Wednesday and is expected to be returned to
Seattle to face a 23-year-old marijuana-smuggling charge in a few weeks.