By Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams

	John W. McDonough/SI

Of course if the government pressed them, witnesses had little choice but to cooperate. One subpoena target was Jim Valente, Victor Conte's right-hand man, who had escaped a prison sentence in the BALCO plea bargains. Novitzky had debriefed Valente during the raid on BALCO back in 2003; BALCO's vice president had described himself as Greg Anderson's "primary contact point" for The Cream and The Clear. Valente knew that Anderson was giving BALCO's undetectable steroids to Bonds so he could beat baseball's steroids tests. Valente also had admitted his role in putting Anderson's name on the sample of Bonds' blood that had been sent to Lab One for steroid pre-testing. In addition, Valente could interpret the Bonds doping calendars for the grand jury.

Dr. Arthur Ting, Bonds' orthopedist, also got a subpoena. In 1999, Ting had operated to repair the elbow Bonds shredded while using Winstrol. Ting knew Anderson -- they talked on the phone about Bonds -- and he knew BALCO. In 2003, Ting had gone to the lab with Bonds to draw the slugger's blood for testing. Ting also had seen the tremendous physical changes the steroids had wrought in his star patient: the impressive musculature, the weight gain, the side effects.

The government subpoenaed the Giants to get the club's medical records on Bonds. Three team employees were ordered to testify -- athletic trainer Stan Conte, equipment manager Mike Murphy and "Conehead" Harvey Shields, Bonds' stretching coach.

Like Ting, Conte could describe the changes in Bonds' body, and the Giants' trainer had expressed his own concerns about steroids on the ball club. In 2000, after the Giants heard rumors that Greg Anderson was a steroid dealer, Conte had wanted him banned from the clubhouse; fearing Bonds' wrath, the team's executives backed down.

For his part, Murphy could document Bonds' physical changes via the changes in his uniform size. Since joining the Giants, Bonds had gone from a size 42 to a size 52 jersey; from size 10 ½ to size 13 cleats; and from a size 7 1/8 to size 7 ¼ cap, even though he had taken to shaving his head. The changes in his foot and head size were of special interest: medical experts said overuse of Human Growth Hormone could cause an adult's extremities to begin growing, aping the symptoms of the glandular disorder acromegly. Shields, meanwhile, had spent years hanging around the Giants clubhouse with Anderson and Bonds; Novitzky believed Shields knew about Bonds's use of drugs.

Novitzky also connected with new witnesses who had seen Bonds using banned drugs, and the agent scored important new evidence. More than a year after the Chronicle had revealed the existence of the secret recording of Greg Anderson, the government obtained its own copy. The investigators could hear Anderson describing the undetectable steroids that he had been giving to Bonds in 2003.

Three weeks into the baseball season, the prosecutors put the squeeze on Anderson. Throughout the BALCO case he had balked at informing on Bonds. He had rejected a proposed plea bargain that would have allowed him to avoid prison by becoming a government witness. To persuade Anderson to plead guilty, the government dropped the demand for his cooperation. But after Anderson had pleaded guilty, he could no longer use his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination to deflect the government's questions about Bonds. So Anderson got a subpoena too. In front of the grand jury, prosecutors would ask him if he had given banned drugs to Bonds -- and play the recording if he hedged. He could either testify truthfully or face a perjury indictment.

Anderson protested he had been double-crossed: he would never have pleaded guilty if he had known the government planned to drag him before the grand jury afterward. News of the subpoena, made public by Anderson's lawyers, attracted nationwide attention. The federal investigators in San Francisco seemed dead serious about indicting Bonds.

Novitzky's next moves suggested he had taken on the additional task of cleaning up performance-enhancing drugs in all of baseball. On April 19, at about the time the subpoena for Anderson was being drafted, Novitzky and a team of drug agents watched a postman deliver a package in suburban Scottsdale, not far from where Kim Bell once lived. The agents knew the package contained two kits of Human Growth Hormone, $3,200 worth. It was addressed to a man who would soon come to symbolize just how pervasive banned drugs had become in major league baseball: Jason Grimsley, a right-handed relief pitcher for the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Soon after Grimsley signed for the package, Novitzky was at the front door. He had a search warrant and a team of agents ready to take the house apart. Or would Grimsley like to come with him and talk? Grimsley had house guests. Soon he had to be at the ballpark, where the Diamondbacks were playing the Giants. He went with Novitzky, and for two hours they talked about baseball and drugs.