“Guns will scare off a lot of mainstream clients,” Variety Jones had said.
So Ross was going to have to make some changes. If he really wanted to make drugs legal, which was his ultimate quest, he was going to have to solve the gun issue. While he wouldn’t bar them—he wouldn’t bar anything—he instead decided to create a gun-only Web site.
When he explored the idea with VJ, they had together come up with the name the Armory. (At first it was going to be called “Silk Armory,” sticking with the Silk Road branding, but they both decided it sounded too bizarre. Or, as VJ pointed out, “Silk Armory sounds like they sell Hello Kitty AK-47’s.”)
Thankfully, it hadn’t been too difficult to build the Armory; it wasn’t like creating an entirely new site. Ross simply siphoned the code from the Silk Road, slapped on a new logo—a big, rugged A with wings—and changed some design elements.
But the Armory failed to solve a number of existing problems with weapons sales. Ross had hoped that people would be able to use the site to buy guns with the same ease as picking up a .22 at a local Walmart. But it turned out that shipping guns in the mail was a lot more complicated than placing a few sheets of acid (which looked like blotter paper) in an envelope. Ross needed to ensure that the people buying and selling the weapons from the Armory would be able to get them to one another without someone from ATF showing up at their door and escorting them to jail.
But he kept asking himself how.
It wasn’t like he could call his local post office on Park Drive in Austin and say, “Hey, I want to send some guns to a friend. What’s the best way to do this?” So he did what most people his age do when they don’t know something: he went to social media. Plodding over to his personal Facebook and Google+ accounts, Ross posted an update asking, “Anyone know someone that works for UPS, FedEx or DHL?” When a friend asked why he wanted a contact at one of these mail companies, Ross replied, “Well, I have a startup idea in the shipping sector, but I have zero experience there.”
There was another issue that came with the guns Web site. It meant that more law enforcement would be looking not just for the generals who ran the Silk Road but also the people behind the Armory. (Not to mention the bulk drug Masters of the Silk Road site, which would bring more global attention and the interest of more governments when it eventually opened for business.)
The scrutiny the site was now receiving from the press, and the inevitable added attention that would slam upon it with the opening of the Armory, made it clear that the stakes were rising. All of these terrifying prospects led Variety Jones, who was now being dubbed the site’s security chief, to decide that it was time for him to move further underground.
The best place he knew to do that was Thailand, where he had hidden once before and where, he told DPR, he had a few cops on the payroll. But going back to Thailand meant he would have to leave his lady behind in London.
“I’m getting her out of the crossfire,” VJ wrote to DPR. “I need the world to think we’ve split. If I end up in Guantanamo, I don’t want her in the next cell.”
“That’s tough.”
“She knows I’m changing the world, and that it’s dangerous for her,” VJ replied. “But I’m not safe to be around.”
With all of this added attention Ross knew that he was going to need to move again too. Going back overseas didn’t make sense right now, and staying in Texas, near his family, wasn’t an option either. The lies and the possibility of being found out were just too risky. What he needed was a place where he could be on his laptop for eighteen hours a day and no one would question why he was being antisocial or what he was working on.
Which meant he had to go to San Francisco.
As he opened the doors of the Armory Web site, he began plotting his move out west, reaching out to friends who lived there and figuring out where he would stay and what his cover would be once he arrived.
But before Ross could go anywhere, he had one last loose end to tie up. He opened his Web browser, navigated to Julia’s Facebook page, and sent her a message asking if they could meet.
Chapter 31
ROSS SILENCES JULIA
Ross strolled along Rainey Street in Austin, past rows of old homes that had been converted into bars, as he headed toward the Windsor on the Lake apartment building. It was late afternoon in the summer of 2012, and the street was relatively quiet. A few people sat on outdoor benches amid the faint sounds of Texas as they guzzled beers and ate local barbecue. He approached an apartment building on the street, pulled out his phone, dialed a few numbers, and waited for an answer.
He hadn’t been back in Austin for long, and wouldn’t be there much longer. But before he left the Lone Star State again, maybe for good, he had to resolve the biggest problem of all.
“Hey,” he said into his phone. “I’m out front.”
A minute later Julia appeared, running down the steps to greet Ross with elation. After a long hug hello, she stood back and looked him up and down to examine his outfit (blue jeans, black belt, gray V-neck T-shirt, and matching sneakers), then laughed. So much time had passed since their romance had begun; their lives had taken drastically different routes, and yet here was Ross Ulbricht, looking virtually unaltered. “You’re wearing the exact same outfit I bought you at Penn State!” she snickered. Ross simply smiled.
They hadn’t seen each other since that fateful night in October, and Julia was thrilled to reconnect. She ushered him into her studio to show him around.
Boudoir photos lay everywhere, some on walls, others tilted on her desk. Ross immediately recognized a large picture of a woman arching her back. It had been taken in the studio where he had experimented with growing his first batch of mushrooms in Julia’s underwear drawer two years earlier. How far he had come since then! Just twenty-four months ago he had been broke and aimless; now he was rich and as steadfast as ever.
“Wow, this place is amazing,” he said as Julia waltzed around in front of him.
“I know. Aren’t you proud of me?” she replied ebulliently. “I’m dating a new guy now. He takes me on all of these trips and takes me to all these great dinners.”
“Way to make me feel awesome,” Ross said, joking with her, and then quipped, “Well, I’m dating a girl too.”