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He started with the Gawker article, then clicked on dozens of other newer links, scouring the
words and images, until he leaned back in his chair, staring at his computer as pages of articles about
the drug-dealing site and Bitcoin and Tor flickered on the screen. He knew full well, as his supervisor
had told him, that teams of law enforcement had been searching for the creator of the Silk Road for
almost two years, and each road they had traveled down had gone nowhere. He also knew that he
would have to find a new investigation technique if he wanted to have any chance of taking down the
site and its creator.
But how? he thought.
His mind spun in a thousand different directions as he tried to figure out how he could approach
the case anew. Almost immediately an idea struck him. He thought back to a time in his life that he
didn’t remember but that he had heard so many stories about: the summer of 1977, the year Gary
Alford was born. He remembered the story of David Berkowitz, the American serial killer who had
murdered six people and wounded seven others in New York City that year, the man better known as
the Son of Sam. And Gary imagined that the way the cops had caught that ruthless serial killer would
be the way Gary Alford could catch the leader of the Silk Road.