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Chapter 53<br />
THE DECONFLICTION MEETING<br />
Every year around this time, Gary took the day off from work to celebrate the week in 1977<br />
when the lights went out in New York City—the day he was born. But this year, just a couple of<br />
days before his birthday, he was asked to go down to a classified location near Washington, DC, to<br />
attend a highly classified and incredibly important meeting. Possibly the most important of his career.<br />
The gathering, he was told, was a “deconfliction meeting” about the Silk Road, and it would be<br />
held by the highest brass at the Department of Justice, the top echelon of the legal system in the United<br />
States. Apparently the DOJ had called the meeting because all of the factions of government that were<br />
investigating the Silk Road (which included almost all the factions of government) were not playing<br />
well together. Agents weren’t sharing evidence. Government resources, aka people’s tax dollars,<br />
were being squandered on the investigation. Even people within the same agencies weren’t<br />
communicating, with DEA agents in Baltimore not sharing their findings with those in New York and<br />
HSI agents in San Francisco not talking to those in Chicago or Baltimore.<br />
There was also relentless bickering among agencies. These squabbles were routine within any<br />
big investigation, but with the Silk Road they were monumentally worse. Everyone wanted the fame<br />
and glory of bringing down the big target.<br />
Hence the deconfliction meeting.<br />
Gary woke up the morning of his birthday, kissed his wife good-bye, and got into his Ford<br />
Explorer to begin the five-hour drive to DC, where he would present his findings so far on the case.<br />
As the road signs zipped by and the clouds in the sky darkened, Gary was somewhat giddy that<br />
he would be able to stand up in the meeting, in front of all of these big and important people, and<br />
explain that he had found a few people who might have been involved in the Silk Road from the<br />
beginning. It was unclear if any of them was the Dread Pirate Roberts, but he could lay out his cards<br />
and at least have a discussion about them. Among these clues, he would be able to talk about<br />
“Altoid,” the moniker that Gary had determined through a few subpoenas belonged to a man named<br />
Ross Ulbricht.<br />
• • •
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