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Chapter 64<br />
FeLiNa<br />
The last day of Ross’s life as a free man began just like any other. He woke up in his Monterey<br />
Boulevard apartment and slipped on his blue jeans and long-sleeved red T-shirt. Then he got to<br />
work on the Silk Road, unaware that by 3:16 p.m. that day, he would be sitting in the back of a police<br />
car in handcuffs.<br />
He had been blue for the past few days, as things had not been going his way. First one of his<br />
government informants, who went by the moniker “French Maid,” told him that the Feds had a new<br />
name to add to the list of people who could potentially be the Dread Pirate Roberts, and French Maid<br />
(who had said her real name was Carla Sophia) would happily share the name in exchange for<br />
$100,000. So DPR had paid and was still waiting for a response. Then another employee, to whom he<br />
had loaned $500,000, had disappeared. To top it all off, his poison oak rash hadn’t gone away.<br />
But there were things to be grateful for.<br />
Ross was soon going to Austin, where he would see Julia. She had told him in an e-mail she<br />
would pick him up from the airport, and he could stay with her. Just like old times. They had been<br />
having romantic Skype sessions a lot too and sending long, dirty e-mails back and forth about what<br />
they would do to each other in person. Ross had also had an epiphany over the weekend. After the<br />
bonfire and the fireworks on Ocean Beach, he had written in his diary (alongside his travails on the<br />
Silk Road and an explanation for how he got the poison oak rash) that he needed to “eat well, get<br />
good sleep, and meditate so I can stay positive.”<br />
12:15 p.m.<br />
The houses along Monterey Boulevard were mostly two- and three-story wood frames. They were<br />
painted all different colors, some white, others blue or green. The apartment where Ross Ulbricht<br />
now lived was in a three-story beige building in the middle of the block. Every once in a while a<br />
large Suburban SUV with dark tinted windows would drive by. The SUV would make a right down<br />
Baden Street, then another right and another, until it found itself back in front of the beige building on<br />
Monterey Boulevard.
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