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Nope. Not going to happen. Carl had zero interest in chatting with a drug lord by committee. So
after mulling over the e-mail from DPR, he decided to go rogue and reply anyway.
“I could pay nine figures but I am not sure Silk Road is worth that, as of now,” Carl wrote under
his pseudonym Nob. And then he offered a proposal that he was sure would help capture the site’s
leader. “I would like to do a spin-off for the major dealers called ‘Masters of the Silk Road,’” in
which big vendors on the site can facilitate drug deals in the hundreds of kilos, or even tons, rather
than in ounces. Nob assured DPR that he could help with this new Costco for drugs, if you will,
because he knew smuggling routes all over the world. Finally, he offered the Dread Pirate Roberts an
injection of $2 million for 20 percent ownership of this new “Masters of the Silk Road” operation.
He hit “send” and then bounded into Nick’s office to tell him, with rebellious glee, what he had
done. Nick, obviously, was incensed, responding to Carl’s confession with a fusillade of “Fuck you!”
and “Fuck this!” and “Fuck that!”
Carl didn’t give a shit what Nick thought. Sure, he was his boss, but Carl knew no one could fire
him for something like this. That was the one benefit of the red tape that came with a government job;
getting fired was often much harder than getting hired. As for those “mopes,” as Carl called them,
over at HSI Baltimore, he could give even less of a shit what they were going to say.
As far as he was concerned, Carl was talking directly to the leader of the Silk Road. And if his
scheme worked, he’d develop a relationship with DPR. And if that worked, Agent Carl Force would
have the Dread Pirate Roberts locked up in a matter of weeks. The founder of the Silk Road would be
behind bars, and Agent Force would be lauded as the hero who caught him.