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Chapter 29<br />
VARIETY JONES GOES TO SCOTLAND<br />
It was dark and quiet in Glasgow, Scotland, as the clock in the hotel room wound past 2:00 a.m.<br />
and a middle-aged man, sitting at his computer, sipped some water to quench his thirst.<br />
The man known as Variety Jones was balding and disheveled, his T-shirt stained and stretched at<br />
the neck, his eyes worn and droopy like a plastic figurine left too near a fire. This was a man who had<br />
been through hell and back, his body ravaged by years of disease, drugs, and jail, but he had clearly<br />
enjoyed the trip.<br />
On his computer screen a number of windows sat splayed open. One had some sort of<br />
programming code and another appeared to be a chat window with two people talking.<br />
The man with the droopy eyes clicked on the chat box and then began typing.<br />
“Tappity tap tap,” he wrote to DPR, then pressed the “return” key.<br />
A moment later there was a reply: “Taparoo.”<br />
“I’m in the land of 12 Euro tins of beer in a mini fridge,” Jones wrote. “Oh joy!”<br />
“Hello hotel bill.”<br />
VJ had been lying low in London with his girlfriend for the past few months while he worked on<br />
the Silk Road for his unofficial boss, the Dread Pirate Roberts. Mostly their relationship had gone<br />
swimmingly. Their skill sets were complementary, and they largely shared the same worldview. But a<br />
fissure had begun to surface. After Jones had come to Glasgow to celebrate his uncle’s death—yes,<br />
celebrate: as VJ told DPR, the “Jones” clan “threw bigger funerals than weddings,” with the casket in<br />
the middle of a pub and a revelry of dancing and drinking, made up of four hundred friends and<br />
family, flowing around the deceased uncle—he had logged on to check in with DPR and resolve a<br />
moral disagreement they were having.<br />
It wasn’t often that they argued. The relationship between Jones and Dread was impenetrable,<br />
and a true and tight friendship had developed between the two men since a year earlier, when they<br />
first met through the Silk Road. Their alliance had blossomed over their shared belief that drugs<br />
should be legal, and guns too. VJ was a loyal servant and companion. He had even talked about<br />
buying a helicopter company to break DPR out of jail if he was ever caught. “Remember that one day<br />
when you’re in the exercise yard, I’ll be the dude in the helicopter coming in low and fast, I promise,”
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