Liberty Strikes Back

Chapter 10 — Buffalo, NY

BUFFALO, NY

April — July 2019

In the next few weeks after returning to Michigan, my focus was two-fold: preparing logistics to live in Buffalo while attending a start-up program, and completing my Hijacking America series ahead of going to Buffalo.

I didn’t trust the program to be what it purported to be as a startup program.

Once settled and steadfastly working on Earth Loans in Buffalo, a curious character brazenly took a seat next to me at a coffee shop called SPoT Coffee on Elmwood Avenue. Operating under the alias, “Tristan,” as we sat looking out the window onto the street, he began dropping keyword phrases just as my Airbnb tenant had done a couple months earlier.

Tristan was about the same height and body structure as John, but without the belly. He too had brown eyes, but Tristan’s eyes danced with excitement at the prospect of catching a criminal who had escaped their grasp for too long. His hair was wiry thin, straight, dark, and about the length of his chin. His frame appeared to be that of a man who played too many video games, lacking in coordination, but his strong, extra-firm handshake said otherwise.

He was an FBI Investigator, he told me, although he played the role of someone more likely to be dealing with mental issues than anyone else.

Others in the café kept their distance.