Page 54 of Unnatural Death

She showed up at the house while Dorothy was visiting. My sister didn’t realize who she’d been friendly with earlier on the commercial flight. She inadvertently led Carrie to our door.

“… I’m going to demonstrate its capabilities. This is how we combat the infidels. Death to America … !”

“Unbelievable!” Marino blurts out angrily. “Why the fuck would you not tell us this before now?”

Smacking an extended magazine into the submachine gun, Carrie racks back the bolt. She loads a round as I watch the video in astonishment.

CLANK-CLANK-CLANK-CLANK-CLANK …

She mows down a row of metal targets, the spent cartridge cases grabbed by a bag called a brass catcher that’s attached to her weapon’s folding stock. She switches her AR-9 to fully automatic, blasting away at a military truck. Next, she’s inside akill houseconstructed of tires filled with sand.

The video cuts to her companion emptying the brass catcher into a bucket, the cartridge cases clinking. She trades loaded magazines for empty ones, playing the role of armorer.

“This is Yana.” Carrie introduces her with a hint of flirtation, and I suspect they’re more than just colleagues.

Yana smiles into the camera, her eyes unblinking, and she gives me an eerie feeling. Her front teeth are badly discolored, as I often see when someone was on a medication like tetracycline as a child.

“Yana, how do you like serving with our group?” Carrie asks her.

“It is a cause I will happily die for,” she says in a heavy accent, her English awkward. “It is my honor and my privilege to defend my country from the infidels in the West. And to work with such a great soldier as yourself.”

“You sound proud.”

“I’m very proud. This has given me the purpose I’ve always wanted.”

“Why is that important, Yana?” Carrie continues their stilted, propaganda-driven conversation.

“Without a purpose there is no motivation to exist. There is nothing but disappointment and meaninglessness.”

“Which is something the infidels don’t understand and why they will fail ultimately,”Carrie says with contempt. “They are spoiled and weak.”

The video cuts to a scene in the woods where Carrie takes out an invisible tactical unit with an explosion of firepower.

“Holy shit …,” Marino keeps saying.

Then Carrie is back on the range shooting a round into a ballistic gelatin torso wearing body armor that Yana removes. The bullet has penetrated Kevlar, causing terrific damage. Embedded inside the transparent gelatin is a copper bullet that looks like the one Tron cut out of the tree.

“… See? Very special and unique …”

Carrie shows us a hefty live round in the palm of her hand. The cartridge case is dark green, the pointed copper nose painted yellow.

“… The nine-by-thirty-nine SP-Six two-hundred-and-fifty- grain armor-piercing is copper-clad with a hardened steel core. It trucks along at a thousand feet per second, tumbling like a tomahawk …”

“Meet the Kremlin’s super recruiter for its mercenary shadow army,” Benton says.

“… It will penetrate eight millimeters of steel at one hundred meters,” Carrie explains on the video. “Because of the air pocket deliberately built into the tip, the bullet tumbles its way through flesh, creating a devastating wound channel. All to say, tremendous stopping power …”

“How is this possible?” Marino stares at the video, his face livid.

“We’re sorry to ruin your day,” Lucas answers sincerely in his French accent.

“You’ve ruined a lot more than that!”

“… I’m often asked why the bullet’s penetrator tip is yellow.” Carrie talks directly into the camera, her eyes digging into mine. “The answer is simple. It is my favorite color.” The video stops.

“Holy shit, I’m not believing this!” Marino erupts again. “I thought she died while she was locked up at Bridgewater. What the hell else have we been lied to about?”

Seven years ago, Carrie Grethen was incarcerated in a hospital for the criminally insane outside of Boston. A month later, she died suddenly. I recused myself from the case. For every reason imaginable I couldn’t be the medical examiner. Marino and I were told that she suffered an anaphylactic reaction to an antibiotic while alone inside her maximum-security cell.

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