Page 17 of Unnatural Death

We’ve reached the Mansons’ farm, and from the air, six black Secret Service SUVs and vans are small like toys on the long unpaved driveway. Investigators are covered from head to toe in white PPE. They look like Ghostbusters as they sweep with metal detectors and signal analyzers while K-9 handlers search with their Belgian Malinois shepherds.

“I’m going to do a high recon, then a low one before we head to the landing zone,” Lucy lets me know. “We’ll get a bird’s-eye view while making sure nothing’s in the area that we should be aware of, something predatory that might be hiding, for example. We’ll capture video and other data that can be analyzed later.”

There are plenty of thickets and woods where someone or something could duck out of view, she says as we begin a slow orbit. I can make out the bones of a red barn, the rusting farm equipment in a field invaded by creepers. The two-story house on a rise predates the Civil War, brick with white columns and in bad repair. The front lawn is crowded by elms and oaks peeking through a chainmail of kudzu.

A tiered stone fountain probably hasn’t worked in many decades. The wraparound porch is steeply sloped, the house listing to one side, the tin roof curling up in places like the lid of a sardine can. The backyard is overgrown with shrubs and weeds. Scattered about are a junkyard of tires, a washer and dryer, a refrigerator and other old appliances.

I doubt the Mansons made any improvements beyond installing a backup generator, an antenna satellite dish and a propane tank that Lucy shows me. The couple’s white pickup truck is parked in front of a tall boxwood hedge that flanks a sidewalk missing many of its pavers. From the air, the homestead is a languishing shadow of its former self. It looks unloved and belittled.

I have no doubt that during Virginia’s gold rush days it would have been considered grand. I can well imagine sitting on the porch, sipping lemonade or something stronger. It must have been peaceful gazing out at cornfields, at cattle grazing by the big red barn against the backdrop of forests and mountain ranges.

“Here’s the other thing they did after buying the place.” Lucy directs my attention to a grass airstrip tucked between fields and barely visible. “They’d put out the wind sock when expecting their seaplane, and that’s the only time it was visible. They wanted to draw as little attention as possible to their comings and goings.”

“When did you first get interested in them?” I know how obsessive Lucy can be.

“About six years ago,” is her stunning answer.

She wasn’t working for the Secret Service then. At least not that I’m aware of, but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t collaborating with them. She could have been chasing the Mansons to the gates of hell and I wouldn’t know. Benton probably would. But that doesn’t mean he’d tell me.

“Huck and Brittany were one of my major focuses when I was working with New Scotland Yard and Interpol,” Lucy explains as we complete a second orbit of the farm, thud-thudding over it low and slow.

She was a private cyber investigator at the time, or that’s what I was led to believe. For several years Lucy kept a flat in London, never discussing the details. She tells me that she brought the Mansons to the attention of the authorities. The couple is tied in with a Russian criminal organization that has stolen billions and is determined to destroy American democracy.

“You’ll be hearing more about this later, but we’re talking about extremely ruthless people,” Lucy says. “The sort who would do the unthinkable to those who dare to cross them. Huck and Brittany got off easy comparatively speaking.”

“I’m sure that’s not what they were feeling early this morning as they heard something coming toward them in the dark.”

We’ve entered the forestland of Buckingham Run, and Lucy activates the forward-looking infrared (FLIR) thermal imager. Real-time live video of dense trees and underbrush is vivid in displays, the footpath the Mansons burned and hacked through the woods a winding shoelace beneath unbroken canopies.

“The more I hear about the kind of people you’ve been after, the worse I’m feeling about your personal safety, Lucy.” I’m honest while we have a private moment. “You’ve had enough close calls in recent memory.” I stare at the scar on her neck as images, sensations flash in my thoughts.

I’m remembering the crack-crack of gunfire in the produce section, a bin of lettuce spattered bright red. I detected the metallic smell of blood. Only it wasn’t me who was injured.

“I know damn well the kind of people we’re up against and how dirty they play. I know it better than you think,” Lucy says. “That’s why we’re searching for any nasty calling cards they might have left.”

Bomb experts and their dogs aren’t visible through the treetops. But in thermal imaging they’re chalky white as they search the path for explosive devices, not finding them or other booby traps, Lucy informs me. On the FLIR’s video screen deer shapes move gracefully, flicking their bright white tails, their mouths flaring orangish yellow.

I’m reminded of the strange flares of light Lucy described seeing on the Mansons’ hacked trail cameras when the intruder was striding along the path. A buck with antlers stares up as we fly over endless acres crisscrossed by creeks and old mine trails that look like scars. Woods becomes wetlands with cypress knees, the rocky river called Buckingham Run emptying into a lake shining dark blue in the sun.

* * *

The female victim barely shows above the surface. Her head and limbs are submerged, her body drifting on the current and a daunting distance offshore. Retrieving her will be an ordeal, and it’s not possible to anticipate the dangers. We don’t know how deep the water is or what might live in it besides the snapping turtles and water moccasins common in this part of the world.

Marino and I will have to put on Mustang immersion suits, braving the elements as we tow the victim to shore without a life raft or a boat. He’ll complain the entire time but will rise to the occasion. We’ve done water recoveries before. Descending into a tight space belowground is a different story. I knew what to expect from the first moment I started seeing the videos and photographs.

Marino will say he’s too big to fit through the collapsing mineshaft’s opening. He’s over six feet tall and weighs more than two hundred pounds. That’s a lot to be hoisting in a harness. It makes sense to pick someone smaller. But that’s not the real reason it will be me doing the honors, and I recognize his bodybuilder shape five hundred feet below us.

Wearing headphones, Marino is busy with a metal detector while the Doomsday Bird charges in as loudly as a locomotive. He and five Secret Service investigators are outfitted in HAZMAT-yellow hooded jumpsuits. They’ve set up a pup tent near the entrance of the gold mine yawning darkly in the rocky hillside. Then the scene is gone, the dense canopies stretching endlessly.

“This is when it starts being fun.” Lucy drops lower. “The trick is not to get impatient. No rushing anything.” Trees loom alarmingly close, shaking like pompoms as we begin to circle. “Nice and easy … Like I always say, never be in a hurry to die.”

She slows the helicopter to a hover, and I don’t see the small clearing until it’s directly under us, a dry creek bed littered with boulders and deadwood several hundred feet below. There’s no room for error, our trajectory straight down like an elevator. Were anyone else at the controls I’d be saying my prayers. I’d be crossing myself mightily, backslidden Catholic that I am.

“Wish me luck.” Lucy’s gallows humor as we begin our descent.

I stare straight ahead, trying not to get disoriented, trees churning furiously in our mighty wind. They close in like a rioting mob, the ground reaching up, tall grass and bushes thrashing and grabbing. Hunting for a level spot, Lucy touches down on the back of the skids in a confined area that could be from the Jurassic period.

The small bright blue opening we descended through seems a portal to another dimension, and I look around for Marino. Pushing the collective all the way down, Lucy rolls the throttles to flight idle, silencing warning horns. Colorful tree canopies dance wildly in our rotor wash as fallen leaves swarm like panicked moths.

---