Page 51 of Unnatural Death

We’re being set up for something we’ll have no say about.

“It’s been creating satellite camps within a two-hundred-mile radius of Washington, D.C.,” Benton goes on. “Chatter picked up by intelligence agents indicate the threat group is planning a major attack that will make January sixth look like a meet and greet.”

“They promise that this time they’ll finish what they started,” Elena with the NSA explains. “They’re going to storm not just the Capitol but the White House, Camp David and Senate and congressional office buildings.”

“No place will be spared, including private residences,” Gus of the CIA explains without a trace of emotion or an accent. “They plan to publicly execute political figures and others who are traitors to the cause. Before they’re done, The Republic’s flag will fly over every government institution, includingthe Federal Reserve and fucking Pentagon. Pardon my language. I’m simply quoting.”

As he’s saying this a video screen has filled with the image of men in ballistic gear, their faces covered as they stare into the camera. They’re brandishing M4 carbines, holding up a black-and-red-striped flag featuring a white Punisher skull.

“Obviously, they’re threatening a second civil war, only with modern weapons and technology.” It’s rare Benton is so intense. “This is what’s hurtling toward us invisibly, silently like an Armageddon asteroid. The Mansons knew what they were doing and the consequences. They didn’t mind helping to facilitate a coup that in our worst nightmares none of us ever want to see happen. They assumed by the time it did, it wouldn’t impact them. They’d be out of the country living the good life.”

* * *

Benton tells us remotely that Huck and Brittany were brazen enough to visit The Republic’s outpost in Quantico. It wasn’t far from the FBI Academy and the Marine Corps base. The couple was there several times before federal agents raided it this past summer. Many of the members have since been arrested, and others are feared to have reconvened elsewhere.

“Loading a rental truck, the Mansons would show up with gear and supplies,” my husband is saying. “They were hanging out with these people and sympathetic. Huck and Brittany encouraged, aided and abetted. At the very least they’re indirectly responsible for the crimes these people have committed. Burglaries, robberies, even murder.”

I envision the mob of extremists marching around my building last summer, many dressed in camouflage and tactical garb. Angry over my testimony in an ongoing trial, they made their feelings known at my workplace and also my home. These people were armed and violent, making as much noise as possible, spewing hatred while flaunting their weapons.

It turned out that they were members of The Republic, the threat group we’re talking about. Driving around in trucks with gun racks and Confederate flags, these homegrown folks call themselves the real patriots. The true Americans. All the while they’re doing the bidding of the Russians and other enemy nations.

“Were the Mansons aware of how dangerous their so-called handlers could be?” I fill a plastic quart jar with formalin, a diluted version of formaldehyde that’s extremely toxic. “Did they understand the magnitude of what they were meddling with?”

“That’s the problem and the point,” Benton explains. “Their offshore accounts are overseen by Russian cybercriminals they’d never met whose real names the Mansons didn’t know. They had no idea who they were associating with overseas. It was a remote relationship they didn’t question or investigate.”

“Which is what’s wrong with everything these days. You don’t know who or what the hell you’re dealing with because of the internet.” Marino pulls down an electrical cord from an overhead reel. “Sometimes I’m not sure the person online is even real.” He plugs in the Stryker saw.

“The Mansons connected with the Russians in cyberspace, never meeting face-to-face at any time as best we know,” Gus says. “They didn’t talk on the phone unless their handler was using a voice scrambler.”

“Like the individual who left the voice mail on the governor’s phone.” I cover a countertop with disposable sheets.

“Exactly like that,” Gus replies. “I suspect we’ll find the call was placed in Russia, and we have an idea by whom.”

“The psychopathic wizard, let me guess,” Marino says.

“The Mansons trusted blindly and were cavalier while stealing a fortune they’d never get to spend.” Benton continues a briefing we didn’t request, his attention locked on me. “They didn’t anticipate something like this would happen when in fact it was inevitable. They believed they were going to spend the rest of their days in Dubai and Switzerland, where they had luxury apartments waiting when they fled the country.”

As a rule, when I deal with federal agents the information is a one-way street. I pass along what I know while they barely answer the most basic questions.

“I have to ask. Why are you telling us all this?” I stop what I’m doing, giving Benton and his colleagues my full attention. “It seems dangerous considering the sensitive nature. And it’s not typical, which is the bigger point.”

“Nothing about this is typical, and you should know the truth for a number of reasons,” Director Bella Steele answers. “Not the least is your safety, Kay. But also, we need your help. We need to be in lockstep.”

“All of us are going to have to work together closely and with complete trust,” her press secretary, Aiden, says. “We need you to collaborate with us about information released to the public, when and how.”

“I would do that anyway,” I reply.

“Yes, but it would be very helpful if not everything comes from us,” he explains. “In other words, when needed it would be best if some of the information comes from the medical examiner’s office. As long as we control the narrative.”

“Oh, I get it,” Marino says cynically. “We’re supposed to say whatever it is you want the public to think.”

“Not you personally, Marino. You won’t be talking to the media at any time,” Aiden replies bluntly. “Your role is to assist Doctor Scarpetta, to be mindful that both of you are in a dangerous situation. She can’t be in this alone. Neither of you can be.”

“What situation?” Marino asks. “You’re starting to freak me out.”

“The Mansons had no idea who was pulling the strings,” Benton says. “They didn’t care that it might be the Kremlin.”

“More specifically, someone protected by it,” says the head of Interpol’s National Central Bureau in Washington, D.C.

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