High Crimes

“Yes. One hundred and seven links, the little serrated and notched metal pieces that connect cartridges to each other in the ammo belt.”

“Were these links of use to you in identifying which gun was used?”

Coultas pushed up the nosepiece of his glasses. “No. It’s quite hard to identify links to a specific weapon, though I suppose it’s theoretically possible.”

“Mr. Coultas, does the El Salvador government report say whether any of the bullets were recovered from bodies?”

“No, it does not, but that doesn’t mean anything. It’s extremely hard to recover machine-gun projectiles from the body, since most of them pass right through.”

Relentlessly, like a jackhammer, Waldron took him through the chain of custody. Coultas was satisfied with the way the evidence had been collected by the Salvadorans and sent to Army CID, marked with a metal scribe and put down on an evidence worksheet. Waldron left no stone unturned, right down to the head stamp at the base of each cartridge.

“Now, tell us, were these projectiles and cartridge casings all fired by the same exact weapon?”

“Yes, they were.”

“And was it this one?” Waldron held up the plastic-wrapped machine gun. Coultas leaned forward to inspect it. Theatrics.

“Yes, it was.”

“Mr. Coultas, can you tell us how you can connect a particular bullet to a particular weapon?”

Coultas settled back in his seat and pushed again with a long finger at the nosepiece of his glasses. His voice became high, nasal, and insufferably pompous. “Inside the barrel of every gun, spiral grooves are cut. This is called the ‘rifling.’ It causes the bullet to twist in a certain direction, to spin quickly and thus travel faster and with greater accuracy. Also, the spiral grooves of each type of weapon have a unique pattern. Between the grooves are raised areas called ‘lands.’ These lands and grooves make an imprint on the bullet, the gross markings that we can see under the microscope.”

He had to be a deadly instructor, Claire reflected. No wonder the FBI lab was always in trouble.

“And did the rifling system on this particular weapon match the bullets you looked at?” Waldron asked.

“Absolutely. The rifling system on this particular M-60 machine gun is what we call 4-R, a four-right system, or four lands and grooves with a right twist. Also, there’s one turn in twelve inches. Using comparison microscoping, I saw that the projectiles showed traces of this rifling. Also, I noticed that one of the lands in this barrel was narrower than the others. That was another distinguishing feature. The striations on the bullets caused by passage through a barrel were identical to the barrel of the weapon in question. That is, they all appeared to come from the same weapon.”

Farrell popped open a can of Pepsi.

“What about the cartridge casings?” Waldron asked.

“I inspected the ejected casings, looking at the primer, the firing-pin impression, the chamber markings, and, on the bottom, the breech-face impression.”

“So there’s no doubt in your mind that these bullets were fired by the machine gun you examined?”

“None whatsoever.”

“Thank you very much, Mr. Coultas. Nothing further.”

“Defense, do you have cross-examination?” Farrell asked.

“Yes, sir,” Claire said as she stood. For a few seconds she looked questioningly at the witness. Finally, she said, “Mr. Coultas, do you know if this was the gun used by Sergeant Kubik?”

“No,” he admitted.

“Oh? Why not?”

“Well, I’m really not competent to testify to that. I understand the government has already had a witness from Fort Bragg up here, describing the computer armory records and how they’re maintained. But that’s outside of my area of competence.”

“So you have no idea whose gun this was?”

“That’s right.”

“And, Mr. Coultas, you’ve already testified that you don’t know whether any of these bullets were recovered from bodies, is that right?”

“That’s right.”

“So do you know whether these bullets killed anybody?”

“No.”

“You don’t.”

“No. That’s outside my area of expertise, strictly speaking. I suppose the eyewitnesses—”

“Thank you. Now, Mr. Coultas, based on your thorough examination of the evidence, can you tell the court when these rounds were fired?”

“Actually, no.”

“You can’t? Really? You have absolutely no idea?”

“Well, the attached records—”

“I said, based on your examination of the evidence. Were they fired on the date in question, June 22, 1985?”

“I really wouldn’t know.”

“Can you tell if they were fired that week?”

“No.”

“Or that month?”

“No.”

“Or even that year?”

“No, I can’t.”

“Interesting. And, Mr. Coultas, can you tell me something? When you fire a machine gun for a long time, what happens to the barrel?”

“Well, it gets hot.”

A low chuckle from the jury box, and some titters from the spectators.

“And what do you do then? Do you keep using it?”

“Oh, no. After five hundred rounds have been fired, you change the barrel to avoid overheating. You remove it and replace it with another.”

“Even when you’re out in the field?”