We finally stop and the engine goes off. I hear the doors start popping open; one of the marshals opens mine. And as I step out, two men in suits and loosened ties offer their hands. One of them says, “Welcome to the WITSEC Safesite and Orientation Center.”
They turn to walk toward an entryway and I notice Sean looking around like it’s the first time he’s ever seen the place. Just before I take steps to follow the two men, I turn to Sean and say with forced glee, “Well, I guess this is goodbye.”
Sean walks back to the Excursion. “Hardly,” he says.
SEVEN
This facility, buried underground and likely roofed by a blanket of corn or soybeans, is actually a factory, an assembly line plant not unlike Ford’s. Though this place is rich with luxury, right down to plush carpets (soothing tones to calm the witness), smoked glass (to instill the notion of safety and privacy), and crown molding (reflects the traditions of home), the object—me—moves from one station to the next, being altered and enhanced until a finished, polished product is ready to be released.
When I walked through the door, the first thing they asked was whether they could get me anything. My answer: a place where I could crash for a few hours; I wanted clarity for all that was about to come. Instead of a couch next to the coffeepot in the break area, I was escorted to a private room—my room—complete with a private bath and king-size bed and television (with no cable or satellite access, used solely for watching DVDs); the only thing missing was the view: not a single window.
Now that I’ve slept—crashed through the night, woke just before dawn—and showered, I emerge from my room. I’m immediately spotted by a lady behind a large circular desk. She gently rises and comes to my side, asks me how I’m handling the adjustment and if I rested well; I suppose most people brought here are frightened into insomnia. As she speaks of the weather, tells me of pending rain that I will neither see nor hear, I follow her down the corridor where she deposits me in a small meeting room. I sit alone, start noticing the general theme of their interior design. My room, the halls, this meeting room, all alike: beige paint, large plush chairs, prints on the walls that always speak of hope and peace—impressionist views of vineyards and flower-filled hillsides, mallard ducks flying over fields and forests free of hunters and retrievers; seagulls nipping through oceanfront sand devoid of a single human body.
After a moment I’m greeted by a pair of coordinators, two women in their late fifties who speak with such calmness and smile so genuinely that it would be impossible, were I actually a witness on the run, not to absorb some sense of optimism from them. I’ve never met two people more suited for their jobs, for the roles they need to play in such a critical and stress-saturated environment.
I spend an hour with them, mostly chitchatting while I sip a cup of coffee and work down a bran muffin, though their true purpose is to give me a brief overview of my next week—week—at the facility, what to expect, who to contact for questions or health issues, what I need to do if I want to reserve the gym, and so forth. They ask my clothing size and assure me some apparel will be available for me by the end of the day. They inform me that this place is capable of housing many witnesses and their families at one time, and while our use of various parts of the building will overlap, I will never see them and they will never see me.
Then they explain each station of the assembly line.
I sit and listen as they unfold Justice’s grand plan for making me someone I was never meant to be, describe the specifics of how I’ll truly become another person right down to the legal documents that prove it, how Jonathan Bovaro is gone and can never return.
Day one: Psychology
My first full day at Safesite has me meeting with the psych team (one psychiatrist and one psychologist), who spend the first portion of our time administering surveys to determine my personality type—could have told them: mafioso with willing spirit and violent tendencies—to better plan my future in a world that will not recognize me. For the five hours that follow, they explain the impact of being