Page 14 of Safeguarding the Witness

Run!

She needed to escape, to disappear. Back into WITSEC? No, there must be a better way. Shifting position on the tarmac, she coiled her legs beneath her and prepared to make a move. Before she could bolt, Spence dropped his hand onto her back.

“Stay down,” he ordered.

Two black-and-white Salem police cars pulled up in front of them, providing a shield from the sniper. One of the cops—a woman with long brown hair in a ponytail—signaled them to move closer, and Spence guided Mollie to a position of safety behind the car. He continued to stare into the darkness across the runway as he spoke to Agent Jamison. “I saw a flare from the muzzle.”

“Me, too,” said the agent. “The sniper is in the fireman’s tower. Third floor.”

Mollie peeked over the trunk of the police car and stared at the rectangular concrete structure used to practice evacuations from high buildings. Charring from former fires streaked the sides. There were two windows on each floor. The glass was long gone. The four-story tower had been standing in place for years. She remembered driving past it when she’d been working in Salem as a coffee shop barista.

Two uniformed cops from the second car—again, one male and one female—joined them. Each held a long-range rifle with an infrared scope. Mollie thought they looked more than ready for action. Almost eager.

Jamison produced his FBI credentials and filled them in. “This is an active shooter situation. First priority is moving the injured man out of the line of fire, administering first aid and getting him into an ambulance.”

The officers from the first car went into action, following his instructions by dragging the marshal to a less exposed area behind the second car and starting first aid. As far as Mollie could tell, the sniper hadn’t fired upon them since the police arrived. Jamison spoke to the men with rifles. “We think the sniper has taken a position in the fireman’s tower. We didn’t hear his gunfire, which makes me think his rifle has a sound suppressor. A high-tech weapon.”

“We’ll return fire,” one of the cops said. “And I should call for reinforcements from Salem SWAT.”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Jamison said.

Sitting on the tarmac and leaning against the police car, Mollie watched as law enforcement launched into the practiced choreography for an active shooter situation. Two officers with rifles laid down a defensive barrage, blasting at the tower while resting the barrels of their weapons on the hood of the second car. Another tended to the wounded marshal. The fourth cop was on his phone, contacting SWAT and summoning an ambulance. She heard the siren of the approaching emergency vehicle.

Spence squatted on the tarmac beside her. “As soon as Jamison gives the okay, I’m going to take you through the office into the hangar.”

“What about the broken window?”

“Walk carefully and don’t fall down or you’ll cut your knees. This door is more direct than going around to the front.”

The ambulance parked. EMTs emerged and immediately started treatment on the marshal who had come to Salem to confront her. Mollie felt somewhat responsible for his injuries. Though she hadn’t requested his assistance, he was only doing his job, protecting his witness, taking care of her.

Spence touched her upper arm. “Mollie, are you okay?”

He’d taken off his glasses, and she peered into his green eyes, looking for answers. “Why is this happening?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

The sniper attack made no sense whatsoever. If the shooter had been aiming at her, why did he score a direct hit on the marshal? The first shot might have been a mistake. But not the second. She watched the activity swirling around them. An active shooter situation with several levels of law enforcement. How did something like this happen to someone like her?

Jamison joined them. He loaded a fresh clip into his Glock. “SWAT is on the way.”

“I want to take Mollie into the hangar,” Spence said. “It’s safer.”

“Go. I’ll cover you.”

With Jamison moving with them, blocking direct sight of their retreat and firing at the tower, Spence rushed her toward the shattered entrance for Salem Beacon Charter. The soles of her sneakers crunched on broken glass as she dashed into the front office where the desks, file cabinets, chairs and a sofa were covered with glittering fragments. Jamison left them, and Spence took her deeper, through a door into the hangar itself.

The high-ceiling corrugated steel structure with windows around the top provided housing for three small planes and another larger jet. The front doors—wide enough to accommodate the seventy-five-foot wingspan of a Cessna M2—stood open. Along the inner wall were vending machines, a refrigerator, a coffee urn and disposable cups as well as a no-frills seating area that looked like it belonged in a man cave. Nobody was lounging at the small plastic tables.

The office staff, along with their pilot and copilot, hovered at the partially open door leading to the runway, trying to see what was happening with the police crews and ambulances. One of the women had a cut on her cheek. Her injury probably happened when the picture window had been shot out. They peppered Spence with questions. After Spence answered as well as he could and apologized for being the cause for the sniper attack, he turned to her. In a calm tone, he asked, “Hungry?”

His simple query brought her back to reality. Mollie couldn’t explain what was happening or why, but she could check in with her stomach. Am I hungry? She hadn’t had dinner and the snacks on the flight weren’t enough to fill her up, but there hadn’t been time to think about food. “Not really.”

“I hear you,” said their pilot as he patted her shoulder. “Getting fired upon by a sniper tends to wrench your stomach into knots.”

Mollie wondered if that was the voice of experience. Their pilot had the same military bearing as Spence. Had he been in combat?

“Doesn’t bother me,” said the copilot, a young man with a wide grin. He clenched a cheese-and-ham on focaccia that looked like it had been microwaved into the proper state of melted goodness. “Danger kicks my appetite into high gear.”