I, on the other hand, looked like I was preparing for a career on the PGA Tour, wearing a lavender golf shirt and a pair of khakis.
Carter was not one for small talk and got right down to the reason he abruptly ended my lunch, and perhaps my relationship.
He opened his camouflage colored backpack and pulled out a black and white photo of a bearded man wearing the latest in Middle Eastern headgear. “Do you know who this is?”
I halfheartedly examined it. When it didn’t ring a bell, I shrugged. “No idea.”
“This, my friend, is Az Zahir.”
Still nothing.
We reached our subway entrance and descended the crowded, muggy stairwell.
Carter found an unpopulated spot on the swamped subway platform. When the coast was clear, he told me the story of a young man from Chicago named Az Zahir, who was once an engineering student at Northwestern University. He was whisked away from his home in the middle of the night, accused of being a ranking member of Al Muttahedah, and was plotting to do some demolition work on a few of America’s favorite buildings and monuments.
Al Muttahedah was a merger of the leading Islamic terrorist groups, who were pooling their resources to try to make a dramatic comeback in the War on Terror. They’d been operating under the radar until I exposed them last year in an investigative report for GNZ. They weren’t happy about the sudden spotlight that had been cast on them, and supposedly put a bounty on my head. Carter comforted me, explaining that groups like them are only interested in killing innocent people, and I was anything but innocent.
Our train screeched to a halt with the whistle of air brakes. But prior to boarding, I was approached by a family. They asked if I would take a photo with them, and I happily obliged. Carter didn’t share the sentiment. He grabbed me by the collar and pulled me onto the train. Brute force was always his answer to solving a problem, and while it’s not always politically correct to say, it’s usually an effective method.
We found a spot and grabbed the overhead bars to steady ourselves. Carter’s glare repelled anyone who thought of getting within ten feet of us. He showed me the picture again, and this time it clicked.
“I remember now. He was involved in that plot to blow up Soldier Field during the NFC championship game. His parents were on the news every night crying about his civil rights like he was some modern day Rosa Parks. I think they claimed he ordered the tote bag, but they accidentally sent him the suitcase nuke.”
“He was such a good Samaritan he won an all-expense paid water-boarding vacation to lovely Guantanamo Bay. But his stay was short, as he cut a deal with the CIA, which released him so that he could re-join his buddies at Al Muttahedah. The CIA wanted to use him as bait to help them assassinate their leader, Mustafa Hakim. I know you’ll find this hard to believe, but Az Zahir double-crossed the CIA, and the assassination attempt was foiled. Al Muttahedah was now reportedly hiding out Zahir. His last sighting was in Uzbekistan, almost six months ago. But of course, the US government denies any of this took place.”
“Let me guess-they granted us an interview to give them a platform to spew their hatred? We barter propaganda for ratings. Just please tell me we’re not going to Uzbekistan. I hate Uzbekistan.”
Carter gulped a frustrated sigh, and slowly blew it out. He looked like he wanted to put me in the most painful wrestling hold he could think of. But instead, he pulled out a pen and paper from his backpack and wrote down our destination for me. After I read it, he ate the piece of paper.
Chapter 7
As our train hit the 84th Street stop, Carter growled at me, “Okay, I told you my part, now it’s your turn.”
“My turn?”
“I gave you the details of the mission, now I wanna know what’s going on with you.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“The JP Warner I know would not be taking some happy horseshit pictures with some Beaver Cleaver family. He would be so fired up to get some payback on the bastards who put a bounty on his head, that he would have knocked the family into the tracks if they got in his way-not this lethargy thing you’ve been giving me.”
“Lethargy? Don’t pull a muscle on the big words, Carter.”
He shook his head. “You can try acting like your normal cocky-jerk self, but you’re not fooling anyone. I’ve seen the signs for months. Your mind is somewhere else, and this smiling and being nice to people thing is starting to creep me out.”
“Where did you get your psychology degree … Pro Wrestling University?”
“I’m serious.”
I have a couple rules that I live by. One, is to only go so far when messing with a former professional wrestler who still suffers from symptoms of steroid withdrawal. The other I learned from Murray Brown, who drilled into me to always lead with the headline. So I did. “I’ve decided I’m leaving the business when my contract runs out next month. This will be my last assignment.”
He started laughing. “What’s wrong, sweetheart-too rough being a rich and famous television star?”
I just stared out the window at the wall of the subway tunnel that was whizzing by. “I don’t know. I guess ‘the life’ sort of caught up with me. I remember a time when I was happy. And believe it or not, I wasn’t always considered, how did you so eloquently put it … a cocky jerk?”
I rambled on about the ratings pressure in the news business and no longer having the stomach for the bombs and blood. All could jade the Easter Bunny.
Carter wasn’t the “cry on my shoulder” type and asked if I wanted some cheese with my whine. He then gave his version of a pep talk.
“You deal with shady people in shadier places. The minute they see you lose an ounce of swag they’ll eat you alive.”
“It just wasn’t supposed to turn out this way,” I continued whining-even if I would never admit it-as we hit our stop at 116th and squeezed out the doors of the subway car. I had to stop and pick up travel items at my residence on the Upper West Side. It was our standard operating procedure, and so ingrained that Carter didn’t even discuss the step with me. Perhaps another sign I’d been doing this too long.
I caught Carter rolling his eyes as we climbed the subway stairwell. He slapped on his wraparounds like he couldn’t even bear to look at me. We began walking toward my walk-up brownstone. It was no coincidence it was near Columbia University-a place that reminded me of happier times.
“You don’t choose life, it chooses you. Do you know how many kids out there would kill to be JP Warner when they grow up?”
“That’s until people start trying to kill them because they are JP Warner.”
“Hey, it could be worse-you almost ended up spending the Fourth with the Bowden family.”
His words sent me spiraling back into history. “The Fourth of July used to be one of my favorite days. My family would go to the Samerauk River and watch the fireworks. Gwen and I…”
“Stop right there,” Carter cut me off, “Are you still pining away for this Gwen? I thought that was the liquor talking that night. For chrissake, she probably has six kids and lost her looks somewhere under a pile of plastic kids-toys in the back of her minivan … at least that happened to all my ex-wives.”
“I’m not pining away for anyone,” I lied. I had mentioned Gwen to him the night following the Columbia incident, after having a few too many drinks. We made a deaclass="underline" I would never bring up such “girly nonsense” ever again, and he would refrain from “knocking some sense” into me.
“It’s just the realization that there isn’t going to be a happily ever after. You put your dreams on hold, time goes by and one day you realize it’s never going to happen. I’ve made up my mind-this is going to be my last assignment.”
He shrugged. “Are you trying to convince me or yourself?”