Officer Jones

Chapter 14

Landstuhl, Germany

August 31

Except for the occasional roar of a plane taking off from the adjoining Ramstein Air Force Base, Landstuhl Hospital was a quiet setting amongst the peaceful forests of western Germany. But ever since a certain television reporter was flown in from Belgrade, a large blockade of media had set up camp across the street from the medical center. Since I hadn’t been able to leave my hospital room the past six weeks, I was only getting this information from my television.

While my stay had been long, my list of medical maladies was even longer. Concussion, broken eye socket, broken rib, torn knee ligament, and punctured left lung. But the most painful injuries of all were my wounded pride and badly bruised ego. My face was still splattered with dark scabs, although the doctors told me that they were healing, and my face would return to its “TV standard” in no time. I decided not to let them in on the scoop that my television days were over.

Contrary to what my critics often say, my biggest professional nightmare has always been becoming the story. But that’s exactly what happened. What the media dubbed The Capture of JP Warner! was the second biggest story of the summer, only topped by the unsolved murder of Senator Craig Kingsbury.

As the world looked on for twelve long days, we were held captive in a remote eastern section of Serbia, near the Bulgarian border. Perhaps the terms “exclusive interview” and “tortured hostages” got mixed up in translation. Our living quarters were in a small, dilapidated house, where we were chained in sauna-hot, windowless rooms.

The leader was an eerily calm man named Qwaui-one of the top lieutenants of Mustafa Hakim, the leader of Al Muttahedah. He wore desert camouflage and spent most of his time playing chess with another bearded soldier who was decked out in matching attire.

Zahir, the man we sought for an interview-although, in hindsight, it was clear that they were seeking us-was also present. He wore traditional Islamic garb, and his clean-shaven Western looks from his Chicago days were long gone. He was a loose cannon, often going off on violent tangents about the “infidels,” which I brilliantly deduced was us.

I found Zahir’s act a little contrived, fearing the quiet Qwaui much more. A deep look into his eyes revealed an unwavering zealotry. I knew there would be no reasoning with him.

To make matters worse, our hosts played the incessant, and usually inaccurate, reports by Lauren Bowden on a small black-and-white television that looked like a relic from the 1970s. Lauren seized the moment to take advantage of my martyrdom, usually referring to me as her “soul-mate” during her reports, and I’m sure to Sutcliffe’s delight, often cried crocodile tears into the camera as she begged for my release.

On the twelfth day of captivity, I was summoned before the group and instructed-with machine gun to temple-that I was to deliver a statement to the Western World. The camera rolled and I swallowed hard. Logic said they would kill me anyway, so I should refuse to spread their propaganda and die with a little dignity. It’s hard to explain to someone who has never had the cold steel of a gun poking into the back of their neck, but survival instincts kick in, dignity goes out the window, and the only thing I could think of was to survive the next second. For such a natural act, dying doesn’t come very naturally.

I completed the anti-American monologue like I was the keynote speaker at an Al Muttahedah convention, and signed off as I had so many times before, “JP Warner … Global Newz.” The camera was shut off and I braced for my throat to be slit.

But nothing happened.

I was still alive, but things were different. There was a distinct change in mood-Qwaui’s normally meditative demeanor had vanished. He began pacing like a lion stalking its prey, and barking orders to Zahir in Arabic. We were blindfolded again, and whisked into the Serbian night.

The details of what happened next are a little foggy. The therapist I’d been assigned at Landstuhl believed that I wanted to suppress them-he was probably right-but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t remove the familiar screams from my memory bank.

My relationship with the military had always been complex. My job was to uncover information, while they, understandably, wanted to keep things under wrap. So naturally things became strained at times between us. So while they were forced to be nice to me publicly-my capture having turned me into an American hero-they were able to show their disdain in more subtle ways. For example, they claimed that the only room they could find for me was in the “Labor and Delivery” section. For six weeks, my nights and days were filled with the sounds of screaming babies. My nurse, Lieutenant Colonel Knight, told me that I fit in well.

But that didn’t compare to the torture of the television, which was left constantly running in my room, playing the GNZ coverage of my demise. If it wasn’t bad enough to be forced to watch the endless coverage of my downfall, Lauren was the lead reporter on the story. It was like she had been in my room with me for six weeks. There was no escape.

Today, she stood in the rain outside Landstuhl, doing her best to try to fill up the 24-hour news cycle with another non-story about nothing, but of the most importance, looking good doing it.

“I’m coming to you live from Landstuhl Medical Center in Germany where we have breaking news. My sources tell me that GNZ’s JP Warner will be discharged today.”

This was news to me, although I wouldn’t argue if it were the case. But I didn’t exactly trust Lauren Bowden’s sources.

Then as if she’d angered the heavens, the light mist turned into a downpour. But being a trooper, Lauren continued shouting through the rain, “When JP is released, I’ll conduct an exclusive interview with him, seen only on GNZ! If you want to hear JP Warner’s first words since bravely escaping from the clutches of Al Muttahedah-turn to GNZ!”

I wasn’t planning on giving anyone an interview, and if I did, it certainly wouldn’t be with Lauren. But that’s not to say I didn’t respect the effort. She had made repeated attempts to get in to see me over the past month, only to be repelled by the cranky Lieutenant Colonel Sharon Knight, on the orders of her even crankier patient, JP Warner. It was probably the only thing we agreed on during my stay.

Speaking of the Lieutenant Colonel, she stormed into my room like it was the beaches of Normandy. She was a short, humorless woman who was the chief nurse of the facility. Without asking for any type of consent, she stuck a temperature gauge in my ear, and recorded the results on a chart. I knew the drill, and stuck out my left arm and rolled up the sleeve of my hospital gown. She attached the Velcro blood pressure cuff too tight around my left bicep and pumped.

“Is it true I’m getting out of here today?” I asked.

“You’re the smartest man in the world. Why don’t you tell me?”

“Seriously.”

“That’s classified,” she said, before moving on to my daily breathing exercises. “Sit up … take a deep breath … okay, hold it … release,” she commanded and I obeyed. I had learned my lesson about crossing her.

“Do I at least get a Purple Heart when all this is over?”

“You’re lucky you don’t get a kick-in-the-ass and a bill.”

When she finished recording all the pertinent information, she coldly stated, “You have a visitor.”

“Let me guess, the firing squad?”

She didn’t rule it out, which concerned me.

But as she left the room, she passed Jeff Carter on his way in. It was like two battleships passing in the night. I let out a sigh of relief at the sight of the one-man rescue team. I hoped he was here to save me again-sling me over his shoulder and carry me home to New York.

“Tell me I’m going home,” I greeted him.

“You are,” he got right to the point. But before I was able to look up at the pink ceiling of the maternity ward and give thanks skyward, Carter added, “But first we must make a return trip to hell.”

Unfortunately, I knew exactly what he meant.