Officer Jones

Chapter 6

We began walking away from Norvell’s, looking like the oddest of contrasts.

Even though I stood six-foot tall, Carter still towered over me by half a foot. His head was shaved to the scalp-the only hair from his neck up was a goatee that reached at least two full inches below his chin. He wore his trademark wraparound sunglasses and sleeveless denim jacket.

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.