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
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.
Chapter 15
“I’m not ready-I need a couple minutes,” I said, overtaken by fright.
Carter shook his head. “There is no amount of time that’ll make this any easier. You just gotta tear the scab off.”
That was the problem-it wasn’t a scab yet. It was still an open wound. A wound that would likely never heal.
“You got two minutes,” Carter stated. “Do you want me to sing and dance, or do you wanna do small talk?”
“I was hoping for a lap dance.”
“I hate to get you all worked up for nothing, but I left my G-string home, so it’ll have to be small talk. What’s next, Mr. American Hero … book? … Movie? … Talk show circuit?”
I smiled serenely at him, and I could tell it freaked him out a little. “I just want to go back to Rockfield.”
“So what do you plan on doing when you arrive at this glorious field of rocks?”
“I want to go to the Rockfield Fair.”
“Who wouldn’t? Please tell me that it has something to do with alcohol and women.”
“It’s a country fair that’s held every year on Labor Day weekend. They have great food, carnival rides, and livestock contests. And it’s a showcase for a lot of the newest farming equipment. Since I’m going to start a farm, I need to learn more about that sort of stuff.”
Carter burst into laughter. “J-News the farmer, now that I gotta see.”
He reached in the back pocket of his faded jeans and pulled out a rolled up
“So you are telling me you have no plans to capitalize on your hero status?” Carter pushed.
I picked up the magazine and viewed myself on the cover. It was an out-of-focus screen-shot taken from the video Qwaui released to the worldwide media. The picture portrayed me in a way his audience rarely saw me-tired, haggard, and with a look of vulnerability. The caption under his photo read:
I looked up. “It’s nice to read something objective on myself. The news coverage has almost made me believe I’m some sort of hero. We both know the real hero is…”
And with that, the eight hundred pound gorilla was out of the cage.
“How is he? They don’t tell me anything.”
“What do you say I take you over and you find out yourself?”
Before I had a chance to filibuster, he picked me out of the bed and slammed me into a nearby wheelchair. It felt like every inch of my body had been set on fire. He then proceeded to wheel me through a maze of corridors.
The hospital staff numbered over a thousand, and it seemed as if each and every one of them greeted Carter. He posed for pictures and signed autographs. Military members were some of the biggest fans of Coldblooded Carter. I, on the other hand, received snide glares.
Byron lay motionless in a bed, surrounded by breathing tubes and beeping monitors. We hadn’t seen each other since that fateful night-the doctors wouldn’t allow it. Byron smiled as wide as he could, but it didn’t lessen my guilt, if that was his intention.
Carter had informed me of the grim diagnosis a few weeks back. The paralysis would likely be permanent. But it didn’t soften the blow when I saw my fallen friend for the first time.
The reason for the quick getaway that night was that our captors had learned that the CIA had discovered their hideaway and were minutes away from taking them down. The three of us instantly went from bargaining chips to dead weight. Our SUV was sent careening into a ravine, and we were all ejected. I still couldn’t get Byron’s screams out of my mind from when he was trapped under the vehicle.
“It’s okay, man, it’s not your fault. It’s nobody’s fault,” Byron said, reading my bleak stare.
We bumped fists-his arms were the only things that he could move. He wore no shirt, revealing that his upper body, while scarred from the crash, was still in magnificent shape. It was impossible to believe a man in such top condition wouldn’t walk out of Landstuhl under his own power, while carrying a full load of video equipment.
“It was my fault,” I forced out the words, my voice shaking. “I’d lost my edge-I should have never gone on that trip.”
“Get over yourself, JP-it’s not always about you,” Byron scoffed. “I’m the lucky one. Do you know how many people leave this place in a coffin? Don’t you think that Milos would have loved to have another chance like this?”
“I’m so sorry,” I reiterated, almost zombie-like. I pushed out of my wheelchair and wobbled on shaky legs.
Byron looked at me, incredulously. “Listen, man, I got life and life is precious. As long as you’re breathing anything’s possible. You guys saved my life.”
