Ruben Carver is an agent with NCIS.
As any fan of the hit CBS television program well into its second decade of, to me, outstanding action drama, knows, the special agents of the Navy Criminal Investigative Service handle a very wide range of activity from theft to murder to counterintelligence and counter-terrorism. It is in the latter two matters that Ruben Carver is mostly operating.
As one of that agency's highly experienced special agents, he has worked in numerous field offices around the world but his specialty seems to be the Far East and he is quite comfortable in places like Singapore and Kuala Lumpur.
While many of Carver's associates might want to think of their jobs as being federal police officer, Carver has learned the hard way that it is so much more and when going up against either those expecting millions from their treason or those fervently believing in a cause, the job calls for a whole lot more than handing out tickets and questioning suspects. It too often deals with dodging bullets and avoiding bombs and otherwise trying to stay alive long enough to do the job.
As good as Carver is at his job, and he is very good, he does have his issues. "The Service had its share of good investigators - problem solvers - who had difficulty assimilating in a politically charged environment. There were those individuals they made a point of keeping away from the home office for as long as possible. Carver always considered himself part of that crew. His own mixed reputation revolved around a basic assumption: he was a s**t magnet. The hierarchy knew they could drop him in an imbroglio and like a drawing salve on a boil, he would pull an existing malignancy to the surface and drain it with prejudice. They could also rely on him to cover his tracks while making a case and avoid the nuisance of media coverage". Which is probably why most of the past few years of his time with NCIS, he has been on the other side of the globe from D.C. and headquarters.
Good Line:
- Used as a tag line on the first adventure: "You can never have too many friends or bullets."