POCKET CHANGE
by Sharon R.
Chapter Seventeen
Special Delivery, Handle with Care
One of those trucks made a return trip, stopping abruptly in front of Carter and Luka, several of the soldiers motioning for the two men and the child to get into the truck. The ride would be a relief, but these men carried guns as well, didn't speak English and were not pleased with these two white men with the African boy who stopped the procession.
Luka was the first up and maneuvered around so he could lift up Mbuto before carefully trying to get Carter onto the truck bed, but it seemed the soldiers were concerned only with the doctors. Maybe they assumed the boy was with the fleeing families, though Carter's weak arms wrapped around him should have been a tip-off. Before Luka could coordinate Mbuto's transfer, the soldiers roughly yanked Carter up from under his arms jarting pain through his shoulders momentarily paralyzing his arms allowing Mbuto to accidentally slip from his grip.
"Stop!" Luka half jumped, half fell out of the back of the military vehicle as he scurried in and around the chaos of the exodus, pushing and pulling the masses of people getting between him and Mbuto who was the only stationary object on that road at that time. "Stop!" When he finally reached the little boy, he frantically scooped him up under his arm, turning to find the soldiers pointing guns in his face, rushing him back to the truck; this time with the boy. As the men tried to push the two onto the crowded truck, Luka halted briefly but deliberately, grabbing the barrel of the rifle closest to his face and pushing it down making a silent statement to the determined eyes behind it.
The truck reached speeds not imaginable for deteriorating roads, frequently tossing the occupants off the floor of the bed and into each other. Being that it was packed with men and guns, the close quarters provided Luka and Carter with a lot of unwanted physical contact. Mbuto grabbed the arm of whichever doctor was closest to him eventually finding his way onto Luka's lap, falling asleep against his chest. Luka instinctively put his hand over the child's ear pressing Mbuto's head against his chest to filter out the noise. The extra body heat was overshadowed by the soft comfort of the boy and Luka's own memories of fatherhood. Eventually, after a couple of hours, the truck made its way out of the jungle and onto a common roadway.
"He seems so unemotional." Carter spoke as quietly as he could without being totally unheard over the loud truck engine.
"I know. Back on the jungle road he just stood there, almost like he didn't care about what was happening around him." Luka put his large hand back over the boy's ear, hugging him even tighter.
"What do you make of that?"
"His whole life has been a war. The sound of gunfire to him is as familiar as the EL is to you." Luka smirked. "You know it's there, see it everyday, you just assume it's not going to jump the tracks and hit you."
"You think he trusts us?" Carter wondered.
"I think he knows we'll help him. I don't think he knows what trust is. Trust is unaffordable in a war zone."
Luka and Carter sat looking at each other and Mbuto, both contemplating their future and his.
"I can probably make some calls. My grandfather had a lot of connections in Washington and we could find him a good home in Chicago." Carter scratched his head and looked around. "I mean if we're really getting out of here. I just don't see…"
Luka started shaking his head as soon as Carter mentioned Washington. "No, it would take weeks of paper work just to be told no."
"Well, then we'll play our cards through the media."
"The media has better stories in the world to cover than here. No, Carter. Look around you. They aren't taking us to the Hyatt Regency." Luka marveled at how the boy could sleep amidst the racket of the truck. "The safest place for this boy is in a refugee camp."
Carter leaned his head back against the truck wall, tired and now defeated in this simple quest. "And just abandon him?"
"No. His father abandoned him. We'll get him to where he can get some medical attention and food." Luka took Mbuto's small sleeping hand in his, stroking the smooth skin then wrapping his own fingers around the little fist. "He'll be with the people and culture he understands."
Carter's overwhelmed body could no longer support him as he let it fall to the side, propping his head on a bag of garbage. "It's a hell of a thing to understand."
Twilight had set in by the time the convoy pulled into the outskirts of a town. Their truck was the only one to break rank and turn off onto a side road. Luka reached over to where Mbuto had finally curled up next to Carter, sharing his pillow, and awakened them.
"Carter, wake up. I think we're going to be stopping."
"What's it look like out there?" Carter obviously was having a hard time sitting up and remained on his back looking up at the stars. "Have we decided who our hosts are this evening?"
"I think they're government militia. They're speaking Lingala."
The trucked suddenly stopped, only the passengers in the cab exiting. A few moments later, a few armed men walked to the back of the truck with two civilians.
"You speak English, yes?" one asked.
Carter and Luka nodded trying to focus on the dark faces with the little light from the fingernail moon in the sky.
"The boy stays here. You will go on with the soldiers."
Luka unexpectedly jumped out of the truck ahead of Mbuto, catching the men off guard. Carter, still with his arms around Mbuto who had curled into the larger man's safe chest, was hesitant to let go of the boy, even if it was to put him into Luka's arms. "What is this place?"
"This is a multinational refugee camp." The woman stepped forward offering her hand to Luka as a show of good faith.
"UN sponsored?" Luka asked.
"No. There are very few of those and most have shifted to Liberia. We will take good care of the boy, I promise." The overworked woman shed a soft smile as she reached her hands up into the truck.
Refusing to relinquish the child, Carter cleared his throat and spoke up. "Mbuto. His name is Mbuto."
There was an uncomfortable moment of silence before Carter forced some backbone. "What if Mbuto stayed with us? Let us take care of his needs."
Luka drew himself away from the others outside of the truck and stepped over to Carter, looking up at him. "We talked about this," he said softly, "he needs to stay here. I don't think all these armed men are going to look lightly on two dirty, white, foreigners walking away with one of their own children."
"That's racist," Carter threw at Luka, although he meant it out of frustration more than anything.
"No, that's reality." Luka hated what he was doing, especially knowing that the boy would have a better chance at reaching his eighteenth birthday in the states. But given the nature of their situation and the chance that getting him out of the country would put Mbuto's life in further danger, it had to be done. "I'm sure this nice lady will take care of him." He extended his arms up to Carter and nodded with his face and his eyes.
Carter took one last look at Mbuto, stroking his arm as he tapped his forehead with his own - one last meeting of the eyes, then released the boy to Luka, his arms feeling vastly empty. "Take care of yourself, little man," he whispered.
Mbuto looked so small on the ground standing among all of the grown ups. The woman said a few words to him before the armed men helped Luka back into the truck. As they pulled away, Luka glanced back at Mbuto and gave him a little wave. The boy in turn looked up, his chin puckering as a lone, glistening, plump tear streaked down his cheek.
As the truck made its way back to the main road, the nighttime battles could be heard in the distance, the darkened city limits briefly lit by explosions on the mountainside. Carter and Luka no longer flinched and instead stared into the empty darkness of the night sky, the floor, the trees - anything that didn't hold meaning to them. Exhaustion and the ravage of their bodies made them want to fold into themselves. Finally, they pulled into the city, the masses of population suddenly appearing. All on the run or hiding. Once again, their truck stopped suddenly, emptying quickly leaving Carter and Luka to be the last to slowly and uncomfortably rise, but this time they were left to move at their own pace with no guns threatening their lives. Luka jumped down leaving Carter to scoot out onto his shaky legs. From the shadows of the ruins of a building several more uniformed men appeared.
A tall man approached the two. He spoke with a heavy accent. "Are you the two American doctors?"
Luka wanted to say he was Croatian for the sake of being right, but relented. "Yes, yes. I am Luka Kovac, this is John Carter."
The man extended his hand shaking both of theirs. "We have been looking for you and heard that militia troops may have found you. My name is Thomas Bongala. I am the leader of the Union of Congolese Patriots. Welcome to Bunia."
Bongala was a big dark man who wore a wide smile and neat uniform, not as tidy and pressed as Jules' but certainly more orderly than the regular soldiers'. Luka and Carter guessed he didn't get out of his office often, much less past the rear of the fighting. But in any event, he was a welcome site.
"You've been looking for us?" Carter wondered aloud, Bongala nodding in response. "Who else is involved?"
"I cannot say for security reasons, I'm sure you can understand. I can tell you that several of the bordering countries were involved in your search as well as your government."
"The Americans are here?" Luka spun around expecting to see a platoon of America's finest to round the bend.
"No, no. The Congolese government and other countries involved did not want the American military to interfere." Bongala was quite familiar with the background of this mission. Too familiar.
"Interfere?" Carter interjected with an annoyed tone. "Interfere?"
"This is not their war," he educated the doctors, "this is about our people." This from a military leader they were to later learn was not even a citizen of the Congo, but instead of Uganda, one of the border countries eager to get their hands on a piece of the pie. "There is a small contingent of American military off shore and we have been in contact with your CIA."
"The CIA? That's comforting," Carter uttered.
"What is important is that we found you." Proud of his accomplishments, the man was. "My own men were tracking you earlier but lost you over a ridge after a firefight."
"You were tracking us?" Luka's anger was steeping.
"You shot at us. You almost killed us." Carter, too, had fit the pieces of the puzzle together.
"I am sorry, but it is civil war here. It is not always easy to tell your friend from your enemy." The man was smooth, almost politically gracious.
"You think we might look a little different, huh?" Carter spewed. "Do you normally order your men to shoot at blind folded white men?"
"Carter, stop." Luka knew that this banter would be useless and potentially quite offensive to the man responsible for their safety from that point on. "Mr. Bongala, my friend here needs medical help, and we need to speak with a member of our State Department."
"Doctors, I have been instructed to take you across town. You'll ride in my truck, but you must keep your wits about you. The fighting has become intense. As for meeting with a representative of your country that will have to wait. The only foreigners here are relief workers and the occasional crazy media." They were ushered behind the building to an awaiting truck. "I believe arrangements have been made for you by your government, but you were expected to be released closer to Kinshasa, not Bunia."
They made their way through Bunia, the city seemingly collapsing around them, skirting around burning buildings and dodging factions of fighters as they darted across the roadways in between groups of refugees. For the first time since being taken captive, they were the guests in the actual cab of the truck while Bongala's men manned the truck bed and rode shot gun on the running boards. How they managed to hang on and skillfully handle their weapons as the truck weaved in and out at a wild pace was a mystery. When they finally got to their destination, a familiar face met them.
"I told you, you had a lot of lee-a-roady about ye." Sean threw his arms around the two, all three of them smiling ear to ear.
"In America we call that 'balls'!" Carter breathed a huge sigh and laughed.
Behind Sean was a large contingent of men wearing blue hats. U.N peacekeepers. "Dr. Carter, you don't look well, my friend."
"I've been worse," Carter spoke honestly, "believe it or not."
With his arm still around Sean, Luka took him aside. "He needs proper medical care. He has had seizures from dehydration and injuries - torture. Infection must be setting in by now."
"All in good time. Right now we have to get you out of the country and that will be tricky." Sean had a glint in his eyes. "Besides I have a surprise for you."
Carter sat on the broken piece of foundation watching the travesty of the civil war as it unfolded around him. Then something caught his eye. Children with guns, some bigger than them. There were groups of them and one… one had… a doll! Child soldiers with dolls? He stood up and instinctively tried to walk over to the closest group, although his cramping legs and back made him stop a few steps away.
Luka's attention drifted from Sean as he spied Carter get to his feet. "Carter?" He and Sean approached Carter who had a haunted look on his face. "What? What's wrong?"
"Are those…?" He struggled to grasp the concept even though it stood out in front of him. "Are those kids?" One boy, looking to be about eleven, hauled a grenade launcher behind him on a makeshift wagon.
Sean's jovial mood became somber. "Children are recruited, usually by force, to fight for the cause of their people."
"Why?" Luka asked.
Sean shrugged. "They follow commands better than adults. They're more easily intimidated and," he paused to take in the moment, "they are expendable."
The idea nauseated them, children with ammunition slung around their bodies next to their backpacks.
"They shot one boy dead in the streets last week when he cried over the body of his friend."
The three of them continued to watch the action from their safer vantage point, every now and then their ears picking up the innocent laughter from the little gangs of warriors.
"Where do they get them?" A lingering suspicion stabbed Luka.
"Usually from the streets. Many of them are orphans. It's popular to go right into the refugee camps and take the kids, boys or girls, doesn't matter. They try to recruit them, if you can call it that, around age eight."
Carter and Luka exchanged frightened looks.
"There she is." Sean turned his attention away from the two. "Luka…"
"Mbuto." Luka and Carter said it at the same time, their eyes fixed in the direction of the camp they left him at.
"Oh shit! Shit!" Carter's heart sagged.
"Dr. Carter, Luka, there is someone here to see you."
Carter turned around to see Toomay and her children.
"Luka." Carter tried in vain to get his attention as he walked away, instead turning to Sean, pleading. "We were given a boy by one of our captors. We thought he wanted us to take him to a refugee camp. Sean, we thought we were getting him to safety."
Luka started out running, Sean and then Toomay on his heels, but he was unable to get far.
Sean was a shorter man and had to put his body in front of Luka's to get him to stop, preventing him from running through the gunfire. "Luka, you can't do this. We have to get you out of here. Do you understand?" Sean was adamant as his hand turned Luka's face away from the children, forcing Luka to look at him instead.
"But… but… Mbuto is…" He was drained and emotionally spent. "Oh God, we just dropped him off like a package." Totally worn down, he threw his head back, tears welling in his eyes.
"Luka?"
A beautiful feminine voice caught his attention. When Luka finally dropped his head and glanced to his right he thought he was seeing things at first. Ahead of him somewhere was the boy he may have just placed into the hands of evil men. And standing next to him was the wife of his best friend - his friend who was lying dead up in the mountains. Most assuredly, she and Sean did not yet know of Joseph's fate.