POCKET CHANGE 2: A GAME OF CARDS
by Sharon R.

Chapter 15

Finally, they came upon three Ugandan soldiers who routinely guarded the camp. Pushing through them, Luka had to grab onto one of them to steady himself when he saw who lay bleeding on the ground in front of him.

"What happened?" he asked without looking up from the bloody mess in front of him.

"We had to shoot. No one is supposed to be here," one of the soldiers said. "This is a restricted area. Even people from the camp cannot be in here."

"This…" Luka stumbled as his fear and anger intertwined. He cocked his head, trying to avert his eyes, but it was almost like if he took his eyes off the man he would lose control of the situation and become…

"What, Dr. Luka?" Othiamba put his hand on the doctor's arm startling him from thought.

He continued his stare downward, but did nothing to help the man. "This is not someone from the camp," he said in a flat tone.

"We know. He's a rebel. Probably LRA. We shouted for him to stop, but he turned and put his hand in his pocket, so I shot at him." The soldier squatted down and checked on the man's condition. "He's still alive."

Luka's head remained down, his eyes unconsciously scoping things out left to right, right to left as a million thoughts raced through him. "No," he stated matter-of-factly without losing focus, "not LRA. Congolese."

"Doctor?" The soldier stood and tugged on Luka's shirt. "Doctor? He's still alive."

A sudden downpour, rain which was so needed, prompted the four Ugandan men to look up into the angry sky peeking through the large green leaves. Luka wasn't even phased, his breathing heavy and his face dripping with sweat. Nobody quite knew what to do next as they looked at Luka, the only sound being the giant raindrops flopping onto the large jungle leaves.

"Dr. Luka, we need to do something," Othiamba pleaded quietly.

"Jaysus. What the bloody hell is going on here?" Sean and Maggie made their way through the now drenched garland of jungle vines and shrubs. Pushing through all five men standing around, they knelt down on the ground to check out the patient.

"GSW, two that I can tell," Maggie announced. "What the fuck, Kovac? Get down here and help me pack off the bleeders."

Luka stood frozen as he contemplated what move to make next, only his thought process was a tad slow for the others at the moment. The early morning sky darkened as the brunt of the storm moved in, the thunder emitting a roaring continuous rumble before cracking wide open sending vibrations through the atmosphere.

Right behind Sean and Maggie were staffers with a litter to carry the wounded man back to the clinic. The soldiers helped Maggie load him up and even carried the patient back to the hanger. Luka followed as Maggie occasionally looked back at him, stumped as to his nearly withdrawn demeanor.

"Oh shit. We're toast." Carter winced as Colleen started to take the sling off of him. "Hey. HEY. What are you…"

"Shut up and just take off your t-shirt."

Carter had on an old worn button down Oxford loosely over his Alliance t-shirt which Colleen was trying to get to. Pretty soon she had him stripped down to his waist and was handing his t-shirt off to the rebel leader, 'leg-wound-guy', who got the hint and replaced his own black shirt for the white one with the Alliance logo.

"Great," Carter whined under his breath, "first we're aiding and abetting the enemy and now it's impersonating a doctor." Before putting his outer shirt back on, he quickly pulled out another surgical mask. Tying it around the man's neck and pulling it over his mouth and nose he added to the ruse by taking his own stethoscope and draping it around the rebel's neck. "If we're going to do this we might as well get it right," he snickered dryly.

They kept looking down the road as the line of soldiers got closer. The rebel leader was looking over Carter's scars as the doctor adjusted his mask. "You - soldier?" he asked as he reached out with his hand and barely touched Carter's midline incision scar.

"Me?" Carter flinched and looked down at his abdomen realizing what the rebel was thinking, then quickly put his Oxford back on. "Ah, not really…"

"Yes, a soldier. Doctor soldier," Colleen interjected hastily as she finished the costuming and set off back where they came from, alone.

"What are you going to do?" Carter asked.

"I'm not sure yet. But we'll get there. I'll try to distract them if they get nosey, but it'll look too posed if I'm with you." For the first time, Carter saw a nervous and not so confident Colleen as she rushed to get out of sight.

"Colleen," Carter called out as she disappeared back up the road a bit, "Colleen, you shouldn't be alone."

"I'm right behind you. Just go," she whispered loudly, then mouthed and waved her hand, "GO."

Carter pulled his own mask up over his nose and adjusted the stethoscope around the rebel's neck before giving the man's son on the other end of the litter a nod of approval, hoping the occasional tremble of his hands wasn't noticeable.

"Emile," the rebel told Carter looking him in the eyes apprehensively, "Emile dia Wamba."

"Emile?" Carter looked over the man's shoulders at his children who were obediently and expertly hiding the man's numerous weapons in the ground under a large log. "Nice to meet you… I guess."

"You, Carter?"

Carter nodded his head. "I can't believe I'm having this conversation," he said to himself as they started their trek back onto the road again.

Emile stopped abruptly and shouted to one of his daughters who went back into the jungle and came back with a tan vest, the same vest he had been wearing and was popular among rebels and Congolese soldiers alike. They reminded Carter of his grandfather's fishing vest.

Emile handed the vest to Carter and nodded, apparently insistent that he take it. They looked at each other quizzically at first before Carter decided to be a polite guest and accept it. Anything not to piss the guy off. He slipped the vest on and they continued on the road straight into the hands of the government soldiers.

Sera set up two peripheral IV lines and started cutting off the rebel's clothing. "What do you want to do with these?" she asked the soldiers standing by.

"If he lives we'll have to take him into custody. Just put his things in a box for now."

Sean picked up a large box of bandages and dumped them out on a nearby bed. As Sera cut away the clothing, Sean pulled off what he could and dumped it in the box, including a loaded pistol, a knife and a small backpack - all covered in blood.

Maggie rolled the man to his side and found one exit wound in the left middle of his back. "One's out and one's in, but at least he's still breathing," she said as she scrubbed her hands quickly before gloving up again. "that's about all that's going right for him now." As the man regained consciousness he moaned and reached out to Sera who dutifully patted his hand.

Luka was conspicuously uninvolved standing several feet away from the action, his arms crossed tightly in front of him, nervously biting at his lower lip.

"I could use some help here," Maggie shouted as she crossed in front of him on her way back to the patient, but he didn't budge. She backed up a few steps and tried again. "I don't know what the hell is wrong with you, but I can't do this by myself."

As Maggie got back to work, Sean purposely put himself in front of Luka trying to separate him from the trauma. "Luka, what is it?" Sean wasn't tall enough to get right in his face and Luka kept on staring at the action. "Luka," Sean finally yelled bringing the doctor's eyes and attention back to the Irishman, "you can't just stand here."

"Diminished on the left," Maggie called out moving her stethoscope to the man's abdomen. "He needs a chest tube."

"I've got it." Luka grabbed a pair of gloves and stepped to the patient's left side where Sera had begun prepping the man for a chest tube.

"About time," Maggie let out. "He's got bowel sounds, maybe, but I'd put good money on him bleeding internally, at least from his spleen or liver."

The man let out a scream as Luka cut through his flesh between the ribs.

"Hey Luka, at least he doesn't have an arm on that side to get in the way." Maggie joked at the missing appendage as Luka continued almost hyper focused on the job. "Ooh," she checked his mouth out, "and a lean dental count to match."

It was not a pretty procedure in any situation, but Luka put a little more force than was necessary behind the forceps pushing their way in through the chest cavity. The patient turned and looked at Luka and, through a moment of recognition as he glanced from the doctor's ID hanging around his neck to the face it belonged to, forced himself to stifle the grunts and cries of pain.

With the excess blood now flowing through the tube, the man's lung capacity had improved, but his face still was beat red as he fought back the urge to scream out. Luka had never been this close to him, or at least his face. Not that he knew of. He was there the day he and Carter were taken on the death march. For all he knew he was the one that put the bullet in Joseph's head. Either he or Mbuto's father. Another suture, nice… and… tight.

"Geez, Luka, not so rough." Maggie was making preparations for a peritoneal lavage.

"Luka," Sean asked from across the table seeing something in his friend that Maggie hadn't, "you know this man?"

Luka didn't answer, and instead finished suturing the chest tube in place as he and the man stole looks at each other. Not telepathy, certainly not mutual admiration. Perhaps mind games.

"Luka?" Maggie nudged him for an answer. "Do you know him?"

"I guess you could say we have a history." He didn't know if the man understood him or not. He didn't care either. "Carter has a permanent record of this man's work on his back. All over it." Luka threw the scissors and needle driver into the porcelain pan as he walked away from the table. "Sean, you need to make arrangements for him to get to the hospital in Gulu or Kampala. I'm done with him." He snapped his gloves off into a basin and drove through the swinging doors where he found himself standing in the rain.

Carter pulled his ID out from his shirt hanging around his neck and took notice of where on the card 'Uganda' was prominently featured. As they met up with the first group of government soldiers he quickly held it out to them, his finger neatly over his country of temporary residence, then shoved it back inside his shirt. The two soldiers spoke with each other and Carter in what sounded like French on acid. Carter could barely make out assorted nouns and verbs, much less complete sentences.

"Je ne comprends pas," he repeated two or three times. Then, "Je suis d'un médecin avec Alliance de Medecines Internationale. Um.. Ah…," Carter closed his eyes and pulled every bit of French from his exhausted brain as he could find. "S'il vous plaît, Je parle très peu le français. Nous allons en à l'hôpital." Correct or not, it's all he had.

The soldiers looked at each other, then Carter, then shifted to Emile looking him up and down, certainly suspicious. When they moved over to him, Carter used the last phrase he knew of hoping to find someone who spoke his language. "Est-ce qu'il y a quelqu'un qui parle anglais ici?" If he couldn't con someone in French, then he'd try it on someone in his own language. His pronunciation was putrid, but it was doable. The soldiers talked among themselves, finally waving forward another younger man of much lower rank.

"Who are you and where do you go?" he asked Carter.

"We are doctors," he barely got that lie out as he tried to maintain eye contact. Carter was glad the surgical mask hid his grimacing mouth. "This man is sick and we have to get to the hospital."

The young man translated and the two older soldiers quickly pulled the tarp away from the patient as Carter yelled for them to stop and get away. A flurry of French was thrown around again as the sick man's identity was discovered.

"He is one of our missing soldiers. Where did you find him?"

"On the side of the road this morning when we were treating this family." So far they were buying it. "But now we've all been exposed and we have to get to the hospital."

Suddenly, the soldiers stepped back and talked in private, stealing occasional suspicious looks at the group. Without warning, guns were readied and pointed at them and more soldiers came forward to relieve Emile and his son of the litter. Another soldier started frisking the men of the group. One even stripped off Carter's sling. It was not good.

Just as Carter spewed out, "Ebola… I think he has Ebola," Colleen came marching around the bend, camera in hand snapping pictures and taking notes.

"Hi guys, I'm from Reuters. Whatcha got?" Snap, snap, snap. "Oooh, this is good stuff." Snap, snap, snap. "Government soldiers working with volunteer docs to save one of their own." The young soldier translated as she continued. "This will make good front page stuff. Maybe even CNN."

"CNN," they chattered in French, all recognizing the TV news network that was so popular in Africa. "CNN… CNN."

Colleen walked in and around the group as though nothing bothered her. "Hi there, how ya doing," she occasionally tossed out as she gave a friendly pat here, a business-like handshake there. "Whew, he smells, eh?" she blurted as she walked near the litter, matter-of-factly pushing down the muzzle of an AK-47 that got in her way. "Man, he's bleeding from everywhere. Got yourself an Ebola case here doc? You didn't touch him, did ya?" she asked the soldiers, "I've read about this shit and it's nothing to fool with." She pulled out a pack of cigarettes and offered them around to the soldiers before lighting one up for herself and taking a long drag. "Great story though. Can I hitch a ride with you guys? You're taking them into town aren't you? No? Eh - that's okay, I can hoof it."

Looking directly at Emile and Carter while raising her eyebrows, shutter-bug Colleen followed the 'medical' team as they continued on their way all hoping the soldiers maintained their befuddled and stupefied manner.

"What are we doing?" Carter whispered to her as she brushed by him.

"Just walk. Don't talk."

But as fate would have it, they got no more than ten yards when the soldiers ran to them once again and ordered them to stop. Now they were in trouble.

Luka stood in the downpour, hands on his hips looking down at his feet. Life was moving by in slow motion again as he stared at the drops of water that slipped down his nose and hung there before finally falling onto his shoes. He counted them… twenty-three now. Every so often a drop would land like a bull's eye in the dead center of a dried blood droplet distorting the round edges from the inside out. His blood. 'Romano's'… Carter's Romano. Well if there was anything good about Carter and Colleen missing, it was that they chose that day to do it.

"Did a DPL and got a diffuse sample. If he has a bleed it could be resolving on it's own." Maggie put her fingers through her hair and let the water pour over her sweaty face. She didn't know if Luka heard her or was ignoring her. "His crit is on the low side but steady with fluids. Vitals good."

Luka slowly nodded his head acknowledging her.

"Paulette is scrounging around for some fresh scrubs."

Still no reaction.

"I think he'll be stable for transport and may even make it."

"Glad I could help," Luka dryly spoke to the ground before turning and taking the long way around the hanger to get to his room in the back. Before he could get far he was intercepted by Sean bounding down the steps of the Midway with his satellite phone.

"I keep getting cut off with the weather and all, but it doesn't look like we can transport our patient to a hospital outside of the camp."

"Roads out?" Maggie asked.

"No. No. Actually the hospitals won't take him. They are already admitting our serious refugee cases at their expense. They won't take a risk like that guy."

"We have to get him out of here," Luka finally spoke.

"We can't force the issue without jeopardizing the good will we've established with the hospitals," Sean explained. "Not for this bad egg."

"Get Bob. Tell him to pull his string." Luka's eyes pleaded with Sean, though his voice was tired and beginning to get horse. "This guy can't be here."

"He's out looking for Colleen and Carter. I'm sorry Luka, you'll just have to do whatever you can for him here."

"He's crashing."

Before they could see which nurse had called to them from the clinic, the hanger doors were flapping back and forth. All three ran back in to find the nurses squeezing the bags of IV fluids as hard as they could to keep his pressure up. He was conscious, barely.

"Okay folks, give me twenty of etomidate and a hundred of Sux. Draw for another Chem-7 and crit. I want a BP every five minutes until we've got the bleeding under control." Maggie spun the room like an expert trauma physician. "Come on people, let's get him prepped for an ex-lap." She knew that Luka was beyond discussion, and held little hope for his help. But before she could ask for any available nurse to step in, Luka was standing across the table from her, freshly scrubbed and gloved. Sera quickly held a gown open for him and tied a mask around his face before moving over to help Maggie who had finally intubated the patient.

Once they were convinced that the man was properly under anesthesia, Luka began his cut. Exploratory laparatomies weren't something they did although in a pinch with a text book standing by, they dredged up what they had stored in their memories from their surgical rotations and dug in. Like they had any other choice.

"Sera, drop an NG tube. What's his output from the foley?" Luka asked as he clamped off the bleeders.

"Not a lot, but it's clear."

By the time Luka had cut through the abdominal wall and put the retractors in place -one held by Paulette - the free blood oozed from around the organs. Putting his hand in and gently pushing the intestines aside, he was greeted by a standing pool of blood rising to flood stage and a putrid smell of bowel contents.

"Come on, come on, let's get this out of here," Luka ordered as one rag after another was put in and taken out. "Where's the bleeder?"

"Spleen's nicked but barely oozing." Maggie reported. "I'm not even going to touch it. Run the bowel?"

"No, that's the last thing we do. First, find the bleeders, then we worry about the bowel."

They stood on their feet for a couple hours before finally closing up. They'd found a blood clot and laceration in the liver which was sewn up but put optimism aside when they discovered that part of the large intestine had not only been nearly ripped apart, but necrosis had already begun to set in.

"Ever done an end to end anastomosis?" Maggie asked.

"No. Not on my own. I believe that was my first."

"I knew a vet once who would yell upstairs to his wife to bring down a ziti from their kitchen," Maggie regaled the staff as they sutured the incision and placed a couple of drains. "He'd slide each section of intestine over either end of the uncooked pasta tube and use the grooves to guide his needle. Some warm saline through the gut and - presto - ziti digests leaving one nice, neat section of intestine."

"Sounds like something you'd try," Luka teased.

"Yeah? I haven't seen any pasta here yet." She winked at him over her mask before pulling it, the gown and gloves away and tossing them in a bin.

"Is he going to live?" Sean asked as they stepped outside into the humid air. The rains had taken a break, but thunder and lightening was again creeping towards them. "What did you find?"

"Let's start with blood loss and go from there." Luka told him. "The bastard is going to use all of what we have left of antibiotics. Not sure if I can spare a lot of morphine."

"That's gone too? Didn't you just get some?"

"Yeah."

"We still have that shit going on?" Sean's furious Irish ire was now in full force. "Brilliant. Just brilliant." He paced around Luka before asking the question. "Are you all incredibly daft and unable to keep count, or are the supplies being lifted by someone straight under your noses?"

Luka rubbed the back of his neck and tried to get a word in edgewise. "Sean, I…"

"You do realize the consequences should we find that someone from this camp - one of our own - is stealing supplies?"

"Sean…"

"Even narcotics, no less?"

"Yes, I…"

"We WILL lose this camp."

Once again, Carter and the totally hapless 'medical corps' was held at gun point by the Congolese government soldiers. There seemed to be a fair amount of discussion going on as fingers pointed at Carter, Colleen, the patient and at the road in both directions. French, Lingala as well as at least two other languages were being thrown around.

"Bunia?" Carter asked Colleen. "Are they saying Bunia?"

"Yeah, at least ten times. We're not that far away."

Emile confirmed Colleen's translation by nodding in the direction of the road as it took them down hill.

"I've been here before," Carter let out quietly, almost to himself as he looked around and confirmed his feelings.

"What?" Colleen asked not sure if she heard right.

"I know the way, unfortunately." Carter thought the hair-raising and uncanny feelings he had been getting since they got off the trucks were coincidence. Now he knew they weren't. Standing next to Emile, but away from Colleen, he tapped him on the shoulder as the soldiers carried on with their argument. "Let me ask you something," he said almost in a whisper knowing that it was unlikely that Emile would understand. "Do you know Jules Akonda-Bouche?"

"Jules. Oui!" he said enthusiastically.

Well, that was a moment deserving of a large gulp of air.

"Good man or bad? Bon ou mauvais?" Why not find out where he stood, Carter thought.

"Oh, oui. Il est très bon," he told Carter excitedly, "et très, très mauvais."

"Well, glad we nailed that one down."

The young soldier walked up to the group as the guns were lowered to the ground. "My commander has liberated two of our trucks to take you to the hospital in Bunia. Of course once there your responsibilities with this soldier will be done."

Once again they piled into trucks and bumped over the pot holed roads until they made it to the Bunia hospital. It seemed to Carter that the same long lines of displaced people walked in and out of the town, and they all still wore the same worn out, defeated looks on their faces. Death still lined the sides of the road where the bodies were buried, and the littlest of soldiers - the children - were still armed and fighting for their lives, day to day.

At the hospital they were met by a large group of workers dressed in the standard issue protective gear distributed by the World Health Organization for suspected cases of Ebola. The appearance of the doctors and nurses in space suits scared the little ones who clung to their mother and older siblings.

Carter and Colleen were kept under guard in a room with two beds for the rest of the night. They were treated quite nicely, given protective medication and while they were sleeping, someone left them trays of food.

They'd only been asleep for about an hour when Carter's agitated tossing and turning woke Colleen up. She sat on her bed watching him as he obviously wrestled himself within a dream. Finally his eyes flew open and he sat up in a panic, sweating profusely, his arm trembling as it bore the weight of his upper body as he relaxed and leaned back.

"You do this every night?" she asked him.

"Only when I'm sneaking around blood hungry rebels in the middle of a civil war."

"You're shaking," she said, stating the obvious. "You okay?"

"Haven't eaten in a while." They opened the trays and ate what looked appetizing. As much as they were hungry, the food just didn't do it for them.

"Why do you do this?" he asked her.

"What?"

"Constantly push to get the story. Who are you trying to please?"

Colleen shook her head as she sat cross legged on her bed. "And you? Who are you trying to please?"

Carter chuckled a little as he laid down and rubbed his eyes. "I stopped trying to please my folks a long time ago."

"Yeah? What'd it take?"

Carter put the tray back on the table across from him before getting back into bed. "A quaint little out of the way place called Rock Bottom. Ever been there?"

"No." She turned on her side ready to get a couple hours in. "I saw it on the map, thought I may have passed through there, but I'm too controlling to let that happen."

"Believe me. You'll know the place when you get there. Nothing fuzzy about it." He closed his heavy eyes. "Doing my best to stay away."

A knock on the door preceded the several men who opened it only by seconds as Colleen and Carter awoke to a misty sunrise outside their window. Between two UN soldiers in the front a familiar face broke through, his hand outstretched to Carter.

"Fancy meeting you again, Dr. Carter."

"I remember you, but…" Carter grasped at his memories and found Thomas Bongala sitting somewhere between Ikela and Bunia.

"Yes, I am a UN peacekeeper. Last time I met you was in the summer after your month of…"

"Oh yes," Carter finally returned the handshake. "Here on business?"

Bongala and the men laughed as it became obvious to Carter that they were here for him, and Colleen.

"A mutual friend has dispatched me to find you two and get you back safely to the border." They ushered the two out of the hospital to an awaiting truck taking them on yet another journey, this time in comfort up front. They weren't taken to the same bridge they crossed the day before, but instead to a more official looking crossing manned by UN peacekeepers on both sides. No IDs were checked, just a lot of talking and pointing as Carter and Colleen crossed the long cement bridge alongside cargo trucks and the occasional car or pick-up truck. A bright flash of lightening welcomed them as they entered back into Uganda and were met by yet another familiar face.

"Hello children," Bob smirked leaning against his SUV. Lightening's friend, Mr. Thunder rumbled then cracked, sending a vibration straight through Carter. Soon enough the rain came down in sheets soaking the three of them. "Car keys please."

Carter dug around in his pack before handing Bob the keys to the Rover which he then tossed to a couple of men to the side in another vehicle. "Get in."

They were too tired to argue as Colleen sat shot gun and Carter took the back seat.

"You've got a whole lot of people worried about you."

Yep. No argument there. Carter was sure that there would be hell to pay - both Irish and Croatian, as well as whatever variety Maggie was going to deal them. That was all Bob had to say on their more than three hour drive to Pakwach. Within a mile of the camp, he stopped.

"Get out," he ordered. Pulling up behind them was the Rover, driven by Bob's friends. "You left the camp alone, and that's the way you're going to return. No need to stir anything else up."

"Thank you… ," Carter barely got out before Bob pulled away with the other two men leaving him and Colleen on their own. They drove into camp and parked behind the hanger sitting a moment by themselves in their own thoughts before getting out and heading to the Midway. There inside, Sean, Maggie and Luka sat drinking coffee, and it looked like they had been drinking a lot of it.

The screen door slammed shut behind them as Sean got to his feet. "You two okay?" he asked.

"Yeah."

"Yeah."

"Good, because I may just have to make applesauce out of ye."

Luka's stares were like acid. He and Maggie were covered in blood. Just covered. And they looked like hell.

"Luka… ," Carter started.

"Being deceived," Luka spoke looking between the two, "kills the soul."

The silence certainly imitated death, and Carter felt like his friendship with Luka was about to mimic agonol breathing: one gasp, then another before no more life.

"Doctors," Sera yelled through the door, "we're losing him."

Maggie and Luka bounded from their seats and brushed by the arrivals, Maggie almost pushing Carter down. When they got to the door of the hanger, Luka stopped and turned around, putting his arms out to each side blocking Carter and Colleen.

"No. You stay out here. Both of you."

"I can help," Carter offered, but he was met only with Luka's stern face and strong arm at the door.

"Go away, don't come in. Do you understand?"

Carter looked stupefied at Luka. "What the hell…"

"Do - you - understand?"

Luka finally went back to his coding patient leaving Colleen and Carter outside.

"He'll be okay." Colleen leaned her head up against the doorframe.

"I don't know. He can hold a grudge."

With another simultaneous flash of lightening and crash of thunder, the skies opened up again, and without thinking Carter and Colleen pushed the doors open and walked right into the clinic - right into Luka and Maggie putting all of their effort and energy into resuscitating a patient. Luka's back was to them performing CPR, pumping away. As Carter got closer he noticed the patient's left arm was amputated - certainly not a recent procedure.

"Just call it, Luka," Maggie breathlessly let out, "his pupils are blown."

Stepping down from the stool he'd been on to get a better position, Luka wiped his sweat covered brow with his upper arm before turning around and coming face to face with Carter who had just recognized the exposed patient.