POCKET CHANGE 3: HIDE and SEEK
by Sharon R.

Conclusion, Part 2
"My Friends Call Me Bob"

"What the…?" Max threw open the blinds and opened one of the sliding doors leading to the top deck from the living room. "What are all those people doing down there?"

"Look who came for a visit, boys and girls." Ellington appeared at the top of the stairs with Amanda and pushed her towards Anna. "You baby sit the little waif while I get our other visitor." Back down the stairs and a moment later he was back up dragging Bob to the cluster of captives. Throwing him to the center of the room where Amanda immediately went to her father's aid, Ellington made sure his gun was front and center. "Now we're going to play some hard ball. Max… Max. What the hell are you doing out there?"

"There's a bonfire on the beach. You can't do that. It's illegal up here."

"Tell them to go away."

"The beach is public, Max," Anna reminded him. "You can't do that."

"There must be twenty people and… is that a… a keg?"

"Wishing you got an invitation, party boy?" Bob asked as he sat on the floor rubbing his wrists.

"You can always call Beach Patrol." Anna moved towards the phone, though stopped when Bob's gun happened to point in her direction.

"Where is Alex?" Bob whispered to Amanda who shrugged.

"What?" Carter awoke from the sofa where he had found a comfortable spot, face down. "Are the kids here? Ouch…" Hugging the pillow his head was propped on, Carter winced as the cuts from the curio cabinet explosion rubbed against his shirt.

"I wish you would just let me check him out." Anna felt helpless as she was made to stand away from Carter.

"He's not bleeding to death, is he?" Max argued with her. "The blood has barely soaked through a few spots. Get a grip, Anna."

"What is wrong with you?"

"I'll tell you what's wrong -"

"Alright, Mr. and Mrs. Bickerson, take your corners and leave the fighting to me." Ellington moved between the warring couple putting his hand around the barrel of Max's gun. "If you're going to subject me to DT's, withdrawal, seizures, or… whatever, don't be pointing that thing at me."
-----

Luka and Sam walked several houses north to access the beach from another boardwalk. The sand under their feet made the descent down the stairs tricky preventing them from getting secure footing on the dry wood planks. They stayed close to the dunes as they spied Anna's house in the distance just in case the beach was being scoped out from above. It was dark, though the moonlight cast a reflective repose on the calm waters at low tide and the two stood out among the few beach strollers as their obvious stroll away from the surf, single file hugging the dunes with no lanterns, with shoes on, was odd.

They stopped short of the beachfront they had become accustomed to when a large group of partiers whooping it up around a bonfire came into view.

"What do we do?" Sam asked as she came up behind Luka.

"Just go. Go up the stairs. Mrs. Bernard said something about distractions."

Nobody even looked at them as they headed up the steep staircase, then exited the planks before the boardwalk leading to Anna's carport entrance began. As they hunkered down among the sea oats on the dunes they ceased talking at that point, and instead Luka conveyed his thoughts to Sam by mouthing words and using his hands. She carefully walked on the rugged weed strewn sandy area until she had made it to the cement pad of the carport. This is where their primitive communication failed to be 100 percent successful.

The weight of the gun took her by surprise as she pulled it out of Alex's backpack she had brought with her. Holding it with two hands back at the house was one thing, but now as she opened the door with her left hand, she struggled to maintain a decent grip of the gun in her right. Very slowly, very methodically, she opened the bedroom and bathroom doors on the basement level only to find them empty. She slid right past the darkened laundry room without even thinking to open those doors.
-----

Ellington walked in tight circles around his victims, concentrating on Bob and Amanda, stalling every now and then to leer at Anna and snicker at Carter. "I've got places to go, people to see, folks," he sneered. "I know the games you play, Bob, and you don't fool me. See, I know that the others you sent packing can't be far. Little Junior Miss here didn't just walk in from the mainland," he surmised as he stroked her hair, "did you?"

Amanda wasn't the naïve little girl her delicate features portrayed, and when she whipped her head around and nailed his hand with her teeth, she proved the point. Ellington's scream lagged behind his gaping mouth as she took him by surprise. He raised his hand into a back swing and prepared to whack her hard across the face, but stopped short, his fuming ire uncharacteristically trapped within the confines of his vein popping, reddened neck.

Before Ellington could continue with his choreographed interrogation, a noise downstairs distracted him. His eyes widened and went to Bob, first, then the rest with a "make-a-noise-and-I'll-kill-you" look, before handing the helm over to Max and slipping silently down the front staircase. It wasn't long before he was joined back in the living room by a very reluctant Sam. With one gun in his hand, Sam's in his waistband, Ellington held her by her scalp, his fist full of her hair. She wasn't about to defy his instructions.

"Now one little monkey is all we have left to catch, and I bet he's not far behind. They do travel in packs don't they?"

"Clans," Amanda corrected him, her eyes squinting at him.

"What?"

"Clans, stupid. They travel in clans. Don't you know anything?"

"She's a smart girl," Bob said as he patted her on the back. "That's my princess."

"I'm pretty smart too," Ellington said as he steered Sam towards the sliding doors with his hand still firmly nested tightly in her hair, "and I say we start trading. Diamonds for lives. You're a reasonable mother, dedicated nurse…"

"More like dedicated mother and reasonable nurse," she spouted back.

"Ah, semantics," he laughed off, "and you're feisty. I like that."

"I bet you do."

"Hmmm… counting down from ten is just so boring. I think I'll start at… six." With almost a carefree and maybe amused look on his face, Ellington raised his gun to Sam's head. "Six, five… how about those diamonds… four, three…"

"No!" Bob stood and forcefully placed himself between Sam and the gun. "I told you, the diamonds aren't here. I'm the only one who knows where they are."

Tightening his already fierce grip on Sam's scalp, Ellington pushed his loathsome face into hers. "Is that true, Nurse Ratchet?"

The pain from her hair being nearly torn from her head only allowed Sam to vaguely nod, but she managed to at least mouth her answer as well.

"That changes things, doesn't it?" he said as he let Sam go with a shove and instead grabbed hold of Bob. "The whole world can do without you. Face it, Bob, there's nothing left for you at the agency."

"He has me," Amanda tearfully cried as she ran to her father but was stopped by Anna who pulled her aside into her arms.

"Even that's debatable from what I understand."

"Tell me something," Bob asked trying to change the subject, "you and Arkwright were working together in the Middle East, weren't you?" Ellington let Bob go on. "If I assume correctly, the reason you beat my ass out of there wasn't because my safety and covert status was in jeopardy. More like I was getting too close to who the mole was in the agency - and who the outside American source was that was funneling illegal terrorist state money into offshore American corporate accounts." Ellington sniggered at the assumptions. "And would there possibly be connections with certain government officials who dabble in corporations on the side? How much blood money were you paid for that job?"

Ellington erupted and backhanded Bob with his gun before getting on the floor and snarling in his face. "You're lucky the safety was on and none of your joker friends here got capped. Now, get up."

"You're losing your touch, El," Bob said as he caught a glimpse of Luka lurking outside the sliding door. Amanda, too, noticed and followed her father's lead, playing cool to Ellington. As Bob got to his feet he feigned injury and gradually hopped over towards the screen that he and Luka had previously torn open, where the doctor now prowled just out of sight.

The side of the house was familiar to Luka. His back had hugged the shingles in that same place before, except his target at that time was outside on the deck. This time he knew he would have only one shot, and two men were holding guns inside. He'd have to act fast, with precision, and hope against hope that Carter and the rest could disarm Max just as sharply. Even though the door was slid open exposing the screen shabbily stuffed back into the creases, the crash of the surf drowned out the voices. He did know that Bob had seen him. He also knew that his heart was beating twice as fast as it should. He could have sworn his shirt was moving in time with his heartbeat.

Taking a deep breath, Luka peaked around the corner one last time and connected eyes with Amanda who simply dipped her chin once in recognition, then turned her attention back to the two men in front of her. Luka took this as a good sign and pushed his entire body through the screen toppling Bob and Ellington to the floor. Once again, there were three men in the pile, only this time Luka had some help and between he and Bob, they wrestled the gun away from Ellington. While Luka sat on their now prisoner, Bob frisked him down and removed a plethora of weapons. But all was not safe - not yet.

"Don't do this Max," Anna pleaded as Max's nerves started getting the better of him, the gun pointed first at Carter, then the men on the floor, at Sam, but never at Anna. "This isn't you. You're a brilliant doctor - you heal people, not hurt them." She may have exaggerated a bit, but she knew she was right.

"Max, listen to me," Carter said quietly as he approached the loan gunman from the side, "I can help you, I don't have much, but I have some sleeping pills that might take the edge off your withdrawal. Hmm?"

Max's eyes squeezed open and shut, his mouth tried to get out a stuttered string of words but it was just too much.

"We can help you," Anna added. "We know what you need."

"I know what you're feeling," Carter said, sincerely. "You need help. We can help each other if you just put the gun down."

Not wanting the moment to be ruined, Bob covered Ellington's mouth with his hand nearly cutting the oxygen off, not really caring if he did, except for the fact that Amanda would see it.

"You… you…," Max's grip loosened as he struggled to stay coherent, "you have stuff?"

Anna reached out to him, putting her hand on his shoulder while Carter relieved him of the gun, "we have stuff."

As soon as the guns were out of reach of Max and Ellington, Sam blurted out, "where is Alex? I don't see him."

"Down in the laundry room, "Amanda said. "They locked us in there."

"Go, Sam," Luka shouted as he helped Bob to secure Ellington, "I'll be right there."

She had walked right by him and never bothered to look in the laundry room. She was sick with fear as she yanked several times at the wedged doors, finally breaking them open, several of the louvered slats falling loudly to the tile floor below. Alex was asleep on a pile of clothes, barely awakening as Sam shook him. "Alex? Come on, honey, please wake up."

"I'm fine," Alex moaned. "Ten more minutes."

"Sam?" Luka had finally made it and, without much thought, picked Alex up in his arms and took him up to the living room. "He needs sugar," he said to anyone who was close to the kitchen. "Juice, candy, anything."

"I've got your glucometer, Alex," Sam said as she opened his backpack and took out the supplies. Her voice shook with fear, her trembling fingers unable to put the lancet in the lancet pen.

"I can do that," Amanda said as she took the lancet from Sam. "He taught me how to do it. I bet his number will be somewhere between forty and fifty."

Sam smiled and watched the girl as she skillfully loaded the lancet pen, then pricked the side of Alex's finger. Without much effort she squeezed his finger until she milked out a hefty droplet of blood onto the test strip, then loaded it into the machine. "Forty-two. Okay, on the low end of my estimate, but still within the range. He needs sugar."

"Thank you, doctor," Luka said with a grin, handing Alex the food he needed. "Send us a bill?"

"Oh no," she answered waving her hand in the air, "consider this pro bono."

Through the night, the men took turns watching the stoned Max and irritable Ellington now handcuffed to the plumbing downstairs. As the children slept, Bob went through all of Amanda's digital pictures and loaded them onto his laptop, all within sight of his daughter on the sofa. He knew she must have heard what he said about her mother. He had always built Colleen up to be a hero in Amanda's eyes. He wanted her to have pleasant memories of her mother. Now she knew the truth and she would carry that burden with her for the rest of her life just as Colleen had when she learned the truth about her own father. Some things just don't skip generations.

"What's the date?" Carter asked in the morning.

"May tenth." Anna glanced at the calendar and saw that her time on the Outer Banks was coming to an end, in more ways than one. "Why?"

"I've got an idea. Bob, what if we go public with this information?"

"It's illegal to out a covert CIA agent."

"Arkwright's not CIA."

"He's AKMW," Luka answered as he slugged back some orange juice from the carton before throwing the empty box out. "Ass kissing money whore."

"I know Arkwright probably better than you,"Carter thought out loud. "He'll use the American press to ruin our lives if we don't do anything."

"Yeah, well, he owns the press," Bob answered.

"Not all of the press."

"What are you getting at?" Bob asked, quite interested in Carter's plan at this point.

"We need to get to Washington D. C. - today."

"Are we leaving before fourteen hundred hours?" Alex asked from over the sofa where he had parked himself with his Gameboy.

"Why?" Bob was now getting credible information from the least likely source.

"Because that's when Ellington's minions are supposed to return."

"Minions?" Bob asked not wanting to diminish the boy's information. "How many?"

"Two very big guys."

"My SUV is gone," Luka reminded them. "How will we all get there?"

"Take Max's precious Escalade," Anna offered. "Dirty it up, kick the panels and make sure you key it good."

A phone call later and Mrs. Bernard was at the door, a weapon protruding from her shawl. "Where are those scallywags?" Following Carter's pointed finger up the stairs, she found Ellington on the floor handcuffed to the plumbing.

"Oh, Christ," he mumbled, "not the old neighbor lady again."

"You spent time in Congo I presume," she said quite calmly, Ellington catching on quickly that her previous appearance was an award winning act. "I was wondering, on t'a bercé trop près du mur?"

"You're funny, old lady."

"Mmm, et tu as une plus petit noeud!"

Luka could be heard laughing from upstairs as Sam looked on puzzled. "Did she comment on his… his reproductive organ?"

"Very much so," Luka answered, still getting a rise from the woman's comment.

"Okay, off with you. I will stay here with these two until I can find someone to take care of…" As she swayed sideways, Mrs. Bernard clutched at her chest.

"What is it?" Anna asked. "Your heart?"

"Just some angina. I had some earlier."

"And you took your medicine?"

"Yes, but it's never happened like this."

Anna and Carter helped her to a chair where they checked her pulse. "We need to get you to the hospital," Anna said.

"No, no - Luka and John have a mission to complete and I won't stand in your way."

"I will take you," Anna said, grabbing her purse from the banister.

"You can't separate from the group - not alone," Bob reminded her.

"I'll go too." Sam helped Mrs. Bernard to her feet as Anna managed her other side. "We can meet you there. We have the address."

Luka and Carter looked helplessly at their women and then at Bob for answers. "They should be okay," Bob reassured them. "They'd be looking for me and I'll be long gone by the time they get back on track. You two go ahead."

Before they left, Bob made one last check of his prisoners. "Going to tie Max up?" he asked as Carter looked over the sleeping addict.

"Nah. They'll kill him. He just needs to get on with his life. I'll leave him a little present for when he wakes up." Drawing up a dose of Demerol into a syringe, he carefully laid it on the nightstand with the empty vial. "Enough to take the edge off and give him a few more hours sleep, not enough to do him in."

As they walked past the cuffed Ellington, the man stuck out his foot to get their attention. "They won't believe you. Two doctors - one a foreigner, the other an addict. Not very credible. Arkwright will make them laugh at you with a flick of the wrist." Getting no response, he tugged against the cuffs. "Hey, a man has to go to the bathroom, you know. You gonna make me pee my pants?"

"Yeah?" Carter said sarcastically as he emptied a flower vase and put it on the floor just out of reach. "I know a lot about that too. Enjoy."

"I'm bored," Alex whined as they got in the Escalade. "No books, no movies, nothing."

"I can tell you a story about a star named Rigel," Carter said as he sat between the two kids in the back seat. "He couldn't wait to be a bright, shining star. But the big guy, Betelgeuse, told him that he was too fast on his points and was more suited to be a shooting star, but Rigel didn't listen…"

As they stepped out of the vehicle at the hotel and turned it over to the valet, Luka notice the blood stains on the back of Carter's shirt. "You can't go in there like that."

Amanda, seeing the stains herself, took off the tan vest and held it out to Carter. "Go ahead, take it. It's yours anyway."

"I can't," he said as he floundered a bit with the thought of ever wearing something like that again. Anna's touch on his arm helped to bring him back to earth and realize the need to disguise what had happened at the beach house and he reluctantly donned the vest for the first time since Pakwach… and Colleen.

"My name is Dr. John Carter. I called earlier," Carter said to the gentleman in the tuxedo outside the ballroom. "Mr. Jeffrey Alton Dutton is expecting me."

The man picked up a clipboard from his desk and carefully looked through the names. "I'm sorry, Dr. Carter, but I don't have you here on the list and the program has already started."

"Are you Dr. Carter?" A voice asked from a well groomed man in a tuxedo coming from the room. "I had made arrangements to have another journalist accept CJ's award, but when you called an hour ago I was pleasantly surprised. You've taken a very nervous friend of mine off the hook. Welcome." The two men shook hands as the National Press Club President eyed Carter's entourage. "Are these your… people?"

Carter laughed. "No, actually these are my colleagues, Dr. Luka Kovac…"

"Ah, yes," Dalton interrupted, "I remember your picture from your, um, unfortunate kidnapping incident in Africa."

"And this is Dr. Robert Romano," he lied giving Bob a cover. "And his children of course."

Amanda eagerly put her arms around her father, well in character, but Alex needed some nudging from Luka to do the same. A happy picture of father and children all wrapped up in a perfect bow.

"We are about to introduce the Capa award," Dalton whispered almost apologetically. "Did you bring a change of clothes?"

Luka and Carter instinctively looked over their attire and felt their just as mismanaged unshaven faces. "We wanted to come dressed as we would be in Africa… at the camps... for effect… you know."

"Ah… very creative," the man said quite impressed. "This will make your presentation much less of a snore fest than the journalists and politicians out there are used to."

"I'm sure we'll make quite an impression," Luka spoke up. "We're waiting for our lady friends, Dr. Del Amico and Samantha Taggart, if you could look out for them."

"…it is with great pleasure…"

"Get started with your presentation," Bob told them quietly back stage, "and then Amanda and I will slip out. Don't worry, I'll take good care of our cargo - every last carat."

"…that I introduce to you, two of CJ Reilly's favorite subjects. Drs. John Carter and Luka Kovac."

With firm handshakes, Carter and Luka said good bye to Bob. As Carter first made his way to the podium on the stage, Amanda tugged on Luka's shirt and crooked her finger at him to bend down. "I have something for you," she whispered in his ear. Reaching in her pocket she pulled out Mbuto's coin and put it in his hand. "You saved my dad's life." Her smile and sparkling eyes were all Luka needed to encourage him on stage in front of all those people. They would be putting on some show.

"Hello, my name is John Carter, this is Luka Kovac, and our friend here with the laptop is Alex. He's much more adept at the computer thing than we are." The audience laughed as Carter slowly relaxed into speaking mode. "People ask why we do what we do. Why we went back to the continent where we had been kidnapped and tortured. The answer is simple: to make sure that we don't lose sight of our tickets." Carter nodded to Alex who started a projected slide show. The first picture up, a photo of Joseph that Luka had carried with him. "I once knew a real hero named Joseph who said, everybody is born with a ticket to the pearly gates in their pocket. Just make sure you don't lose it among all that loose change. He had a college degree, spoke four languages yet, he stayed behind in his war torn country to help his people. He wanted his children to learn how to better themselves and promote humanity, not accept oppression."

Stepping aside, Carter let Luka take the helm. "I don't feel the need to define my life by the mountains I have taken. To me, I measure my personal credibility by what I have not done, instead of what I have accomplished. Joseph lived that philosophy up until the day the rebels shot him in the head while the three of us were kneeling on the jungle floor blindfolded." The room was a hush as the journalists were hearing information that had, up until then, been kept secret. "We met Colleen Reilly on our return to Uganda. She marched into the refugee camp - lightening in the distance, a dust storm clouding the air. She was the only one in the bug infested jungle who wore shorts, and those bugs were scared of her too." As he smiled, those who knew Colleen's tenacity laughed along with him. "She took pictures of the people who worked at our camp and volunteered their time - volunteered their lives in some cases, and made it a matter of record when she published them in various newspapers and magazines." The slide show flipped through several pictures of the camp including Sean, Sera, Buzby, Toomay and her children, the mission workers and Todd. "On a good day, Africa manages to spend eleven cents per person in refugee camps while we in the developed world make sure that other countries receive enough money to spend almost two dollars a day per person. Thousands of people die every day in Africa from starvation and preventable or treatable diseases, yet the world is treated to twenty four hour a day newscasts of movie stars in court, or politicians' private sexual affairs. The African people are considered disposable because no one has deemed them valuable enough to document. You can see by these pictures how Colleen spent most of her time. Most, but not all."

"She worked with everyone and anyone. Doctors, nurses, soldiers, rebels…" Carter paused and looked up through the blinding lights pointed at him only to make out the images of Arkwright and Ellington standing at the back of the ballroom. "She would stop at nothing to get a story…" He looked out again and saw that Arkwright was holding Anna, and Ellington had Sam by the arm. The two breaths he took and seemingly clammed up pose gave the audience pause as they waited for more.

Bob was getting ready to slip out when he noticed Carter's sudden stall, then Luka's panicked look. He had a feeling - right in his gut - and without much effort his eyes also located the women obviously held against their will, probably as hostage for information meant to be kept quiet. Bob swallowed hard, asked the stage hand to get something for him, then walked on stage with Amanda in tow.

"Hello everyone," he said into the microphone as Carter and Luka stepped back. The two tried to get Bob to leave, worried about his cover, but were brushed off in typical Bob fashion. "My mother named me Vivian. Colleen - CJ - loved to tease me about that. My real name is Vivian Mark Pace. Until about a minute ago I was a life long covert CIA agent, and yes, I have just blown my own cover." The room was a buzz with whispers, cell phones and blackberries suddenly appeared on table tops and Bob simply waited for the shock to subside. "My friends call me Bob and I was briefly married to Colleen. Together we were blessed with this beautiful child." Bob put his arm around the timid Amanda and coaxed her to his side for people to see. "You can see that she shares CJ Reilly's genes." The audience chuckled again, but now it was more apprehensive as they waited for the next shoe to drop.

Bob leaned over to Alex and handed him a disc for the laptop. "I have pictures that I had saved for my daughter of her mother's work. I'd like to share them with you." While Alex inserted the disc and worked to get the new slideshow up and running, the stage hand brought out an overhead projector. "Remember these things?" Bob joked. "Come on, you can't tell me that none of you were in the A.V. club at school." Another chuckle made its rounds in the audience. Reaching in his shirt pocket, Bob pulled out several Polaroid pictures and put them on the lighted projector. "CJ took these pictures of refugees not for money - not for notoriety - but to give these folks a sense of identity." He placed about a dozen of them down, layering them on top of each other and put the last one in the middle. "This one is of an old man looking at his own picture for the first time. Imagine living a lifetime and never seeing your image. I don't know, maybe it's a cruel dichotomy or maybe it's about people who don't care about what people think of them. The simple life - that's all these people want."

Nodding at Alex, the new slide show began. "These are pictures never before seen. I didn't know until recently that CJ carried a small digital camera with her. This was her personal camera. She would share her job with her daughter when they were together, but she also documented things that were never meant to be seen. She had a way of hiding things and this particular memory card was taped to the side of the camera."

Pictures started flashing across the screens, all new to Carter and Luka. Pictures of Emile Dia Wamba and his family, Carter sewing up his leg, and their trip to the hospital. "There is a peaceful man by the name of Emile DiaWamba working with the different warring factions in Congo. He is the only man the Lendu militia and their rival Hema militia will listen to. The people trust him, they have reason to. But those from the outside who seek only to profit from the natural riches of the country will have you believe otherwise. You see, sometimes journalists get so caught up in their work that they fail to see how easy it is to be used."

More pictures came up, the hut they were kept captive in, the 'Romano' rebel holding his machete blade to the ground under his boot while sharpening it with his one arm. The most disturbing one being of Carter hanging by his arms, a sack over his head, Jules by his side. The only way she could have taken that picture is if… Carter closed his eyes and looked away. He really didn't want to know.

"These pictures are hard to see, especially for my friends here. Maybe we'll never know why she took them, but I saw a sign out front that said, if your pictures aren't good enough, you aren't close enough. I want to believe that Amanda's mother got herself into places nobody else could so that she could document the unseen, the unthinkable." Amanda held her father's hand and gave it a squeeze. "But there's more."

Whispering to Alex, several pictures were skipped in favor of a few he wanted to highlight not for the audience, but for Ellington and Arkwright. "These are pictures she took on the last night of her life," he said somberly. Bob glanced at Luka knowing this would hit him hard. "Once upon a time in the Mbandaka Region of the Congo, a brutal rebel leader held a private celebration for those in his inner circle - those who made money for him, who made money from him and who in general tortured and killed for him."

Ellington and Arkwright visibly became slightly unhinged as the first picture appeared on the many screens. Way in the background, behind and to the side of the campfire, a man was shaking hands quite joyfully with another man. With each click of the button, a new slide appeared of the very same picture but they successively zoomed in on those two men finally making it apparent that one was the very well known, feared and dead Jules Akonda-Bouche. As Bob stayed silent, the journalists and politicians in the audience shifted forward on their chairs as they quickly realized that the man making a deal with Jules was none other than their own Arkwright. "Now, I can't identify the thirdman sitting next to Jules as it would be a felony for me to uncover his identity as a covert field agent," he said pointing to the blurred out face of a man sitting on a log. "It's funny how he always wears the same dark green pants and khaki shirt, though."

Pulling his hand out of his pocket, Bob held his fist in front of him. "I bet you were wondering what they were all doing at that party. Charades? Nah. Twister? Nah. How about illegal trade of narcotics and diamonds." With that he pushed the Polaroids off the glassed top of the overhead projector and opened his fist letting the diamonds trickle out for all to see. "Ever see African blue diamonds? They can fetch up to half a million dollars a carat." Bob whistled for effect as he feigned being impressed. "Colleen found herself in the middle of the biggest corruption story in the world and was saving her cache for the right time. Unfortunately, that night Akonda-Bouche's world collapsed around him and he took Colleen Reilly with him. She hid these diamonds away where one of these doctors or her daughter could find them and put them to good use. Maybe even discover the real story. I don't doubt that that will happen." Looking up he saw that Anna and Sam were still being held. "If we could shine a light on the audience, I would like to draw your attention to two wonderful health care workers who give of themselves every day together with our doctors here on the stage. How about a hand." Two spotlights were spun around and immediately glued to the four folks at the back of the room who looked painfully out of place, except for Arkwright who had on his tuxedo. Ellington, true to form donned his green pants and khaki shirt. As the audience clapped for Anna and Sam, they also realized who they were looking at and whipped their heads back and forth from the picture on the screens to the two men who reflexively let go of the women.

Carter and Luka, Bob and the kids exited the stage without fanfare as the audience rose to see secret service agents in the room, there to protect a former president, approach Arkwright and Ellington. Anna and Sam rushed out of the ballroom and back in through the backstage doors into the arms of their loving men.

"Yuck," Alex whined. "Tone it down, will ya. There are kids present."

"O-positive," Amanda whispered in his ear.

"What?"

"My blood type. It's O-positive."

"How do you know?"

"I had my tonsils out last year. It was on my hospital chart."

Alex nodded and just smiled.
-----

Sam's hair was so soft, he'd almost forgotten. He loved to touch it as she slept - gently, very gently so as not to wake her. Luka would stroke it from the top to the tips almost as though to reassure himself that she was with him. But this night he kept his hand on her head feeling the warmth of her as she squirmed a bit while tending to her night time dreamscapes.

"What time is it?" she asked as he got out of bed. "I must have fallen asleep."

"Ten o'clock - almost." Luka reached to the chair and put the same scrub top on he had come home with. "That's okay," he said with a sly smile reaching over to give her another warm, passionate kiss, "I'm sure I exhausted you. I'm sorry, I have to go in."

Sam groaned as she turned over in bed exposing the ivory smoothness of her back. "You just got home."

"It only seems like it, but we've been occupied. Morris can't seem to handle a seven patient mass casualty."

"He's an ass," she murmured slipping back into sleep. "I hope a big raise came along with this promotion."

"Never thought I'd miss Weaver," he said stepping into his pants.

Sam rolled over and sat up sharply in bed. "You miss Weaver?"

Luka shrugged. "What can I say? The residents are scared of her. It works."
-----

It had become a habit of Bob's to fight his own heavy eyelids until he knew for sure that Amanda was comfortably beyond what had become a frightful awakening. It's not as if he hadn't wanted this in the past. But after seeing her mother's pictures, after their experience on the run, she had been consumed with fear at night. They finally settled down in that big house he had promised her. Just the two of them. Bob was writing a book, staying in the public eye on purpose doing expert opinions for television cable news networks. He was even dating a nurse.

"You don't have to stay in here until I fall asleep, Dad," Amanda scolded. "You always fall asleep in that fancy chair."

"I don't mind."

"I think Chuny does. She's downstairs waiting for you. I heard Emily tell you that she was here."

Bob leaned forward on his elbows. "You sure?"

"Sure as shit on a hot day."

"Alex?" Bob asked knowing exactly where she got that.

Amanda nodded. "I got another one. Want to hear it?"

"No. Now go to sleep. I'll have Emily check on you." As Bob stood at the doorway watching his daughter snuggle into her bed, he couldn't help think about how much she looked like her mother.

"Dad? Can we eat at the big table with the bell again?"
-----

Being with Anna was something that Carter had fought from within for both her sake and his. But now, after everything they had been through, they had come to… to… this. And this time he would make it work. Her hair was so soft…

"Dr. Carter, we need you," a voice bellowed through the door.

"I'll be right there." He looked into her eyes and melded his lips to hers one more time before letting them travel in a southerly route down her neck, cleavage, abdomen, and further as he scooted out from under the sheet at her feet. "Don't go anywhere," he said throwing on his scrubs, "I'll be right back."

"You might want to hold something over your midsection," she said pointing to his still hard erection inside his scrubs.

"Shit. We can play hide and seek later, maybe?" he said with a spark.

"Dr. Carter, please, help us out."

"Alright, Sera, give me a moment," he yelled. "Cold water, Chicago winters, origins and insertions of muscles," he mumbled out loud.

"Nope," Anna laughed, pointing to his middle, "still there."

"Carter," unmistakably, a yell preceded a loud metal bang at the bottom of the door, "leave that for sundown and give us a hand out here."

"She is such a wanker," Carter groaned.

"That did it," Anna said as she pointed out his now flaccid member well tucked into his scrubs. "Why, oh why did you have to talk Weaver into volunteering at the camp?"

"Birth control," he joked. "I don't know. Momentary lapse in judgement, and I hoped that she would turn it down and offer me a full time job when I got back."

"Bad you."

"Bad me." Before he left, he stroked her leg through the sheet. "But I'm glad you came. My life is complete. Thank you."

"How long will you be gone?"

Carter shrugged his shoulders. "The press conference with Emile is some time later today in Bunia. Then we're meeting with UN officials and the government to talk about the new hospital in Ikela. They don't want to chopper me out of there until after dark, so I assume I'll be crawling into your bed in the wee hours."

"Our bed, doofus."

Carter winked at her as he left their small room in the back of the clinic and nearly ran a child over running in the back door. "Whoa, slow down, Mbuto. Where are you going?"

"Othiamba is teacher today. He told me to find him."

"Come here," Carter said as he spied Weaver on the other side of the treatment area and bolted into the office. "I got something in the mail today. I talked to Dr. Luka on the phone last week about all the work you've been doing with Othiamba and Toomay at the new school and he wanted me to give you this." Opening his desk drawer, Carter took out the play coin and gave it to Mbuto.

"I did a good thing?" the boy asked, the glow of his face framing his wide smile.

"Yes Mbuto, you did a very good thing."

The End

A/N: And so ends the Pocket Change trilogy. If you have hung on through all three very long stories, then you deserve a prize. It was fun for me to venture into my imagination, but also a challenge to stay true to the ER characters while out of the well known setting and also interweave their beings with the characters I created. I thank you for staying with me on this long ride. In a week I'll be off with my family to the Outer Banks, then a few weeks later back to that spot in the Adirondacks for a family reunion. You can bet I'll be thinking of our PC characters. -Sharon (hotmail addy: my3sonsanddone)