The Last Surgeon

Damn PTSD.

Second Chance, a long shot in the fifth race and a natural bet for Nick, had been well in the lead when he suddenly slowed dramatically. Twenty yards from the finish, he was trampled by seven dogs as they passed over and around him, and was left nearly motionless in the dust.

An hour later, Nick and the greyhound had claimed one another at the adoption tent, where the dog’s sleazy trainer tried to convince the Army trauma surgeon that Chance’s uneven, lurching gait was due to nothing more than a minor concussion. Back home, the “concussion” responded dramatically when Nick, assisted by Reggie, Sam, and two Army buddies, cleaned densely packed dirt from each of the greyhound’s ear canals.

Of all the therapies Nick had tried in his battle against post-traumatic stress disorder, Second Chance’s presence in his life was the most consistently effective.

There were days when Nick was able to fit in some calisthenics and weights before going out on the road, but tonight, after playing catch with Reggie, there was just no time. He showered and was dressing in his usual work uniform, jeans and a faded work shirt, when he glanced over at a printout he had taped to the wall beside his bed listing the ten levels of SUDS-the Subjective Units of Disturbance Scale he used to estimate his mood at any given time. This evening seemed like a five: Moderately upset, uncomfortable. Unpleasant feelings are still manageable with some effort.

Progress, that’s all he and Dr. Deems had decreed he should shoot for-just a little progress each day. Days like today, even after all these years, it was difficult to tell whether or not he was succeeding. He spent a minute patting and scratching Chance, and then pulled on a Windbreaker and headed out the door.

The thunder was louder now.

CHAPTER 2

As usual, Junie Wright looked like royalty perched on the massive passenger seat, her iPod earphones in place.

“Let me guess,” Nick said as he eased the RV down the street and toward the interstate south to D.C., “the Temptations.”

“Nope.”

“Sam Cooke?”

“Way off.”

“Not more rap.”

“Yup, it’s my main man, Jay-Z. Pure sex through and through. Ummm-hmm.” She punctuated the statement with a seductive shoulder shake and flashed him the smile that had raised so much money for various charities that it could have eliminated a chunk of the national debt.

An ample African-American woman with wide bright eyes and what seemed a perpetual smile, Junie was raised in the projects of Baltimore. After battling a thousand dragons on her way to a high school diploma, making it through nursing school was a relative breeze. She had been working for the Helping Hands Medical Foundation for some time when Nick returned to medicine and began volunteering first one night a week, then, after a half a year, two.

When the foundation went under due to mismanagement of their funds, Junie did what she often did in so many crises-she took control. First she formed a tax-exempt corporation with Nick as CEO and herself as chairman of the board. Then she mediated the sale of the RV to the corporation for one dollar. She proclaimed Nick the full- time, salaried medical director, and used his rugged good looks and history as a decorated combat surgeon to raise money and recruit volunteers. But by far her biggest challenge over the years-especially since the disappearance of Nick’s best friend, Umberto Vasquez-had been keeping the medical director afloat.

“We’re gonna get wet tonight,” she said, setting her iPod aside.

Nick nodded, keeping his focus on the road. Junie was good at many things, but making small talk was not one of them. The seemingly innocuous statement was her way of asking if he was okay and ready for their customary long night. One of the many symptoms that had gotten in his way since the horror of Forward Operating Base Savannah had been insomnia-fitful, perspiring, leg-cramping, nasty insomnia, coupled with more than one person’s share of lurid nightmares.

“I can handle it,” he replied. “I’m tough.”

He turned the massive wipers on against the drops that were serving as reconnaissance for the storm that was predicted to hit full force by about eight. Junie, deciding that matters with him weren’t dire enough to push, repositioned her earpieces and settled back into her seat. From the other side of the highway, lights flashed past hypnotically, summoning up, as they frequently did, the vision of another set of headlights…

“That was some job you did in there, Dr. Fury, sir.”

Nick grins at the name, taken from one of Vasquez’s favorite comic book heroes-Sgt. Nick Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D. Now, after five months, most of the hospital staff and many of the other soldiers have picked up on it.

Dr. Nick Fury.

“You’re the one who plugged that sucking chest wound in that kid, Umberto,” Nick says.

“Well, you’re the one who taught us how to do it.”

“So, congratulations to us both. Listen, my friend, I have something I’ve been meaning to give you for some time. But before I do, I want your promise not to refuse it.”

“But-”

“Promise.”

“Okay, okay. I promise.”

Nick reaches into the pocket of his scrubs and hands over his Combat Medical Badge, presented for medical service during active combat. It is a handsome award-oval, an inch and a half across, with a caduceus beneath a Greek cross at the center, overlaid on a field stretcher.

“I take this into the OR with me for luck,” Nick says. “I want you to have it not only for what you do around here, but for the way you do it.”

“I can’t-”

“Uh-uh. You promised.”

Umberto sighs.

“I’m honored, sir. I’ll take real good care of it. Promise. In exchange, have a see- gar.”

The stocky Marine staff sergeant, nearly half a head shorter than Nick but probably the same weight, produces two long cheroots, and the friends move to the front of the massive field hospital to light up. Nick is gritty with fatigue from what is now an eighteen-hour day. Vasquez never seems to tire.

FOB Savannah, one hundred kilometers southeast of Khost, isn’t usually the busiest field hospital in Afghanistan, but today it probably has been. A convoy heading to the base along main supply road “Tiger” had been ambushed. Two deaths, twenty casualties. Four OR bays in continuous action all day. Bellies, limbs, heads, and the sucking chest wound in an eighteen-year-old named Anderson. Nice work by Umberto, who never failed to take one of Nick’s combat emergency lectures. Nice work by the whole team, including Nick’s fiancee of six months, Sarah Berman, also a surgeon.

She was career Army when they met. Nick, fairly new to a private practice in Philadelphia on September 11, 2001, had been hit hard emotionally by the tragedy, and had opted out of the reserves and into active duty. The two of them were as made for each other as they were fated to connect.

Nick and Vasquez lean against a Humvee parked in the dirt lot to the left of the main door and savor their cigars.

“You going to re-up when your tour is over?” Vasquez asks, his Dominican accent barely detectable.

“Maybe. I really love the work and the guys. So does Sarah.”

“You’ve really hit the jackpot with that one, Doc.”