AK 239: The Enemy Is Already Here

He pulls out an electronic card and swipes it. The door opens and we go inside.

We’re standing in darkness ’til Al flips a light.

To my amazement this is a full surgical room!

It’s filled with everything from heart monitors to IV fluids.

Al locks the door and I immediately place Jennifer on an operating table in the middle of the room.

I grab an oxygen mask and put it on her.

I have to look where to turn on the oxygen.

Eventually, I find it and open the valve.

I notice a camera in the corner.

I grab a surgical mask and hang it over the camera, so the camera can’t see.

“Find me something to take bullet fragments out. And get me lots of gauze!”

Al starts looking around while I take off my shirt I wrapped around her and then her shirt.

The duct tape has almost completely fallen off and she’s bleeding again. Al hands me some gauze and a mean looking scalpel. It’s not for taking a bullet out but this will have to do.

I probe around with this thing not knowing, at all, what I’m doing.

Finally, I see what looks to be gold in color and move it.

Jennifer winces in pain.

Al has found a pair of needle nose pliers and hands them to me. I grab the unsterilized and most inappropriate nonsurgical device and pull a large bullet fragment from her left upper chest wall. Al helps me push gauze on her wound to close it.

The door tries to open but Al locked it from the inside so it won’t open.

Someone unlocks the door.

Al runs and turns off the light just before the door opens.

In walks a young Russian woman in a white doctor’s coat.

Al grabs her mouth and slams the door shut. He flips the light on and she clearly is terrified. I’m standing over Jennifer holding the gauze on her wound and ask,

“Do you speak English?”

The Russian doctor nods in the affirmative.

“This woman was shot by you people. Are you a doctor?”

Again, the Russian doctor nods in the affirmative.

“Can you look at her?”

The Russian doctor now sees it’s Al who is holding his hand over her mouth.

Al slowly removes his hand and she quickly walks over to Jennifer.

“Why didn’t you tell me it was you, Al? says the doctor.

Al and her clearly know each other.

“Tatiana Ivanov! The best doctor in Alaska!” says Al.

The doctor puts on a pair of gloves before touching Jennifer.

She takes the gauze away and sees Jennifer is in pain so she grabs a bottle of something, opens it and starts to pour it into the wound when I stop her.

The doctor says, “It’s a one percent solution of lidocaine. This will ease her pain.”

I let her do this.

The doctor actually pushes pretty hard and with a syringe, forcing more lidocaine into the wound area. Jennifer winces, at first, but soon looks to be more comfortable.

The doctor then takes a sterile scalpel out of a surgical case and holds it up for us to see and then debrides the area around the wound. She then irrigates the wound and area with an IV bag of saline. She then uses a small medical probe to search around further.

The doctor picks up the pliers they were using, shakes her head and puts them to the side.

After that, she grabs a pair of forceps and penetrates the wound deeply. Soon she pulls out a much larger bullet fragment and drops it like a big piece of lead in a metal pan nearby.

Jennifer looks relieved as her eyes fully open for just a second. She glances at the doctor and me before going unconscious again.

She again irrigates the wound then wheels around and grabs some suture equipment. She quickly returns and prepares the damaged tissues for a suture. She then uses a running suture deep inside Jennifer’s upper chest. That means she is weaving it in an out continuously closing the area damaged by the bullet. She begins another running suture to close Jennifer’s dark skin. The nylon suture fits snugly to Jennifer’s skin.

Worried, she reacts and starts speaking in Russian before catching herself.

The doctor turns to me, “In a few more minutes this woman would have bled to death.”

The doctor then turns her attention to Al,

“You can put the gun down, Al. Open that refrigerator and get me two pints of ‘O’ blood.”

Al opens a door and this unit is stacked with blood.

“What is this place?” comes out of my mouth realizing this would have taken some time to put just this room together in the middle of a mountain!

And in the middle of Alaska!

The doctor does not answer me as she is working feverishly on Jennifer.

“I still don’t know if she’ll make it,” says the doctor.

I panic saying, “We gotta go.”

“Impossible. They will kill you and now me too. No one comes in here but me. You’re safe right here,” says the doctor.

Al pipes up, “She’s treated me before. She’s the only person I trust.”

I still don’t trust her; I think to myself.

“You don’t have to trust me but she needs rest,” says the doctor, seeming to read my mind.

“Where are your communication systems?” I ask.

“On the other side of the complex but you’d never make it. They’re looking for you.” The doctor then looks at Al,

“And you, they’ve been hunting you for weeks.”

“Haven’t caught crazy Al Reynolds yet!” says Al with a growl.