Risking All for Love (Wattpadprize14)

Chapter Thirty-Five

Lisa, Margaux, and Gary sat waiting for the doctors to examine David.  After a while,  they came out and spoke to Lisa.

"We can do surgery, but we risk losing your David.  We wouldn't dare subject him to surgery because he will lose too much blood pressure.  If we do not have a unit of blood, we could lose him in a few hours. It's too long to wait for AB Negative Blood.  With all the fighting around us, we won't have any until after he is already dead."

Lisa raised her arm. "He's got AB negative. So do I!" Lisa held up her arm. "Take all you need, doc!"

Within an hour, David was in recovery. Lisa took him in his arms.  She reached for a teary eyed Musa.

"Thank you, my sweet friend. You have saved my David."

"Oh, Teachuh Lisa.  Forgive me, please?"  Lisa wiped away his tears.  "Teachuh, I make war no more."

"That is good enough for me," Lisa said.

Then Lisa said, "Please, Margaux, you must leave here and go on down to Monrovia with Gary. We need to get David's blood pressure up before he can travel. We have the other mission Land Rover, and we will have to make our way some hours later.  We have to find Sia's husband."

Margaux said, "We'll risk staying a few hours longer." She looked around at Gary and the others.

Lisa said to the others, "Listen, my friends, this whole war is to enrich some Fat Cats somewhere.  Sia and I have just driven through the forest. They are using large machinery to cut valuable wood and take it out of country.  The armies are here to rape Liberia's resources: diamonds, rubber, iron ore.  anything they can get their hands on.  If you get through, you must tell them."

"Liberians are enriching outsiders by spilling their own blood!" Lisa said.

Within a few hours, Lisa would drive her Land Rover with Musa and Sia tending David in the back.  Gary and Margaux would follow.  They then resumed their journey, continuing south past bombed out villages with bodies here and there.  Now and then they stopped and pulled off to led the fighting pass on.

President Does forces were in full retreat toward Monrovia where they planned to consolidate and stiffen their resistance on terrain easier to defend.

At length they managed to reach a UN safe compound protected by machine guns and concertina barbed wire.  It provided tents for hundreds of refugees.  There Sia was reunited with her husband Thomas. Lisa asked for Margaux and Gary to continue without them. Doctors again examined David and then insisted that Lisa stay with David for a few days.  But the UN commander insisted that Gary and Margaux continue on.

Margaux and Gary continued toward Monrovia, but they found it necessary to detour in the direction of Harbel and the Firestone Rubber Plantation.  There among the forest of rubber trees they found an abandoned house and some food. Gary and Margaux managed to find a bed with mattress where they lay exhausted.

Margaux turned to Gary as they lay facing each other.  "Where will we go in Monrovia?"

"We'll try to evacuate through the US Embassy. They got helicopters."

"Gary, my love, I want to come back here some day.  Something evil has gotten hold of them, but they are at heart still good people.  Small boys with rifles are committing these atrocities.  But in times to comepeople will need us."

"Margaux, if we make it, I promise you that we will come back after there is peace. Where you are is where I want to be always."

Up early the next morning, Gary and Margaux were just ahead of a column of pickup truck carrying ill-clad small boys and machine guns mounted over the cabs.  They met with stiff armed resistance by mercenaries hired by Firestone.  It was effective enough to allow Margaux and Gary to continue an indirect route toward Monrovia.