"Hope. Hope. Wake up!"
I cracked my eyes open. Sunlight. Argh.
I slammed my eyelids back shut, rolling onto my left side, away from Tucker, his tablet, and that infernal window. I rubbed my cheek into the cotton pillowcase, adjusting my course to avoid a small puddle of drool.
"Hope, we've got to get to the hospital, and I need you to see this!"
My eyes snapped open, heart bounding, as I surveyed the screen in front of my face.
EGYPT KILLS 12 SUSPECTS TWO DAYS AFTER TOURIST BUS BOMBED
"Sorry. I didn't mean to scare you, but this is nuts."
"I know." I grabbed Tucker's tablet and tried to assimilate the article.
Egypt's security forces had killed twelve "suspected fighters," in retaliation for the improvised explosive device that fatally wounded Phillip Becker and seriously injured Frederik Momberg and five other tourists.
Tucker crouched beside the bed and touched my hair. "There'll be a statement on state TV today, but we'll be working. I wanted you to know."
I shook off the last of the sleep fog. "Okay. All these men belonged to a group called Hasm, right? Looks like Hasm's affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood."
"Yeah, but you see this part? 'Hasm and the Muslim Brotherhood both deny responsibility for this IED and condemn the government's actions.' It's weird, Hope. Hasm has claimed responsibility for other attacks, but not this one."
I twisted out of bed to brush my teeth and puzzle this out. "Could you turn on the TV while we're thinking? It's possible the BBC might have picked this up. We'll need maximum information to figure out who planted the IED."
Tucker flicked the switch, but kept his eyes on me instead of the screen as I brushed, spit, and flossed.
"What?" I demanded when I was done.
"Babe, I love you, and you're more amazing than any other woman on earth. But there's no way you're going to solve an IED blast in a foreign country. Do you even know what the Muslim Brotherhood is? Really?"
I rinsed my toothbrush with potable water from my stainless steel bottle. "Sort of. Can you boil it down to the YouTube version?"
Tucker broke into a grin. He relishes knowing more than me. "You remember Arab Spring in 2011?"
"Yes. Of course." I even retweeted some messages to amplify their voices, although I hadn't fully understood what was happening.
"It completely rocked the Middle East and forced out Egypt's president. Hosni Mubarak had been the president for almost thirty years. You know how crazy that was?"
"I have an idea." I grabbed a T-shirt and a pair of scrubs. I needed more long-sleeved shirts because of the rain.
"So Mohamed Morsi was elected in 2012 as only the fifth Egyptian president. He was an engineer and professor in California."
I smiled. My father's an engineer. So is Ryan Wu, which made Tucker promptly move on.
"Morsi was affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. He changed the constitution to give himself unlimited powers. He said that was to prevent Mubarek's judges from dissolving his constituency."
"Hmm. Was that true?"
"Hard to figure it all out from Canada. My friends weighed in on both sides. Anyway, Morsi did rescind those powers after people protested. Some journalists reported being targeted. But people kept protesting, and the military, the political opposition, and religious leaders all banded together for a coup. Morsi died in prison while under trial."
My mouth fell open. "How did he die?"
"Not a hundred percent sure. They said it was his diabetes, or maybe a heart attack. He was being held in Scorpion prison, which is supposed to be pretty inhumane."
"Whoa. That sounds … wrong. The whole thing. I've never seen anyone die from diabetes."
"I have," said Tucker. "There was a 28-year-old alcoholic with diabetes who came in with diabetic ketoacidosis every week when I was working downtown. He died in DKA."
"I know children used to die of diabetes before Banting and Best discovered insulin, but that that was in the 1920s. I doubt the former president of Egypt was an alcoholic."
He waved to concede the point.
"And did you call it Scorpion Prison?"
He nodded. "The rest of the prison has a more normal name. I'd have to look it up. The entire complex is a political prison."
I sighed. "That's horrible. Who's the Egyptian leader now?"
"President el-Sisi."
I recognized the name after he said it. One of the med students had told me the Egyptian government "is good now, very stable." He'd neglected to explain its scorpion underbelly, which I should have researched myself.
A familiar female voice called from the TV. I turned to catch another clip of Karima Mansour at the IED site and immediately clicked the TV off.
When we climbed on the bus to the hospital, I clung to one of the overhead rails. Just like in Canada, people tended to clog up the front and refuse to move to the back. I whispered to Tucker, "I still don't feel like I understand the politics. At all."
"Join the club."
"I mean, I don't know who are the good guys or the bad guys, or if everyone's grey. I don't have a clue who bombed us and why." I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye. "We don't even know why we're here. Isabelle never told us."
Tucker grinned. "Well, I'm here to help people. For the rest of it, I'll ask around at work."
Easier said than done. I started off on the ambulatory side of the ER, tending to a five-year-old kid with a supracondylar fracture. She'd fallen while trying to climb a book case and brought it down on herself. She was lucky to have only one mildly-displaced fracture that should heal well.
"In'sha'Allah," said her mother.
I beamed and repeated, "In'sha'Allah." It means "God willing," and is the first Arabic word I learned from patients in Montreal. It's like saying "with any luck," or "I hope so."
The little girl put up with a cast better than most Canadian five-year-olds. Then Rudy helped me enter some orders on Selsis, the electronic medical record system.
"Thanks, Rudy. It looks like SARKET, the EMR at St. Joe’s, but better." When he grinned, I felt comfortable saying, "I have a non-medical question, if that's okay."
"Sure, sure. My pleasure."
I cleared my throat. "You remember the IED that, ah, affected Tucker and me on our first day?"
"Of course. We're so sad that it happened and grateful that you and Tucker were not harmed."
"Well, this morning we saw that the government had executed 12 people in retaliation. It seems awfully fast. I mean, it hasn't even been 48 hours since the IED—"
Rudy looked as if he'd swallowed a ghost pepper but was too polite to spit it out. "Ah, this is not medicine. This is politics."
"I know. I don’t understand Egyptian politics, so that’s why I’m asking you."
His eyebrows relaxed. "I see. Do you know what I think? It would be the best policy to leave it like that."
My turn to frown. "To leave it like what?"
"You’re a tourist. You’ll be back in Canada soon. Enjoy your freedom."
You mean ignorance? I thought, but he gave a little wave, signed up for the next chart, and disappeared into room 2.
Maybe Tucker would have better luck with him. It might be a guy thing.
Since approximately 40 patients waited to be seen, I didn't have the time or the nerve to try quizzing anyone else until lunchtime, when I lined up at the cafeteria for what smelled like fish and boiled peas.
Samira, the medical student, stood ahead of me in line. "How is your first day going?"
"Oh, it's interesting." I grabbed my plastic tray and a fork and took a deep breath of steamy air. "I have one awkward question, and I apologize if I'm not asking right. Did you hear about the government killing members of Hasm in retaliation for the tourist bus IED two days ago?"
"The terrorists?" she said, setting a napkin beside a knife and fork on her own tray.
"Um, are they terrorists?"
"They’re all terrorists."
"Do you know Hasm?"
She swivelled her entire body to face me as her dark eyes bored into mine. "Excuse me. Do you think I’m a terrorist?"
"Of course not."
Even though a woman in a white uniform asked us what we wanted from behind the steel counter, Samira refused to answer. She kept watching me.
"I'm so sorry if I said it wrong. It's my first day. I definitely don't think you're a terrorist or anything like that. Please."
Samira kept staring at me until I was the one who looked away.