This chapter opens with a description of a doctor named Celia Cobbina, who used to work as a medical doctor in the Central African Republic. She is now traveling to the United States with her friend and an assistant to try to figure out the cause of the explosion. Celia tells the story of how she was working as a doctor when a group of armed men forced her to stop treating a boy who had a gunshot wound. She also convinced two of the men that their friend's fate depended on protecting them, rather than threatening them. The doctor also diagnoses their second patient with "untreated polio" and volunteers to travel with the men back to the camp to care for the rest of the wounded.