Echoes at Dawn

The despair in his voice softened her anger. She looked helplessly at the baby, knowing that she had to try. Knowing what it would do to her and that she might not be able to sustain another healing.

She wasn’t even sure she could do it.

Her voice cracked. Emotion and dread knotted in her throat. “You should know that I’m not certain I can do this. I haven’t been able to connect to my sister since…all this happened. I haven’t tried to heal. I don’t know if I can do it anymore.”

“All I ask is that you try,” Browning said in a soft voice. “All we ask is that you try.”

Grace glanced around at all the curious spectators. Unease crawled over her. Did they all know what it was Browning was asking her to do? She glanced sharply at him.

He shook his head. “I’ve only told them you were a physician and that you specialized in matters like this. They don’t know what you can do. I may be a selfish, lying bastard, but I wouldn’t have exposed you like that.”

“I’ll want privacy,” she said.

“Then you’ll do it?”

The instant hope in his voice was crushing. Sumathi’s eyes lit up and tears swamped her vision.

“Thank you,” Sumathi whispered. “May God bless you for the rest of your days.”

How to tell this woman that the end of her days might well be here and that she could well be trading her life for this child’s? But as she stared down at that tiny life, so weak and barely fighting, Grace knew she couldn’t turn her back. She couldn’t walk away no matter what it did to her. This child was innocent. She deserved a chance to grow up and be someone extraordinary.

Maybe her purpose was to save this child.

“Come this way,” Browning said, guiding her toward a distant hut.

“Why are they here?” Grace demanded. “Why aren’t they with you in the U.S., where they can be taken care of?”

Browning sighed. “I didn’t know of Sumathi’s pregnancy. We met between missions, when I was here with Rio. The next time I was able to see her was for just a few moments because we were involved in another mission, using Rio’s place as a safe house. I came to see her this time because I wanted her to come back with me to the U.S. I wanted to buy her a house so we could be a family. I’ve missed so much of Ana’s childhood already and she’s just an infant. Maybe…Maybe if I’d been here sooner, I could have done something. Taken her to doctors in the U.S. But now we’re out of time and you’re our only hope.”

Grace closed her eyes. It was a familiar story. She was someone’s only hope. Who was supposed to be hers?

When they reached the hut, Grace stepped inside and Browning came in behind her, closing the door. Sumathi stood anxiously to the side, cradling Ana as she stared hopefully at Grace.

“You know what this does to me,” Grace said in a low voice. “You can’t just leave me here. I’ll be completely helpless.”

“Whatever you may think of me, I would never just leave you. Rio will know where to find you.”

It was only a small consolation. She was still riddled with fear and uncertainty. She warred with the consequences. Before she wouldn’t have hesitated. She’d been so depleted, so broken, she would have chosen to give this baby her life at the expense of her own in a heartbeat.

But things were different now. Weren ow.see19;t they?

Someone cared about her. Rio said he was going to be part of her life.

But then she stared at Sumathi’s tearstained face and saw a mother’s love and desperation shining in the nearly black depths. How could she live with herself if she sentenced this baby to die in her mother’s arms?

She would be no better than the man who’d murdered Rio’s sister.

“Bring her to me,” she said in resignation.

Sumathi hurried over and readily relinquished the baby into Grace’s arms. Grace sank to the floor on her knees and then positioned the baby so she’d be warm and comfortable.

She was so listless. As if she’d already given up the fight.

Grace reached out to her, hoping to find a connection. She made the contact as warm and as soothing as she knew how. Closing her eyes, she narrowed her focus to nothing but this baby in front of her. She blocked out her surroundings, the distant noises, even the worried parents who loomed over her.

The pathway was so feeble that Grace almost missed it. There was only the faintest sign of life, and she knew that indeed it was nearly too late for this little one.

As soon as she was able to feel the pathway, she then concentrated on drawing away the weakness, the faint darkness that seemed to surround the baby’s soul. Death had come for her and it was up to Grace to deny it.

Even the smell of death hovered close by. Grace drew it into herself, pulling all the blackness away from the baby, replacing it with gentle warmth, encouragement and the goodness that had seemed so distant to Grace until the last few days.

She drew on the strength that Rio had given her. The will to live that he’d inspired. And she gave it to this child.

Weakness invaded her body. She moaned with the weight of it. It was suffocating, pressing down relentlessly. Despair tugged at her, sucking her i

nto a black hole she’d sworn she’d never return to.

She wobbled and felt Browning hold her up, supporting her as she slumped. But it was useless. Grace lacked the strength even to hold up her head.

She was no longer herself, but this tiny baby barely clinging to life. She was cognizant of the need to break away and summoned the last of her strength to sever the connection between woman and child.

A lusty cry split the air and Sumathi gasped in wonder. Grace stared dully down at the baby, who now kicked and threw her arms about as if demanding to be fed that instant. Her color was better and she no longer looked as if death was winning the battle.

But as she glanced up at Browning and saw the paleness of his face and the horror in his eyes, she knew that death had found a new victim.

CHAPTER 26

RAGE was a terrible, black thing, swelling out of control as Rio cut a path through the jungle. Terrence was barely able to keep up, and Decker, Alton and Diego followed close behind but no one was able to keep pace with their team leader.

The message had been simple. Browning had Grace and now Grace needed Rio. Browning had sounded bleak and resigned through the com. Fear as Rio had never experienced had struck him and then black rage that he’d been betrayed by a man he trusted. One of his team.

They weren’t just a team. They lived, breathed the same air, they had a bond unexplainable by most. And yet Browning had taken Grace. Had put her in unimaginable danger. He’d lied to Rio. Lied to his teammates.

For that alone he deserved to die.

But Browning had messed with Grace. The one thing Rio considerer whaas cognizad his own. A woman he’d die protecting.

He’d put his hands on Grace. He’d frightened her and God knows what else. He’d touched what belonged to Rio.

“Rio, man, you have to slow down,” Terrence called. “You’ll kill him before we get the full story.”

Rio paused only long enough to stare coldly back at his first, a man he trusted implicitly, but then he was fast learning that trust could be broken as easily as a bone.

“He’s going to die. There is no doubt about that. The question is how long he suffers before I kill the son of a bitch.”

Diego let out a curse and surged forward, trying to overtake Rio. But Rio resumed his ruthless pace through the jungle toward the southeastern bank of the river. His pulse was like a hammer, pounding furiously through his veins.

What had Browning done? And why?

He’d entertained countless scenarios. That Browning had turned traitor and delivered Grace into Hancock’s hands. But then why would he tell Rio where to find Grace and that she needed him?

He charged through the last of the thick overgrowth separating him from the village that was just down the river from his compound. His gaze swept the perimeter, his rifle raised and ready to lay waste to any threat.

Villagers scattered. Sounds of distress and fear rose, and children were quickly herded away toward the cover of the jungle. But Rio wasn’t focused on them. His gaze found Browning, standing outside one of the huts, unarmed, stiff and straight as if awaiting judgment.

Rio charged toward him, but Browning didn’t flinch away. Didn’t even try to defend himself when Rio drove him to the ground.

“Where is she?” Rio growled.

His voice was of someone possessed. A product of his demonic rage and overwhelming fear for Grace.

He grasped Browning’s shirt, yanked him upward until their faces were close.

“Inside,” Browning said, sorrow thick in his voice.

Rio dropped him and then got up, running for the door. He yanked it open and saw Grace lying on the floor, a young woman hovering over her. Across from Grace on a tiny pallet lay an infant swaddled in a blanket.

“Get away from her,” he snarled.

He dropped to his knees, nearly shoving the frightened woman out of the way. Grace lay completely still, pale, her breathing so shallow he could barely see her chest rise and fall. He felt for a pulse and it fluttered ever so lightly, erratic and weak.

Oh God. What had she done?

He picked his head up as the door opened and he locked on to the guilt in Browning’s eyes. Terrence stood behind Browning, his face a mask of rage.

Terrence shoved Browning through the opening. “Tell him what you did.”

The woman scrambled up and ran toward Browning. She threw herself between him and Rio and clung tenaciously as if trying to protect him.

Gently, Browning disentangled the woman and pushed her away. “No, Sumathi. You knew this would happen. A trade. My life for my daughter’s. You knew he would kill me for this betrayal.” He cast a look filled with regret and sorrow toward where Grace lay. “I didn’t want to hurt her. I didn’t know what else to do.”

Rio rose, his hands trembling. “You did this to her? After seeing what it did, you made her do this?”

Sumathi thrust her chin up. “No! He didn’t make her. It was her choice. He brought her here, but it was her choice!”

“Sumathi, be quiet,”quio! Browning said in a low, firm voice. “Take our daughter and leave. Go to your parents’ hut and stay there until this is over.”

She started to protest, but Browning quieted her with a look and an upheld hand.

Sumathi flew toward where the baby lay, gathered the sleeping infant in her arms, and with a last sorrowful look in Browning’s direction, left the hut.

Rio couldn’t wrap his head around any of it. There was a lot he didn’t know but all he could think of was the fact that Grace lay a few feet away and she was in a bad, bad way. And his teammate was at the heart of it all.

“You have thirty seconds to explain yourself,” Rio gritted out.

Browning gestured in the direction Sumathi had fled. “She’s my woman and she had my child. Ana. But she’s been sick since birth. She’s never gained weight. She grows weaker by the day. The doctors say it’s failure to thrive and that we should do this and that but nothing has worked and she was dying.”

The frustration in Browning’s voice mounted and echoed through the small room.

“When we pulled the mission to retrieve Grace, it gave me hope. After hearing of what she could do, I thought, my God, she’s a miracle. She could save my daughter. And I knew then, that I’d do anything at all, even betray you, to save her.”

A sick knot formed in Rio’s stomach. “Did you force her to do this? What did you threaten her with?”

Browning’s head snapped up and his eyes blazed. “I didn’t threaten her. I gave you false information so I could set it up to get her out of the compound without raising suspicion. I brought her here and then explained why. She was frightened and confused at first. Then she seemed resigned. Once she saw Ana, she couldn’t refuse. I knew she shouldn’t have done it. God, I knew it, but I didn’t care because I also knew she was my daughter’s only chance.”

There was a mixture of emotions on the rest of Rio’s men’s faces. Anger. Betrayal. But also understanding. And indecision. As if they couldn’t make up their mind to be judge and jury over a man desperate to save his daughter.

But Rio couldn’t give him a pass. Not when it meant Grace could die. May even be dying now. Browning had broken the trust of the team. He’d betrayed them all. How could they ever trust him again? How could he possibly trust Grace to Browning’s protection now that he’d shown he would sacrifice her to achieve his ends?

Rio wanted to rage at him. Wanted to kill him. But he couldn’t bring himself to give in to the urge when there was so much resignation in Browning’s eyes. A man would do a lot to protect what belonged to him. Rio didn’t fault the intent, but he sure as hell took issue with the method.

Knowing he had to see to Grace, he turned away from Browning, his action significant in that he no longer looked at or acknowledged his former teammate. His heart was heavy as he bent and gently picked up Grace’s limp body from the mat.