She forced herself out of the bed. The room was spinning, distorting, the corners alive with shadows of the men who were here to separate them. She lost her balance, fell against the wall, forced herself to clench her mind, push harder. She got the door open, then down the madhouse hallway, shadow hands reaching out to abduct her, reached the door to the room the girls shared, found Jake there already, waking the children, clutching Sarai to his chest.

Sam stumbled further to wake the boys, to project love and safety, to break them out of their terror.

The dream horror receded as the children woke, as Sam and Jake cuddled them, all together in one room now, where they could all see that everyone was safe.

Sam breathed hard, Kit clutched to her chest, beaming out love and safety and assurance to these children, as her head cleared.

Jake’s eyes met Sam’s, held them beseechingly.

Sam just stared at him, her chest still heaving.

The third night she sat on her bed, alone, the bed she hadn’t invited Jake into since he’d been attacked, and read up on the Mira Foundation.

Founded by biotech billionaire Shiva Prasad. The legend who’d risen from his childhood as an orphan in one of India’s poorest and most violent cities – a Dalit, an “untouchable”, a member of India’s lowest caste – to become a ruthless biotech titan. He’d left competitors ruined and underlings scarred process of making his billions. Then in later life he’d suddenly changed, become a philanthropist– a sort of midlife turnaround common among ultra-rich capitalists thinking of their legacy.

She read on. The Mira Foundation ran anti-poverty programs in India, Asia, and Africa. It backed education, nutrition, and vaccination efforts in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Nigeria, Kenya, dozens of other countries. They funded research into next generation bio-crops with higher yield and better nutrition, and open-sourced those they produced. They operated a network of extraordinarily effective orphanages in India and Asia.

There were darker rumors online. She read about the brutal slaying of an Eritrean warlord whose troops had stolen Mira Foundation supplies meant to head off famine in his country. He’d been found crucified and tortured to death, the heads of a dozen of his men mounted on spikes around him. Further aid convoys had gone unmolested.

A corrupt Laotian governor – who’d swapped medicines Mira delivered for fakes, sold the real ones on the black market, hanged in his living room.

A criminal gang in Burma who’d abducted and gang-raped three female Mira Foundation workers. The gang members had been found hogtied and chained to the floor, face down on their knees, dead of massive hemorrhaging from the blunt objects they’d been violated with.