Like the shore, the ground they stood on was rocky and uneven, and with each passing second, Liu lost feeling in his feet. He jabbed with the knife and Kilkenny expertly parried the strike. Injured and without a solid footing, neither man could deliver a forceful blow.
Liu telegraphed a second jab, and when Kilkenny moved to block, he turned his hand and drove the knife down. The blade plunged into Kilkenny’s thigh. Kilkenny snapped an uppercut that connected with Liu’s chin. Liu retracted the knife as he reeled back with the blow, but he regained his footing and charged again. He drove with his whole body, but Kilkenny twisted and the blade found only air. Liu collided with Kilkenny, and both men fell into the icy lake.
Liu’s fist plunged into the shallow water and struck a jagged rock. The balisong slipped from his grasp and disappeared. Kilkenny landed prone with Liu on top of him. Recognizing his advantage, Liu sat up and drove his knee down on Kilkenny’s wounded side. The air exploded from Kilkenny’s mouth and he struggled to stay conscious, to keep his head above water. Liu grabbed a clump of hair and plunged Kilkenny’s face into the lake.
Saltwater burned inside Kilkenny’s nostrils and leaked into his mouth as his face went numb. Liu pulled Kilkenny’s head up, allowing him to catch another breath, prolonging the end.
‘Wo xi wang ni man man si, dan kuai dian xia di yu!’ Liu growled, his guttural cadences primal and menacing.
Liu plunged Kilkenny’s head in the water again, pressing his face into the rocks. What little air Kilkenny captured burst from his lungs, and as he choked, Liu pulled him up once again.
‘In your barbarian tongue,’ Liu hissed, ‘I wish you a slow death but a quick ride to hell.’
The icy lake enveloped Kilkenny’s head once more, and he knew Liu would not bring him up again. He reached back, trying to grab anything he could use to dislodge his attacker, but Liu shifted his weight and drove his knee down harder into Kilkenny’s side.
The air burst from Kilkenny’s mouth, and his choked spasms drew in ounce upon ounce of brackish water. He pushed his hands down to the lake bottom and tried to lift himself up, but the uneven rocks beneath him gave way, unable to hold his weight. The palms of his hands lost purchase, and his chest dropped back onto the rocks. More bubbles escaped from his lips as lake water slipped down his throat.
As Kilkenny’s consciousness ebbed around him, his thoughts lingered on Kelsey, the child they lost, and the family they would never have. Everything went black.
62
The darkness that enveloped Kilkenny fell away as if he were rising from a watery abyss toward a sunlit surface. Through lidded eyes, he sensed the light’s increasing warmth and intensity. Awareness returned slowly, burning through the fog clouding his mind.
A warm breeze stroked his face, and he felt a ripple lap softly against his cheek. Reflexively, he licked an errant droplet from his lips.
Water.
The dual sensations of touch and taste triggered recognition and a trickle of conscious thoughts.
I’m in the water, he reasoned, but where?
His memory was elusive. Everything before this moment seemed a blur, images too fleeting to grasp. Nolan remembered water, but not the warm liquid that now cradled his buoyant form. That distant recollection was of a briny sea as cold as death.
A shadow crossed his face, eclipsing the sun. He felt a hand settle gently against the back of his head, and then a pair of lips met his. The kiss was slow and lingering and bespoke the simmering passion of a woman for the love of her life.
‘Are you going to float here all day?’ she asked, her lips still close to his, her voice melodic and familiar.
‘Maybe.’
She laughed and kissed him again before pulling away, wading toward shore. Nolan allowed his legs to sink and his feet landed on a firm bed of smooth sand. He stood and found himself chest-deep in a placid lake, the sun at its midsummer zenith high overhead, and before him the soft curves of rolling dunes along the Lake Michigan shore.
Like Venus, Kelsey slowly emerged from the lake. Nolan stood speechless, watching his wife rise from the water leaving no ripple in her wake. Her long blonde mane dangled between her shoulder blades in a taut French braid. A sheen of water glistened on her tan, slender form, and Nolan smiled when he recognized the brightly colored bikini she had bought for their honeymoon.
Nolan didn’t see anyone else but sensed they were not alone. He watched as Kelsey moved up the beach toward a large umbrella that shaded an old beach quilt she had loved since childhood. Something stirred in the shadow, and Kelsey bent down and gently lifted what he knew was their infant son. When she turned toward him, a naked Toby nuzzled contentedly against her breast.
His heart ached at the scene — the future he dreamed of and lost was so tantalizingly close — yet all his desire could not will himself toward shore.
‘You know you have to go back,’ Kelsey said in that tone she used to lovingly cajole him out of bed in the morning.
‘I can’t lose you both again.’
‘Nolan, you never lost us. Toby and I are home. And we will be here for you when the time comes. Don’t stop swimming, my love. Keep swimming.’
Keep swimming? Nolan tried to move his arms and legs but they were leaden. An icy current pulled him away from shore, and the light faded to total blackness.
63
When he heard the gunshot, Peng raced back across the rocky shore in Liu’s direction. He arrived as Liu cursed a final epithet in Kilkenny’s ear before plunging his captive’s head beneath the water’s surface. Peng planted his feet, took aim with a steady, two-handed grip, and fired.
Blood and bone exploded from Liu’s left elbow, the entire joint disintegrating as two nine-millimeter rounds hammered home. Instinctively, Liu pulled his damaged arm against his chest, releasing his hold on Kilkenny’s head. He glared in the direction of the shots and saw Peng.
‘You fool! What are you doing?’ Liu howled.
‘Ending this insanity,’ Peng replied calmly.
With images of the tortured family in Chifeng seared into his memory, Peng fired until the pistol was empty. Wounds blossomed on Liu’s forehead and chest as Peng tightly clustered his shots for lethality. Liu toppled into the water, dead.
Peng holstered his pistol as he raced toward the two lifeless forms floating in the shallow water. He lifted Liu’s body off Kilkenny’s back and pushed it out into deeper water. Kilkenny remained beneath the surface. Straddling Kilkenny’s legs, Peng reached down into the water, wrapped his arms around Kilkenny’s abdomen, and quickly pulled him from the lake.
Kilkenny’s body folded across Peng’s forearms, head and shoulders dangling down at the knees but clear of the water. Leaning back with legs bent, braced to support the sodden dead weight, Peng struggled back to shore. With each careful step, he sharply tightened his grip around Kilkenny’s abdomen. Briny water drained from Kilkenny’s mouth and nose, gouts at first, then only dribbles when Peng finally wrestled Kilkenny to shore.
Peng carefully laid Kilkenny on the relatively smooth patch of the gravely shore and, recalling his training, tilted Kilkenny’s head back and began mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Cleared of water, Kilkenny’s chest rose. Peng pulled his mouth away to let Kilkenny’s lungs deflate and to see if natural breathing would resume.