open, causing him to inhale a gulp of salt water just as he broke the surface. His coughed out the vile liquid, choking and spewing. He rolled onto his back for relief, gasping for air.
He scanned the black horizon, his teeth chattering. Nothing, save a light in the distance. How big? How far? It didn’t matter. His only choice was to shiver in the dark and drown right here or swim a little and die.
Might as well swim.
He shouted once, then twice, and finally a third time. No telling if he was heard. His voice carried over water, but without someone to hear him, it didn’t really matter.
He coughed up more water; his sinuses burned with salt. He started to pull off his coat but couldn’t do it. Taking off his shoes wasn’t going to be any easier, and as he thought about it, exposing more flesh to the freezing water wasn’t a good idea.
“How fast can you run?” he said out loud in a bad Australian accent as he began his first labored strokes toward the distant light. “Fast as a leopard,” he replied in a bare whisper. “Then let’s see ya do it.” His favorite lines from Gallipoli, the first movie that ever made him weep.
A few strokes later his dim spirits faded. He had exhausted himself in the sprint toward Liliana’s barrel and was now completely spent. The only thing that kept his aching arms and cramping legs moving at all was the sheer force of his will.
He shouted hoarsely a few more times between weakening strokes, and cupped his hands to make more noise even though it slowed him down. He could hardly feel his hands anyway now, and he hoped his numbed feet were still attached to the bottom of his legs, heavy as lead weights pulling on his torso.
He lifted his left arm in the air but dropped it—it was too heavy to even try now. He switched to a pathetic breaststroke, but he couldn’t raise his head up high enough between strokes to keep his mouth out of the water. A few frog kicks brought on cramps that seized his legs like a roped calf.
He rolled onto his back one last time, stretching his arms out wide as if crucified, rotating his wrists to generate enough momentum to keep him barely afloat.
His shivering torso ached, spasming the muscles across his back and chest. The pain didn’t matter now. His blurred eyes filled with the infinite sky of endless stars. He wasn’t afraid of death, now that it was inevitable.
His numbing mind began to race. A life flashed before his eyes—but not his.
Liliana.
He saw her face as it fell away into the darkness. She shouted a word.
What was it?
He began to despair.
What was it?
His hands barely turned in the water. It wasn’t enough. The sea lapped at his chin.
Any minute now.
Please, God. I’ve got to know.
A word.
A word.
A word . . .
* * *
—
And then he knew.
Of course.
The only word that mattered.
His salt-burned eyes began to weep.
Tomasz.
He smiled.
So tired.
He closed his eyes.
Time to sleep.
64
CABINDA PROVINCE, ANGOLA
The NFLA compound near the shore of Lagoa de Massabi was only a cluster of three simple cinder-block buildings hidden beneath a thick canopy of dense palm trees. The local farmers and lagoon fishermen they lived among in the remote wilderness provided both protection and an early warning system.
In recent years, inhospitable and insular Chinese workers had flooded the poor province, especially along the coast, where the offshore oil rigs were located. The NFLA fighters, including an ex-Portuguese foreign intelligence (SIED) operator who coordinated their assaults, were already local heroes for their efforts to “liberate Angola from the corruption of the state and Chinese hegemony here and throughout the continent,” as their hand-printed flyers stated.
But the assault four days earlier on the Chinese compound at Lobito had raised the status of the NFLA even further as a genuine liberation movement fully committed to the advancement of democratic ideals, income equality, and the overthrow of the thieving politicians in Luanda.
The small commando unit had been on high alert since the attack, but yesterday their informants in the capital reported that the hopelessly corrupt and incompetent Angolan security bureaucracies knew nothing about the identities of NFLA personnel or its location.
Their sources also gleefully described the Chinese alternately throwing cash or threats at whoever they thought might provide them with a lead to the “butchers, killers, and murderers” they sought in vain.
It was understandable, then, that the NFLA unit allowed themselves the