Matthew Reilly - Temple

Four Vietnam-era military patrol boats known as ‘Pibbers’ cruised casually alongside some of the larger boats near the centre of the armada. Pibbers were superfast 35-foot gunboats fitted with armour plating, turret-mounted 20mm machineguns and sidemounted torpedo pods. Their name was a serviceman’s abbreviation of their official designation PBR (Patrol Boat River), and although the Pibber was already well known for its exploits in Vietnam, it had been immortalised in the Hollywood movie Apocalypse Now.

Three massive helicopter landing barges surged along the river inside the circle of attack boats. On the helipads of two of the barges sat Mosquito light-attack helicopters. The chopper that had been up on the tower top earlier was in the process of landing on the third barge’s helipad right now.

Trailing behind the middle helipad barge, however—and looking remarkably out of place alongside the three ultra-high-tech Mosquitos—was a rather battered-looking little seaplane.

It was a Grumman JRF-5 ‘Goose’, a compact twin propellered riverplane that dated back to the Second World War.

The Grumman Goose was a very distinctive little plane, classic in its design. From the side, its bow was roughly the same shape as a labrador’s snout—short and fiat-topped but rounded at the waterline. It sat in the water on its belly with two stabilising pontoons hanging down from its outstretched wings. Notably, the Goose had two methods of entry, a side door and a pop-up hatch in the nose.

This Goose, however, also packed a punch—a lightweight twin-barrelled 20mm Gaffing gun had been affixed to its left-hand flank.

In the centre of the Nazi fleet sat the armada’s focal point—and the destination of Anistaze’s Zodiac—an enormous white catamaran.

The command boat.

It looked magnificent, sleek in the extreme, at least 150 feet long. Its two massive hulls were painted pristine white while its sharply slanting windows were tinted jet black.

Sonar arrays rotated atop its roof. A dazzling white Bell Jet Ranger helicopter sat on the helipad that made up the stern of the giant craft.

In addition to the helicopter, rocking in the water alongside the big catamaran, tied to it, was the meanest-looking speedboat Race had ever seen. It, too, was painted white, the same colour as the command boat and the helicopter—a matching set. It sat low in the water and it had an ultra-long hull that tapered sharply to a point at the bow. A backward-slanting spoiler arched over the driver’s seat—an aerodynamic precaution designed to prevent the highpowered speedboat from being lifted off the river’s surface while it flew across the water at top speed. Race saw the word ‘SCARAB’ painted across its side.

Scooting around the whole motley fleet-cutting thin ribbons of white wash behind them—were about six Jet Raiders: small one-man assault vehicles not unlike regular jet-skis.

But they were longer than normal jet-skis—maybe nine feet from tip to tail. And they were sleeker, meaner, faster.

They had saddle-like seats and bulletshaped noses, and they all sat high in the water as they moved, with only the back half of their hulls touching the water’s surface as they skimmed lightly across it, whipping around the larger boats.

Race and the others watched as Anistaze’s Zodiac reached the command boat and the notorious Nazi field commander climbed aboard. Immediately, the big white catamaran began to power up. As it did so, the rest of the fleet began to move out.

‘They’re leaving!’ Doogie shouted.

“There!” Van Lewen said, spotting three abandoned Jet Raiders lying on the riverbank not far from the waterfall— left there, no doubt, by the members of the Nazi demolition team.

‘Come on,’ Van Lewen said.

The six of them raced for the three Jet Raiders.

The river’s surface raced by beneath them.

The three stolen Jet Raiders kicked up spectacular sprays of white behind them as they raced side by side across the water in pursuit of the Nazi armada.

Race rode double with Van Lewen. He drove while the Green Beret sat behind him like a pillion passenger on a motorcycle, with one hand wrapped around Race’s waist, the other holding his M-16 ready to fire.

Doogie Kennedy skimmed across the water to their right, riding double with the German paratrooper Molke, while Renee and Schroeder shot along the river’s surface to their left—Renee driving, Schroeder riding shotgun.

The Nazi armada was about three hundred yards ahead of them, powering quickly along the wide brown river—looking a lot like a carrier battle group, with the big command boat in the centre, surrounded by Rigid Raiders and Pibbers.

The three helipad barges trailed behind the other boats, bringing up the rear, while the little Jet Raiders just ducked and weaved madly in between all the larger boats like flies around a rubbish heap.

Race rode hard, wind and water pounding against his face. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the trees along the river’s edge racing past him in a blur of green, saw the odd stray log floating on the surface next to him.

Don’t hit the logs, Will. Don’t hit the logs…

And then he realised.

They weren’t logs.

They were caimans.

Don’t hit the caimans, Will. Don’t hit the caimans…

“Van Lewen!’ he yelled above the roaring wind. ‘What’s the plan?’

‘Easy! We take the command boat, we get the idol, then we hold the boat until the air support arrives!’

‘We take the command boat…’

“Once we get it, we can hold it.’

‘Whatever you say,’ Race yelled.

Up ahead, the Nazi armada rounded a bend in the river and disappeared from Race’s view. From above, the Alto Purus River looked like the undulating body of a snake, a never-ending series of twisting bends and turns.

‘All right, everybody,’ Van Lewen said into his throat mike. ‘See those trees up ahead. That’s where we’re going.’

Race looked forward and saw that the bend in the river that the Nazis had just rounded was comprised of a thick outcropping of trees. As he looked at the outcropping more closely, however, he noticed something odd about it—there was no dirt or soil at the base of the trees situated there. It looked as if the trees simply rose up out of the water.

Then he realised. It was the rainy season, and with the advent of the annual rains, the water levels of the rivers in the Amazon Basin rose dramatically. The land upon which that outcropping of trees stood was deeply submerged—a flooded forest.

Which meant that someone travelling on a small rivercraft like a Jet Raider might be able to wend their way through the trees, rather than going around the natural bend in the river.

Doogie’s Jet Raider shot into the treeline—Race’s right behind it—

Renee’s close behind.

Tree trunks whipped past them on either side, blurring with motion.

The three Jet Raiders shot through the maze of thick dark trees—

banking left, leaning right, skimming lightly across the waves, their long flat hulls barely even touching the surface while off to their left, through the flashing wall of tree trunks, they could make out the Nazi armada as it powered around the bend in the river.

Race tried desperately to concentrate as he drove. The speed at which they were travelling was utterly frightening.

It was so fast. So incredibly, incredibly fast!

Tree trunks whooshed past him at phenomenal speed.

Wavelets streaked underneath the bow of his riverbike. So quickly were they travelling—so lightly and smoothly on the surface of the water—that he barely had to touch the handlebars of his bike in order to bank it left or right.

Race was sitting high in the saddle of his Jet Raider as he sped along behind Doogie’s riverbike when suddenly he saw Doogie and Molke duck for apparently no reason. And then abruptly he saw why and he yelled, ‘Van Lewen!